Skinner believed that human beings were organisms – just like rats and pigeons – who could be trained to have either good or bad habits. Let’s see if you can train yourself!
Choose a behavior of yours that you’d like to modify. For example, you may want to stop smoking, or eat healthier, or wake up earlier, or Create an operant conditioning program that would help you successfully reach your goal.
Start with your baseline behavior and identify your target behavioral goal; you should have ONE behavioral goal for all 4 concepts but in two different forms. For example, the behavioral goal in the supermarket example is to
Reinforce the child sitting nicely in the supermarket (one form)
Punish the child throwing a tantrum in the supermarket (the other form)
By reinforcing or punishing the child’s above behaviors, you are addressing the same behavioral goal of a well-behaved child in the supermarket.
You must provide a concrete example for each of the following:
a positive reinforcement
a negative reinforcement
a positive punishment
a negative punishment
You don’t have to explain each concept unless you want to, but each of your concrete examples should show me that you understand the components of “giving,” “taking,” “increasing behavior,” and “decreasing behavior.” You should also show that you understand the importance of shaping. Plan for just one week; plan for behaviors you want to modify it yourself. Do not use outside sources!
Sample Solution
