Blog Post #8

Classical conditioning is a kind of learning where a person connects two or more stimuli and anticipate events. Behavior can be conditioned by providing the influence that causes an action. In classical conditioning, the subject cannot control its response. An example, is when a dog hears a bell and starts to salivate because it knows food is coming. He cannot control his salivation because it is involuntary. Operant conditioning is a kind of learning in which behavior is encouraged when followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. The subject associates its actions with consequences. Reinforcements increase behavior. Punishment decreases behavior. For example, a child who is praised for doing good work will purposely do good work to get the praise. In classical conditioning, the subject cannot control the events and in operate conditioning, the subject can control the behavior and events. In classical conditioning, the response is involuntary and in operate conditioning, it is voluntary. In classical conditioning, conditioning is acquired by associating events. In operate conditioning, the behavior is acquired by associating a response with a consequence. I believe this is interesting because we all have been conditioned whether we are aware of it or not. Even our animals are conditioned. For example, tying up a barking dog, helps the dog associate barking with confinement. The punishment may change his behavior. This applies to my life because I have been conditioned and do the conditioning. I have learned that if i ask often enough, I can cause someone to respond in the manner I wish.

Positive reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by presenting positive stimuli, such as food, compliments, or desired behavior. It needs to be presented after a response in order to strengthen the response. Negative reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. An example of this is, when you pull on a horse's rein, the bit is loosened after the correct stop. Punishment is designed to decrease the frequency of behavior. There can be positive punishment, which is giving an aversive stimulus and negative punishment, which takes away a desirable stimulus.

An example of positve reinforcement in my life is getting good grades for doing my homework on time or getting paid for doing chores around the house. In this case, the behavior was doing my chores and my homework, and the reinforcement of this was getting money and good grades. The intended outcome was to continue doing my homework and chores without complaining.
An example of negative reinforcement is when my mom yells at me over and over to get out of bed in the mornings. When I finally get out of bed, she stops yelling. The behavior was sleeping too late in the morning, the reinforcement was the cessation of my mom yelling, and the intended outcome was me getting out of bed. An example of punishment that occurred in my life is not being allowed to go to prom because I sassed back to my mother. The behavior was sassing to my mom, the punishment was taking away my priviledge of going to prom, and the intended outcome was me not sassing back to my mom.

The most interesting thing I learned in this section, is that there are two types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to perform a behavior for its own sake. Extrinsic motivation accomplishes a task for external rewards or to avoid punishment. It seems like most education is for extrinsic motivation. Students want to receive good grades as a reward or they want to avoid the punishment of low grades, staying in for recess, or a disappointed parent and teacher. Only when we are allowed to choose can we truly say our learning is from intrinsic motivation. This is interesting because there are countries whose students who truly desire to learn for its own sake, like African nations, who do not give all of their children the chance to be educated. In my opinion, it changes the way I think about jobs. We have a job for money. If we didn't get paid, most people would not have the job they have. I can apply this to my everyday life by accepting that I might not find a job I truly love and intrinsically want to do well at, but can accept the fact that the extrinsic reward is worth it.