Classical and Operant conditioning

1. Classical
and Operant Conditioning

2. Conditioning?
Conditioning is a type of learning that links some sort of
trigger or stimulus to a human behavior or response.
When psychology was first starting as a field, scientists felt
they couldn’t objectively describe what was going on in
people’s heads. However, they could observe behaviors so
that’s what they focused on in their experiments. The
major theories about learning come from the conclusions
drawn from these experiments.

3. Classical conditioning
• Imagine your favorite snack is
peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches. Whenever you get
that snack, it makes you happy and
you start to jump around, doing
your happy dance. Your sandwich
always comes on the same plate –
it’s big and orange and has a
picture of a tiger on it. Eventually,
you might start doing your dance
whenever you see your tiger plate
on the table, in anticipation of the
sandwich arriving.

4. The presence of the plate has caused you to have
the same reaction as having a sandwich. The
sandwich is our stimulus (the unconditioned
stimulus) and it elicits the dance which is our
response (the unconditioned response).
“Unconditioned” refers to the fact that no
learning took place to connect the stimulus and
response - you saw the sandwich and
automatically got so excited you start to dance

6. The plate starts off as a neutral stimulus and
elicits no reaction on its own. As it is continuously
paired with the sandwich, the plate becomes
a conditioned stimulus and elicits a conditioned
response in the form of your happy dance. Over
time, you have learned to connect the plate and
the feelings of happiness that cause you to dance.

7. operant conditioning
is a process by which humans and
animals learn to behave in such a
way as to obtain rewards and avoid
punishments.

9. How do we influence behavior?
Operant conditioning changes behaviors by using
consequences, and these consequences will have two
characteristics:
1.Reinforcement or punishment
-Reinforcement is a response or consequence that
causes a behavior to occur with greater frequency.
-Punishment is a response or consequence that causes a
behavior to occur with less frequency.

10. How do we influence behavior?
2.Positive or negative
-Positive means adding a new
stimulus.
-Negative means removing an old
stimulus.

11. Examples of Positive Reinforcement
In Positive reinforcement, one gets rewarded
for a certain kind of behavior; with this, the
probability of continuing good behavior
increases. Let’s have some relevant examples
of positive reinforcement:

12. Homework Completion
• A student tends to complete
his/her homework daily;
because he/she knows that
he/she will be rewarded with a
candy (action) or praise
(behavior).

13. Cleaning Room
A child may learn to clean his/her
room regularly; because he/she
will be rewarded with extra TV
hours every time he/she cleans
up.

14. Examples of Negative Reinforcement
Negative reinforcement tends to take away
something unpleasant, which is acceptable
and helps in strengthening the behavior. Let’s
have some relevant examples for Negative
reinforcements:

15. Class Presentation
• Class presentations are daily
parts of student life. If a student
is praised or complimented,
he/she will be encouraged to do
well, but if the student is
laughed on or criticized in front
of everyone, the presentation
will be nothing more than just a
formality in future.

16. Examples of Positive Punishments
•Positive Punishments is presenting something
unpleasant after the behavior. It tends to
decrease that behavior of the individual. Let’s
have some relevant examples of positive
punishment:

17. Insult/Shout
•A student who always comes late to the class
gets insulted every time in front of everyone
from the teacher. To prevent the insult or
shouting from the teacher, he/she may avoid
coming late to the class.

18. Examples of Negative Punishment
•Negative Punishment is removing
something pleasant after the
behavior. It also tends to decrease
that behavior.

19. Criticism
•An employee getting criticized in front of
the whole office by his boss and having
certain privileges taken away as a
consequence to his bad behavior at work
may motivate him to stay in line and be
more sincere.