Operant behavior - definition, features and founder

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

What is Skinner's operant behavior? What is this about? Who came up with such a complicated word, and most importantly, for what purpose was it all? You will learn the answers to such questions and much more in this article.

What is operant behavior?

This behavior is called that active action, which is not supported by any obvious stimulus, but which is aimed at achieving the desired goal. Behavior shaped, created and corrected by consequences, such as reinforcement (i.e. strengthening) and punishment (i.e. weakening).

It should be remembered that operant and respondent behavior should not be confused! The second of these is a response caused by a certain stimulus (for example, the pupil of the eye dilating in bright light).

Who came up with this?

The theory of operant behavior is a work that is included in a number of works related to behaviorism. Who is involved in this movement? John Watson is the founderbehaviorism, and the author of the theory of learning operant behavior is Burres Frederick Skinner. Burres Skinner, prior to the publication of his work, was familiar with the writings of John Watson, but more on that later.

How did it all start?

Skinner was born March 20, 1904 in the small town of Pennsylvania. His father was a lawyer. As a child, Skinner was fond of inventions. Later he created apparatus for experiments on animals. During his school years, Skinner dreamed of becoming a writer and pursued his dream by trying his abilities in this form of creativity. Unfortunately, one day of his life, Skinner realized that he could not write anything about what he had once seen, felt or experienced, although he had witnessed various manifestations of human behavior all his life. After this conclusion, he realized that he would have to give up writing once and for all, although this made him very sad.

Soon, Skinner got acquainted with the works of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and John Watson. After that, he realized that the future of science depended on the study of human behavior, namely the study of conditioning reactions (operant behavior).

Skinner's work in the study of human behavior

The fact that Skinner had been interested in invention for a long time before that helped him in creating the "problem cell". In one of the corners of such a structure was a bar with food and drink. Over time, the rat accidentally bumped its paws on the bar, pressing on it. After these simple steps,in some cases, the food in the form of a ball entered the animal's cage, and in other cases it did not. With this experience, it was possible to obtain more accurate data on the behavior of rodents, which could not be done before Skinner's work. In this situation, it was the rat who “decided” how long the time should elapse between pressing the bar button. This was the first discovery of a specific type of animal behavior that could change in response to reinforcement that did not involve the intervention of the experimenter.

This was the first example of operant behavior.

Based on his experience, Skinner begins to transfer the behavior of a rat in a cage with a bar button to human reality. On the behavior of a rodent, an analogy was found for the actions of a person, as a player for special machines in one of the casinos. As in the case of the rat and the player, neither of them knows exactly when the next lucky chance will "fall" (food for the rat, money for the man), but each time they do not lose hope and they continue again and again "press the button".

Operant learning concept

Skinner's concept of operant learning is an important contribution to scientific writings. According to many scientists, for this achievement alone, his name should already be included in the list of great psychologists around the world.

The random movement that an animal makes is precisely operant. With regular reinforcement of any random movements of the animal (in our case, a rat), the experimenter is able to completely controlrodent behavior. This is the essence of Skinner's operant behavior.

Buress F. Skinner's "Creation" of Pigeon Behavior

Using the concept of operant learning, Skinner was able to "create" the behavior of a pigeon that he had pecked at a plastic disk attached to the cage wall. This experiment consisted in the fact that when the dove turned in the same direction as the disk, he was given food. When this action was worked out, the task for the bird became more and more difficult. Further reinforcement continued only if the bird's head moved in a certain direction or if the beak had direct contact with the disc.

Skinner equated such bird training with teaching children to speak, sing, dance and all other human behavior, which consists entirely of simple and consistent actions.

As usual, Skinner began to be condemned, but at the same time, supporters of his opinion began to appear in him. His conditioning technique began to be used in experimental psychology.

Skinner visits his daughter's school

It happened in 1956 when a scientist came to his daughter Darby's school. That day, Skinner realized that the subjects studied by schoolchildren could be made much easier. To do this, the lesson must be divided into small "gaps", which will be assigned to a separate topic or section in the study of something, as was the case with the "long-suffering"dove. Students are offered certain questions, which they themselves try to answer, and teachers will immediately note which of their answers are correct. Positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement and brings more fruit, and the very answers that were given correctly will be reinforcement.

But there is a problem… There is only one teacher in the group of students, but there are twenty students themselves, and sometimes more. It follows from this that the teacher is not able to give reinforcement to each of them at the same time. How to solve this problem? You should create textbooks that will be written in such a way that questions and answers to them will follow directly one after another. Skinner also proposed special machines for self-study.

After some time, the principles of such training were nevertheless introduced in colleges in the United States, as well as outside the country.