Classical vs. Operant Conditioning

Classical and Operant Conditioning, discovered by Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner, respectively, are similar as well as different in many ways. Classical Conditioning is a form of learning where why someone responds in a certain way to something is studied. In Operant Conditioning, however, studies how different stimuli affect a behavior. Classical Conditioning looks into why someone reacts to something, but not how it changes along with different reactions to the behavior, like Operant Conditioning does. Classical Conditioning was also discovered before Operant Conditioning, so B.F. Skinner had the possibilty to read about Pavlov's theory before developing his own.

Problems with Using Punishment

Punishment is one category of Operant Conditioning, working to decrease bad behavior. If not applied "correctly", however, it may end up increasing the behavior instead.

As there is no stimulus that is a punishment for everyone, punishments may often be completed without being effective. What punishes some can even be a reinforcement for others. Among many things, these are four things that could go wrong when using punishment:

1. The punishment could be a reinforcement for that person, causing an increase in his or her behavior

2. The punishment could cause the punishee to develop a fear of the punisher

3. The punishment could cause the punishee to decrease the bad behavior around the punisher, but increase the behavior in other environments

4. The punishment could cause an elimination of the bad behavior, but to make room for an even worse behavior

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment

Operant Conditioning

Operant Conditioning, discovered by B.F. Skinner, is the usage of consequences to stop, eliminate, or reinforce a certain behavior. This can be done either by punishment or reinforcement, both of which can be divided into two sub-categories. A punishment can be a either positive or negative, and as can a reinforcement. Positive and negative in this context simply means giving or removing.

The four categories of Operant Conditioning are therefore as follows:

Positive Reinforcement: Increasing a good behavior by giving something pleasant as a reward [candy, hug, compliment]

Negative Reinforcement: Increasing a good behavior by removing something unpleasant as a reward[chores, early curfew]

Positive Punishment: Decreasing a bad behavior by giving something unpleasant as a penalty [chores, spanking, verbal abuse]

Negative Punishment: Decreasing a bad behavior by removing something pleasant as a penalty [cell phone, candy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/nru/opcond.html

B.F. Skinner

Burrhus Frederic Skinner, born 1904 in Pennsylvania, was the discoverer of Operant Conditioning. He was a man with multifarious interests and skills; inventing, teaching, and experimenting.

He grew up in a comfortable home with his mother, his father, and his vivid imagination. At an early age, he developed an interest for building and constructing various devices. Some of these included a perpetual motion machine and a cart with steering that worked backwards.

After college, Skinner decided he wanted to pursue a career as a writer. He took a job at a book store for a couple of months - a choice which changed his plan for the future. In the store, he came upon books on the theories and discoveries of Pavlov and Watson; Skinner was impressed.

Skinner got enrolled in the Psychology Department of Harvard University, where he met a mentor holding similar views as him on behavior. Inspired, he ran experiments on rats and their reaction, finding that the stimuli following an action affected it as much as the ones before. This was later to become Operant Conditioning.

http://www.bfskinner.org/BFSkinner/AboutSkinner.html

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.F._Skinner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner

The Placebo Effect

Are you ill simply because you believe you are? That could very well be the case, as studies involving placebos have shown.

A placebo is a forged medicine, given to a patient without them being aware of it being a sham. Instead, the patient believes it to treat whichever illness he or she suffers from. They do not know, and are usually never told, that the pill or other form of medicine they are taking is not what they were told was prescribed. With the patient believing the "medicine" they take to be effective, they gain hope and confidence in a recovery. This willpower can then become a treatment for the illness - a treatment dubbed the Placebo Effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=placebo-effect-a-cure-in-the-mind

Little Albert

Associated with many different topics, John Broadus Watson (1878 - 1958) is most widely known as an American psychologist. He finished high school and got his masters degree at an early age, perhaps sparking his interest for children and child-rearing. The immediate connection to his name, however, is "Little Albert".

The "Little Albert" experiment was conducted in 1920 by Watson and his assistant, Rosalie Rayner. It was performed to test classical conditioning [see related article http://nanniesplaceboeffect.blogspot.com/2010/03/pavlov-psychology-reaches-for-nobel.html] in humans. The experiment was carried out shortly after classical condition had been "discovered", and seven years before the original experiments on the subject had first been published in English. This meant that they had minimal knowledge on the subject and, since it was conducted before stricter regulations had been passed, not properly controlled.

The study was set in a room at John Hopkins University, experimenting on and off for approximately two and a half months. "Little Albert's" first introduction to the experiment was at nine months of age, when he was first briefly exposed to several different animals (rabbits, rats, monkeys) and objects, showing no fear towards anything. Two months later, he was again faced with a white rat, still without any trace of anxiety or fear. From the next session and onward, Watson or his assistant produced a loud metallic noise every time "Little Albert" touched the rat. With time, he learned to associate the loud noise to the rat, causing a strong fear between him and the rodent. When the experiment finally ended, "Little Albert" had developed a fear for furry objects in general, including a furry dog, Santa Claus mask, and, of course, rats.

Today, many people find Watson's experiment highly controversial and unacceptable. Yet, at Watson's time, he barely received any critique for this experiment at all. Instead, he was slandered for his treatment of rats during his study "Kinaesthetic and Organic Sensations: Their Role in the Reactions of the White Rat to the Maze" - something which today is almost entirely forgotten.

For further reading about John B. Watson and his "Little Albert" experiment, please visit http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/watson.htm

Pavlov: Psychology Reaches for a Nobel [Part 2]

Psychology has however, through Ivan Pavlov, wedged its way into a share of the limelight. In 1904, Pavlov was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (it's one category) with the motivation "in recognition of his work on the physiology of digestion, through which knowledge on vital aspects of the subject has been transformed and enlarged". Although he received the award for his physiological work, it was while investigating the digestive system that he made an important discovery for the science of psychology. [Read more about Ivan Pavlov and Classical Conditioning at http://www.sntp.net/behaviorism/pavlov.htm]

It was in 1904 that the Nobel Committee first saw a trace of a psychologist in the Concert Hall. Since then, only one other psychologist has stepped foot on the Concert Hall's podium: Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman, a psychologist studying mainly cognitive psychology, judgement and decision-making, and hedonic psychology, won the award for economics. That was in 2002, meaning that in 109 years, only two psychologists have been awarded the Nobel Prize. (The definition of psychologist is ambiguous, however, leaving many to hover between categories.)

Today, a Nobel Prize is not an award psychologists can realistically hope to receive, despite new, fundamental discoveries. There is no specific category in which to fit psychology, and therefore no one in the committee to search for these scientists. If this will change in the future, one cannot say, but Pavlov took the first step in that direction.