Learning is an important topic for the social sciences. It can explain much of development, for example, and can be used in many applied settings (such as educational or clinical). There are various perspectives on learning. One of the most useful involves operant conditioning.
An operant is a voluntary behavior that is used in order to obtain a reinforcer or avoid a punisher. Operant Conditioning uses reinforcement and punishment systematically to facilitate learning. Its unique foci include, first, its focus on voluntary behaviors ("operants"), and second, its emphasis on the consequences of behavior. Other learning theories emphasize antecedents rather than consequences and involuntary behaviors, or reflexes, rather than operants. The Classical Conditioning perspective, for instance, focuses on antecedents and reflexes. The founder of Classical Conditioning, Ivan Pavlov, used a bell as an antecedent stimulus in his well-known research with dogs. These dogs salivated after the ringing of the bell had been repeatedly associated with meat powder. Salivation is of course a reflex. Though this emphasis on reflexes implies that Classical Conditioning may not be as useful as Operant Conditioning, it did influence the development of the Lamaze birthing technique and has been adapted to the systematic desensitization of phobias and other problems that involve physiology and reflexes.
Another perspective, called Social Learning theory, is more consistent with Operant theory than is Classical Conditioning. It emphasizes modeling and observational learning but it recognizes the impact of consequences. A child might observe a hero on television, for example, who is richly rewarded for some altruistic behavior, and although the child watching the television is not reinforced, the child imitates the hero. Observational learning of this sort is sometimes described as "vicarious reinforcement."
Reinforcement makes operant behavior more likely to occur in the future. Punishment makes operants less likely to occur. Reinforcement can be used in an operant procedure known as shaping. Here reinforcement is given to behaviors that increasingly resemble a target behavior, and gradually the individual will in fact display that target behavior. It is sometimes called the Method of Successive Approximation. Fading involves reinforcing one behavior simultaneously with prompts or assistance of some kind. The assistance is gradually withdrawn, or faded, until the behavior is emitted without any prompts. Undesirable behaviors can be eliminated from behavioral repertoires by punishing them. Alternatively, it is sometimes more appropriate to identify the reinforcers that are supporting the undesirable behavior and simply eliminate them. In this fashion, punishment is unnecessary. If behavior is not supported by reinforcement, it becomes extinct. This is the rationale for time-outs; individuals are placed in a setting that does not allow them to receive reinforcement, nor support inappropriate behaviors.
Consequences are not always effective in controlling behavior. Indeed, one of the most important steps when using operant procedures involves the accurate identification of reinforcers and punishers. There are many idiosyncrasies; what controls the behavior of one person often has no impact on another. The effectiveness of consequences is in part determined by the type and amount given, but also by deprivation (hunger), the gradient (the interval between the behavior and the consequence), and the schedule (the number of behaviors that must be emitted to earn a reinforcer). In general, a shorter interval ensures that consequences are maximally effective. Early on it is also important to use a continuous schedule, with a one-to-one ratio (every single instance of the behavior earns the consequence). Larger ratios are useful to program generalization and maintenance. It is typically best to start with a continuous schedule, but then thin the schedule such that the individual may emit two, then three, then five, then ten behaviors to earn one reinforcer. Similarly, variable schedules can be used to ensure that behavior is resistant to extinction. In a variable (or intermittent) schedule the ratio of behaviors to reinforcers fluctuates (3:1, then 5:1, then 2:1, then 7:1, and so on). B. F. Skinner demonstrated each of these operant concepts using highly controlled laboratory experiments, typically with subhuman species.
At one point Skinner drew from operant principles to develop a highly controlled crib for his own daughter. It kept her environment at an ideal temperature, with controlled lighting and visual stimuli. This reflects Skinner’s emphasis on environmental control. The environment sometimes influences behavior in ways that one does not even notice, such as visual distraction or temperature, and sometimes the environmental influence takes the form of obvious consequences to one’s actions, such as reinforcers and punishers. Skinner felt that one could retain free will only if one maintained an awareness of the environmental and experiential influences on one’s behavior. The apparatus just described is sometimes called a Skinner Box, though that name is also sometimes used to describe the operant chamber in which rats are trained via reinforcement. Operant chambers automatically monitor and reinforce particular behaviors (for example, pressing down on a bar). They provide a high level of experimental control, which was typical of Skinner’s work. He felt that objectivity and experimental control were necessary if psychology was to be scientific. He once stated that sciences are only valid if they can "predict and control."
Additional research by Skinner and others has demonstrated that operant conditioning is highly effective when used systematically in educational or clinical settings. In fact, according to Skinner, operant conditioning also occurs spontaneously in the natural environment. Parents, for example, may reinforce or punish behavior without really intending to do so (or at least without relying on operant theory to make their decisions). Skinner’s 1948 novel, Walden Two, describes a segment of the population that employs operant principles in a kind of utopia. The key idea is that consequences dramatically influence behavior and, as noted above, in order to exercise free will, people should be aware of operants’ effects and use them in a systematic and beneficial fashion.
