Conditioning Procedures in Shaping Children’s Behaviour Essay

A nipper is repeatedly exhibiting unconnected and unwanted conduct (e.g. hitting sibling), which conditioning procedures could be utilise to nigh effectively bar this? Behaviours that produce favourable consequences are repeated and suffer habits, but those that produce unfavourable consequences tend not to recur (Ouellette and Wood, 1998 as cited in Martin et.al, 2006). Experience changes the chance of repeating certain behaviors indi ptyalizeing that makeing involves adaptation. As time goes on, old demeanours are eliminated and new demeanors are learned. Pavlov discovered and formalized many of the most grand laws of classical behaviour, B.F.Skinner (1938) investigated and formalized may of the staple laws of operant behavior. (Sheppard & Willoughby, 1975). Habituation and classical conditioning taught us the stimuli in the environs where we learn to ignore unimportant stimuli and learn those that predict situation of the important ones. (Martin et.al, 2006). operat ive conditioning involves the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behaviour. operative conditioning was first discovered by Edward L. Thorndike where he placed a hungry cat in a sm all in all chamber called arrest nook with food placed out post as a stimuli where the railroad car need to performed an appropriate response to open the door of the puzzle box. The cat become less random and more efficient until it open the secure without hesitation after several random attempt. Thorndike called this relation between a response and its consequences the law of effect. (Martin et.al, 2006). Although Thorndike discovered the law of effect, B.F Skinner was the one who brought the learn of operant conditioning into the lab and devised objective methods for studying human behaviour. He invented the operant chamber which is also know as the Skinner box where animals behaviour fire be easily observed, manipulated, and mechanically recorded.Operant conditioning allows us to learn association between behaviour and outcome. It drilles children to modify their behaviour to maximise the possible payoffs they can get and taught them to learn from previous experience. When a child is repeatedly exhibiting contradictory and unwanted behaviour, operant conditioning can be used to correct the behaviour of the child. there are four basic principles used in the operant conditioning, which can be described as positive musical accompaniment ( support), minus bread and butter (escape), penalisation and omission. (Rachlin, 1976) overbearing strengthener and penalizations referredas environmental events that may equal on individuals. Reinforcement Is n both an environmental nor a behavioural event but a relationship between both which tends to increase responding by either positive or negative means. Whereas punishment is a relationship that tends to decrease responding by either positive or negative means.Operant behaviour is modified by its conse quences and the consequences which modify behaviour are called reinforcers. Consequences electropositive reinforcement is where there is an increase 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 reinforcing stimulus. The principle of pay off was stated in Thorndikes law of effect a reward tends to increase the probability that the response to which it is related pull up stakes recur. (Rachlin, 1976) The effect of the reward pull up stakes be pleasant and reinforce the behaviour of children. For example sugarcoat or attention can serve as rewards for children if they behave properly. This index 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 fre quency of occurrence of operant 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 cause are unpleasant. Because of the nature of aversive stimuli of negative reinforcement, it is usually difficult to plan large intervals between negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement might be effective if the aversive stimuli is used wisely. One of the commonly used procedures for alter 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 uncomplete an environmental nor behaviour al event, but a relationship 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 much(prenominal) as reprimand 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 misbehaviour, the immediate decrease in the punished response negatively reinforces the parents spanking response. many parents rely heavily 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 injury such as fear, anger, anxiety and depression. It might cause the disruption of learning and performance of the children. Secondly, punishment sometimes might lean 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 encircle the rules of escape from the situation entirely. Mazur (1998) held that if the teacher used punishment as his elementary method of behavioural control, a child might try to hide the proof of their misbehaviour. It might not support 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 aggression might be directed against the punisher or another individual. With the numerous disadvantages above, parents should be utilize 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 environment, is related to the response. wish punishment, the omission of reward tends to decrease the probability that the response will recur. (Rachlin, 1976) grammatical case of omission is that parents may confiscate the childs favourite defraud or grounding the child for his misbehaviour. In operant conditioning, extinction consists in the removal of the conditioning relationship between response and reward or punishment. (Rachlin, 1976) Behaviour that is not longer being reinforced will so 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 akin as forgetting. Forgetting takes place when a behaviour is not rehearsed for a long time. Extinction takes place when a person 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 techniqu e developed by Skinner called shaping. It involves reinforcing 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 given and children will reinforce their good behaviour. Successful shaping requires that the right step surface be selected and that each approximation be reinforced only large times to allow the criterion to be increase while bland maintaining the behaviour at each step. (Sheppard & Willoughby, 1975) However, there are some limit point 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 variety of stimuli. Thes e stimuli are called conditioned or inessential reinforcers. It is the stimuli that have acquired their positive and negative time 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 effect ively stop the wrong behaviour of the child. Positive reinforcement is a better option than punishment in repair 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). education and Behaviour, 4th edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ Prentice 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. Freeman and Company.