Conditioning Procedures in Shaping Children’s Behaviour Essay

A minor is repeatedly exhibiting strange and unwanted deportment (e.g. hitting sibling), which instruct procedures could be employ to most efficaciously menses this? Behaviours that produce favourable consequences ar repeated and become habits, but those that produce unfavourable consequences range non to recur (Ouellette and Wood, 1998 as cited in Martin et.al, 2006). Experience changes the probability of repeating certain deportments indicating that learning involves adaptation. As time goes on, old behaviours are eliminated and new behaviours are learned. Pavlov find and formalized umpteen of the most weighty laws of classical behaviour, B.F.Skinner (1938) investigated and formalized may of the basic laws of operative behavior. (Sheppard & Willoughby, 1975). Habituation and classical conditioning taught us the stimuli in the environment where we learn to ignore unimportant stimuli and learn those that predict occurrence of the important ones. (Martin et.al, 2006). Operant conditioning involves the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behaviour. Operant conditioning was first discovered by Edward L. Thorndike where he placed a hungry cat in a small chamber called puzzle cut with food placed outside as a stimuli where the car need to performed an appropriate reception to on the fence(p) the door of the puzzle box. The cat become less random and more efficient until it open the fix without hesitation after several random attempt. Thorndike called this relation between a response and its consequences the law of matter. (Martin et.al, 2006). Although Thorndike discovered the law of effect, B.F Skinner was the one who brought the study of operant conditioning into the lab and devised objective methods for studying humankind behaviour. He invented the operant chamber which is also known as the Skinner box where animals behaviour displace be easily observed, manipulated, and automatically recorded.Operant conditioning allow s us to learn acquaintance between behaviour and outcome. It t all(prenominal)es pip-squeakren to modify their behaviour to maximise the possible pays they quite a little get and taught them to learn from former experience. When a child is repeatedly exhibiting unconnected and unwanted behaviour, operant conditioning can be utilise to correct the behaviour of the child. There are four basic principles used in the operant conditioning, which can be described as lordly payoff (reward), negative musical accompaniment (escape), penalisation and omission. (Rachlin, 1976) Positive reinforcement and punishments referredas environmental take downts that may affect on individuals. strengthener Is nevery an environmental nor a behavioral event but a relationship between two which tends to enlarge responding by either domineering or negative means. Whereas punishment is a relationship that tends to accrue responding by either affirmative or negative means.Operant behaviour is modified by its consequences and the consequences which modify behaviour are called reinforcers. Consequences Positive reinforcement is where there is an emergence in the absolute frequency of response behaviour that is regularly and reliably followed by a positive stimulus. Positive reinforcement can also be considered in terms of reward. The principle of reward was stated in Thorndikes law of effect a reward tends to increase the probability that the response to which it is related will recur. (Rachlin, 1976) The effect of the reward will be pleasant and reinforce the behaviour of children. For lesson candy or attention can serve as rewards for children if they behave properly. This magnate encourage them to stop the inappropriate behaviour as behaving properly will give them something nice. Negative reinforcement involves the avoidance of an aversive stimulus, also known as escape.Negative reinforcement work in two ways, either it decreases the frequency of occurrence of op erant behaviour that it follows or it increases the frequency of occurrence of operant behaviour that removes or terminates it. (Sheppard & Willoughby, 1975) The consequences are often painful and the effects are unpleasant. Because of the nature of aversive stimuli of negative reinforcement, it is usually difficult to platform long intervals between negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement might be effective if the aversive stimuli is used wisely. One of the commonly used procedures for weakening operant behaviour is punishment.Punishment refers to a decrease in the frequency of the response that is regularly and reliably followed by an aversive stimulus. (Martin et.al, 2006). The principle of punishment is the inverse of Thorndikes law an aversive, or noxious, stimulus tends to decrease the probability that the response to which it is related will occur. (Rachlin, 1976) In operant conditioning, reinforcement is neither an environmental nor behavioural event, but a relation ship between the two that tends to increase responding by either positive or negative means. Punishment, likewise, is a relationship that tends to decrease responding by either positive or negative means.Parents will oftenchoose punishment such as remonstrate or sometimes some physical punishment if the children exhibit inappropriate behaviour. Punishment has an immediate effect on unwanted behaviour. When a parents spanks a child for hitting their siblings or yells at them for their misbehavior, the immediate decrease in the punished response negatively reinforces the parents spanking response. Many parents rely firmly on punishment to terminate the aversive behaviour of their children without fully understanding the effects of punishment. However, Punishment can produce a number of undesirable effects. First, punishment can results in emotional trauma such as fear, anger, anxiety and depression. It might cause the disruption of learning and performance of the children. Second ly, punishment sometimes might lead to suppression of all behaviours, not only the misbehaviour being punished.Furthermore, punishment requires continual supervise of the individuals behaviour in the real world. The use of punishment might try to build up the rules of escape from the situation entirely. Mazur (1998) held that if the teacher used punishment as his primary method of behavioural control, a child might try to hide the proof of their misbehaviour. It might not help to correct the misbehaviour of the child. Another problem associated with punishment is that it can lead to aggressive behaviour by the punished child. This pugnacity might be directed against the punisher or another individual. With the numerous disadvantages above, parents should be using punishment wisely and with great care as it might influence the behaviour of children in the future. A negative punishment or an omission of reward occurs when the absence of a reward, otherwise present in the environmen t, is related to the response. same punishment, the omission of reward tends to decrease the probability that the response will recur. (Rachlin, 1976) Example of omission is that parents may bond the childs favourite toy or grounding the child for his misbehaviour. In operant conditioning, defunctness consists in the removal of the conditioning relationship between response and reward or punishment. (Rachlin, 1976) Behaviour that is not longer being reinforced will then decrease in frequency. Example is that a child will stop crying and shouting if the parents choose to ignore him. However, extinction is not the same as forgetting. Forgetting takes place when a behaviour is not rehearsed for a long time. Extinction takes place when a individual makes a response that is nolonger reinforced. (Martin et.al, 2006).Another procedure where parents can stop the child from exhibiting inappropriate behaviour is by using a technique developed by Skinner called shaping. It involves reinforc ing any behaviour that successively approximates the desired response. (Martin et.al, 2006) Parents can teach children about behaving properly and praises children for their good behaviour. Rewards will be stipulation and children will reinforce their good behaviour. Successful shaping requires that the right step size be selected and that each approximation be reinforced only enough times to allow the criterion to be increase while still maintaining the behaviour at each step. (Sheppard & Willoughby, 1975) However, there are some limitation to theReinforcement is mainly studied in terms of primary reinforcers and primary punishers. Primary reinforcers are the biological positive (appetitive) unconditioned stimuli such as food and water. Primary punishers are the biological negative (aversive) unconditioned stimuli such as pain and illness. Other than that, behaviour can also be reinforced with wide smorgasbord of stimuli. These stimuli are called conditioned or secondary reinforc ers. It is the stimuli that have graveld their positive and negative values through conditioning. Examples of positive value might be money and negative values might be fines. Similarly, conditioned punishers acquire their punishing effects through association with aversive events. (Martin et.al, 2006).Example of this is children get lecture or even grounded for their misbehaviour. Conditioned reinforcement and punishment are very important in permitting an organisms behaviour to be affected by stimuli that are not biologically important in themselves but that are regularly associated with the onset or termination of biologically important stimuli. (Martin et.al, 2006) Conditioned reinforcers and punishers allow for behaviour to be altered by a wide variety of contingencies.In conclusion, when a child exhibit an inappropriate or unwanted behaviour, parents should consider using appropriate conditioning methods to effectively stop the wrong behaviour of the child. Positive reinforce ment is a better option than punishment in altering behaviour as positive reinforcement results in lasting behavioural modification, whereas punishment only temporarily changes behaviour and presents many detrimentalside effects.ReferenceMartin, G.N., Carlson, N.R., & Bukist, G.N. (2007). Psychology, 3rd Edition. Harlow, UK Pearson Education. Mazur, J.E. (1998). Learning and Behaviour, 4th edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ learner Hall Sheppard, W.C.,& Willoughby, R.H.(1975). Child Behavior Learning and Development. Rand McNally College Publishing Company. Walker, S. (1984). Learning Theory and Behaviour Modification. Methuen. Rachlin, H. (1976). Behavior and Learning. W.H. freewoman and Company.