What is operant conditioning and what are its techniques?

Various strategies, methods and techniques have been created and studied by variouspsychological currentsto give scientific meaningto thelearningprocess and one of these techniques isoperant conditioning.

In this article, we explain whatoperant conditioning consists of, what its characteristics are and what techniques it has.

What is operant conditioning?

Operant conditioning, sometimes calledinstrumental conditioning, is the term to refer to themethod or technique of learningthat occurs through theassociation of positive and negative reinforcement, as well as positiveandnegative punishments, with a certain behavior. In this way, associations are made between behaviors and their consequences. (1)

The main objective of this learning model is toincrease or decrease the probability that thesame event will be repeated.

To highlight: The American psychologistB. Skinner(2), is considered themain exponent of behavioraltheory and focusing on the study of learning, proposed a new type of conditioning called operant, different from classical or responseconditioning.

What are the techniques of operant conditioning?

Learning under the operant conditioning model operates under certain strategies(3) that we describe below:

1. Instigation

The technique of instigation consists of providing the individual during the learning process withdifferent types of incentives to stimulate a response. This technique is useful to increase the manifestation of a behavior, which the individual, despite having in his mental repertoire, does not externalize it frequently.

2. Shaping

The modeling technique consists of a person observing in another (model) the performance of a new behaviorthat one wishes to learn in order to imitate it later. This techniqueCan be accompanied by other strategies , such as prompting, to motivate the response and physically help imitation.

You should know: This is a technique used to acquire new behaviors, but it is somewhat difficult to learn, because it can be complex due to the possible functional limitations of the person to perform it.

3. Fading

Fading implies the progressive elimination of discriminative stimuli(usually artificial), which control behavior or have been used to establish it. Once the desired change is achieved,the behavior becomes controlled by real discriminative stimuli that are present in the environment.

Note: Stimulus can be faded gradually, by decreasing its intensity, length(duration), or repetitively and graduallydelaying the offering.

4. Chaining

Chaining consists of teaching the patient to carry out a complex behavior, with the execution of simple behaviors that he already has in his mental repertoire.

In chaining, it is important that simple behaviors are carried out in a logical sequence and in this context, it is necessary for the subject to have the necessary information about the behavior to be developed.

To highlight: This technique can also Be complemented with strategies such as modeling, prompting and reinforcement.

Some examples of complex behaviors that can be divided into other simpler ones and executed in a chain can be: dressing, grooming, bathing, eating, doing mathematical calculations, among many others.

5. Reinforcement schedules

To go into context, reinforcing involves Administering a positive stimulus or withdrawing a negative one when a certain action is performed, which increases the probability of a certain behavior occurring.

You should know: Reinforcement programs are based on rules that indicate the moment and the way in which the reinforcer should appear, after the appearance of the response and affect the speed of learning, the frequency with which it is executed and what is done. the breaks.

6. Extinction

Extinction consists of stopping reinforcing a response, to make a behavior disappear and is applied contingently to unwanted behaviors.

In this sense, the extinction procedure is basically based on the Gradual omission of the reward for the behavior in which work is being done to suppress it.

7. Skip Training

This technique consists in that the result that follows the response given by an individual is the absence of a pleasant stimulus , that is, the manifested behavior causes the omission of the reward until the unwanted behavior is changed or a new one is learned.

Note: In omission training, the effect rests precisely on the withdrawal of a positive stimulus .

8. Differential reinforcement schedules

Differential reinforcement is a type of learning typical of behavioral psychology and consists of reinforcing only some behaviors, while others are put under extinction or reinforcing certain behaviors after certain periods of time.

Important: This technique is widely used in the educational fieldand seeks that students adopt some behaviors and abandon others that may be incorrect or negative.

9. Satiation

This technique consists of providing reinforcements indiscriminately,until the individual is satisfied, causing a change in behavior or assimilating the learning. There are two types of satiation, response and behavior.

To highlight: Response satiation works massively with reinforcers , while behavior satiation focuses on the behavior to be altered.

10. Overcorrection

Overcorrection is a type of punishment, in which the person must perform appropriate behaviors repeatedly or prolongedly , which are directly related to the undesired behavior and which they must follow, that is, the punitive stimuli are behaviors relevant to the problem behavior .

Key Findings

• Operant conditioning is a learning strategy that occurs through the Association of Reinforcement and Punishment with a certain behavior.
• Its main objective is to increase or decrease the probability that a behavior will be repeated again.
• In operant conditioning, behaviors are spontaneous and their consequences determine learning.
• The learning process is directly linked to the association between the behavior and its consequence.