3.02: Operant Conditioning

• Introduction
• Learn
• Try It
• Task

Introduction

You make an A on your history final and your mom makes your favorite dinner as a reward.

Your brother breaks curfew and gets his cell phone taken away.

Both are examples of another type of learning.

You learned that if you made good grades, your parents were happy and made you things you like to eat, your brother learned that if he doesn’t follow the rules he gets punished.

Operant conditioning (sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning) is a method of learning that occurs through reinforcements and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior. The consequence is something either wanted or unwanted. In this lesson, we will learn about the law of effect by Edward Thorndike, which led to operant conditioning by B.F. Skinner, and their theory of how humans learn.