Skinner
Operant Conditioning - B.F. Skinner
B.F. Skinner is one of the best-known theorist and researcher in psychology. He argued that learning is a result of lived experiences that cause permanent change. The key to Skinner is that those experiences are observable. Building on the findings and theories of John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, Skinner’s findings and beliefs form the basis of behaviorism, a branch in psychology arguing that learning occurs through interaction with environmental stimuli. Today theories of behaviorism specifically Skinner’s theories, are used to teach children with language, social, and learning deficits the skills they need to survive and thrive in the mainstream world.
The basis for Skinner’s approach to behaviorism is operant conditioning which argues that learning occurs in reaction to a consequence. For example, if a person eats an apple and loses a tooth, then that person learns not to eat apples with loose teeth. This is a rather basic example, but it highlights the fundamentals of operant conditioning: actions and their consequences. As Newton’s Third Law of Physics states: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” While the reaction may not be equal or opposite, there is always a reaction (or consequence) to every action and these reactions teach people.
Skinner identified two main types of consequences: reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement is a consequence that increases a behavior, whereas punishment is a consequence that decreases a behavior. These categories are further defined as either positive (the receive of something) or negative (the removal of something). As such, there are 4 key subgroups of consequences:
Positive reinforcement: the presentation of a favorable object, outcome, or event after a behavior that in turn increases the behavior e.g. receiving $20 for returning a lost wallet to its owner.
Negative Reinforcement: the removal of an adverse object, outcome, or event after a behavior that in turn increases the behavior e.g. not having to clean the dishes because you helped your sister with her math homework.
Positive Punishment: the presence of an adverse object, outcome, or event after a behavior that in order to decrease the behavior e.g. receiving detention for yelling at the teacher.
Negative Punishment: the removal of a favorable object, event, or outcome after a behavior in order to decrease the behavior e.g. taking a student’s recess away after he/she kept talking in class.
Although more common, punishment has not been found to be as effective in teaching people as reinforcement. Indeed, Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) utilizes positive reinforcement when working with children to develop the language, communicative, adaptive, social, and learning skills they need in order to live happy and healthy lives in mainstream society. Furthermore, research has found that the schedule with which a reinforcer is administered is important for building and maintaining a skill over time. There are four different schedules of reinforcement:
Fixed Ratio: reinforcement is delivered after a fixed number of correct responses
Fixed Interval: reinforcement is delivered after a fixed amount of time has passed
Variable Ratio: reinforcement is delivered after a variable number of correct responses, but this usually averages out to a range of correct responses e.g. 3 to 5 correct responses
Variable Interval: reinforcement is delivered after intermittent periods of time has passed
Fixed schedules have been found to be useful in building a skill or behavior initially, but once reinforcement ceases so does the skill or behavior. That is why variable schedules of reinforcement, especially variable interval schedules, are introduced after a while in order to protect a skill from extinction.
Skinner and Fred
Our student Fred struggles with social norms, peer interaction, and classroom expectations. Skinner would argue that those struggles can be overcome using operant conditioning strategies. As such, Fred’s teacher should first clearly inform or demonstrate appropriate behavior and then positively reinforce (reward) examples of that behavior by first utilizing a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement and then gradually transitioning to a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement. The key would be to identify and reward a specific behavior that replaces one of Fred’s inappropriate, problematic behaviors.
For example, Fred has a habit of picking his nose and then playing with whatever comes out. To eliminate this behavior in the classroom, the teacher should begin rewarding Fred every time he uses a tissue to blow his nose. Once Fred has begun constantly blowing his nose instead of picking it, the teacher should fade back reinforcement to a variable ratio schedule in which Fred is reinforced for blowing his nose every 3-5 times. The teacher can continue increasing the demand for how often Fred needs to blow his nose in order to receive a reward with a higher variable ratio schedule e.g. rewarding Fred every 7-9 times then every 11-13 until reinforcement starts a more naturalistic schedule of reinforcement.
A Skinnerian approach to helping Fred would require the teacher to take a very targeted and systematic approach to some of Fred’s most disruptive behaviors. It would also require the teacher to identify the small steps Fred will need to take in order to master a larger goal like completing and submitting assignments without prompting from the teacher. In general, the teacher can only focus on rewarding a few - about 2 to 4 - replacement behaviors at a time as she/he needs to always be on alert of those behaviors in order to reward them immediately -- a delay in reinforcement can result in other, less desired behavior being reinforced. That being said research has consistently shown operant conditioning to be a highly effective tool to provide children with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed socially and academically.
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Image 2 from https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Diagram-illustrating-categories-of-reinforcement-and-punishment_fig1_228099898
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