Operant Conditioning Design

An Operant Conditioning Design is a learning design in which an individual's behavior is modified by applying action consequences to action antecedents.

• AKA: Instrumental Conditioning.
• See: Jerzy Konorski, B. F. Skinner, Classical Conditioning, Reinforcement, Punishment, Reflex, Professional Practice of Behavior Analysis.

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References

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning Retrieved:2014-11-16.
  • Operant conditioning (or instrumental conditioning) is a type of learning in which an individual's behavior is modified by its antecedents and consequences. Instrumental conditioning was first discovered and published by Jerzy Konorski and was also referred to as Type II reflexes. Mechanisms of instrumental conditioning suggest that the behavior may change in form, frequency, or strength. The expressions "operant behavior" and "respondent behavior" were popularized by B. F. Skinner who worked on reproduction of Konorski's experiments. The former refers to "an item of behavior that is initially spontaneous, rather than a response to a prior stimulus, but whose consequences may reinforce or inhibit recurrence of that behavior". Operant conditioning is distinguished from classical conditioning (or respondent conditioning) in that operant conditioning deals with the reinforcement and punishment to change behavior. Operant behavior operates on the environment and is maintained by its antecedents and consequences, while classical conditioning is maintained by conditioning of reflexive (reflex) behaviors, which are elicited by antecedent conditions. Behaviors conditioned through a classical conditioning procedure are not maintained by consequences. They both, however, form the core of behavior analysis and have grown into professional practices.

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