Operant Conditioning: Conditioning a Child's Thesis

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In contrast, negative behavior such as pulling things off of shelves, running away, or taunting a sibling, may result in the small child being forced to hold his mother's hand, and the privilege of being permitted to wander around is thus withdrawn. This creates a type of operant conditioning known as negative reinforcement: the child does not like being constrained. The parent tells the child: 'if you behave, I will let you walk by yourself." To escape the child agrees, and the negative stimulus of the parent's hand is withdrawn.

Because of the nature of the situation, most parents use the conditioning interval known as fixed, in that their conditioning stimulus is applied immediately upon the child's response. However, many also apply a kind of variable ratio, whereby if the child is very good and exhibits a number of positive behaviors, the child will be rewarded by a special treat at the end of the trip, like candy or a small toy (Huitt & Hummel 1997). As the child gets older, the schedule of reinforcement may also be more variable -- a series of good behaviors gains an eventual reward, rather than an immediate reward being bestowed for every good or bad behavior.

As the child gets older, positive and negative reinforcement may grow less consistent because of practical reasons -- the parent does not reward the child with candy at the end of every trip, for example.

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Parents may also use different types of operant conditioning for the same behavior, at different times, depending on their mood and the child's age -- when the child is too young to understand, the parent may be more apt to use extinction, or ignoring the child's wailing. When the child gets older, a sharp rebuke of punishment is more meaningful because the reason for the rebuke can be explained.

To be most effective, learning should consist of both positive and negative reinforcement in this scenario. But above all, it should be consistent. One of the difficulties of using operant conditioning by parents is that emotions can affect the consistency of the reinforcement. Even using a variable ration must be done carefully -- spacing rewards at intervals is acceptable. What is not acceptable is rewarding negative behaviors, in other words the parent must not reward the child's bad behavior by offering the child candy, in the hopes that the candy will quiet the wailing. This quickly teaches a child that crying brings forth what to the child is a positive reward.

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