Essay on Operant Conditioning

Sample Essay

Words 1,342

“Negative reinforcement happens when a behavior is strengthened as a result of stopping or avoiding a negative condition.” In other words, if partaking in action ‘x’ feels bad and partaking in action ‘y’ feels better, I will probably partake in action ‘y’ more. For example, if I have more fun playing tennis with person ‘a’ and I don’t enjoy playing tennis with person ‘b’ I will probably play with person ‘a’ more than person ‘b’.

“Punishment works when a behavior is weakened as a result of experiencing a negative condition.” (Types of Operant Conditioning) Basically if you do something and consequence is a bad one, you will perform that action less. For example, you get points subtracted from your class participation grade if you’re late for class so you try to come to class on time so you don’t get class participation points deducted.

“Extinction occurs when a behavior is weakened as a result of not experiencing an expected positive condition or a negative condition is stopped.” (Types of Operant Conditioning) This basically means that when an action is performed and there is no response to it, neither negative nor positive which will eventually cause the action to decline. For example, if a professor wants his or her class to stop asking questions during the lecture he can start to ignore students who raise their hands. Eventually when the students get no response from the professor they will stop raising their hand.

My personality and life choices can be explained very well with the Operant Conditioning theory. Intrinsic motivation means more to me than anything else in the world. I am also very motivated by money but intrinsic factors weigh out more than extrinsic motivational factors for me. I’m not a very goal oriented person and I go with the flow of things, trying to accomplish the tasks at hand and then dealing with other situations as they come along my path. The only time I set goals is when I am highly motivated to accomplish a task. Each time I am positively appraised by a professor I get motivated to repeat the same behavior. For example earning a teachers respect is far more important to me than scoring an A grade. When a teacher values me as their student based on what I have to offer to the class and my keen desire to learn instead of evaluating me on the grade I might get on a midterm I am more motivated to excel in the class. Studying and completing assignments seem like tedious activities to me and I usually procrastinate a lot but whenever I know that if I accomplish a certain task my ideas will be appreciated in or outside the classroom I will be more motivated to complete the task. To me appraisal is more important than other factors.

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