Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for

behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a

consequence for that behavior. Key concepts in operant conditioning are positive reinforcement,
negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment.
Positive reinforcement Positive reinforcement is giving something pleasant after a
behavior. This increases the probability that the behavior will continue. Examples of positive
reinforcement could be :
Having a job and going to work every day to receive a paycheck.
Receiving praise after a musical performance would increase the amount that you perform.
A teacher complimenting students when they answer correctly will increase that behavior.

Negative reinforcement Negative reinforcement is taking away something unpleasant as a

result of the behavior that is acceptable. This is also meant to increase the behavior. Examples
are:
It is very noisy outside so you turn on the television to mask the noise. Turning on the radio
decreased the unpleasant noise.
A teacher exempts student from the final test if they have perfect attendance. So, the teacher is
taking away something unpleasant to increase behavior.
At a store, a child throws a tantrum because he did not get a candy bar. Dad finally gets him
one. He stopped the tantrum so he took away something unpleasant and Dads behavior of
getting candy bars will increase.

Positive punishment:Positive punishment is used to decrease a behavior and is presenting

something unpleasant after the behavior. Examples are:

A child gets a spanking when he puts his hand in the cookie jar.

When a child does not out his clothes in the hamper, he has to do ten extra minutes of chores.
In an experiment, the subject received a slight electric shock when they got an answer wrong.

Negative punishment:
An employee is habitually late for work so begins losing the privilege of listening to music
while working. The behavior will decrease because of losing a privilege.
A child doesnt put his bike away so the parents lock it up for a certain time. The parents took
away something pleasant to decrease behavior.
Ted gets a $500 fine and suspension of his driving license for driving under the influence.

Classical conditioning refers to a learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus

e.g. food is paired with a previously neutral stimulus e.g. a bell. It also refers to the learning process
that results from this pairing, through which the neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response (e.g.
salivation) that is usually similar to the one elicited by the potent stimulus. These basic facts, which
require many qualifications (see below), were first studied in detail by Ivan Pavlov through
experiments with dogs.
Examples of classical conditioning:

1) When the first kid starts crying because of the pain of the needle piercing through his/her
body, all kids down the line start to cry and eventually, every kid on the line is crying even
before they see the needle. This is a perfect example of classical conditioning, where crying is
the behavior learned via classical conditioning.

2) If a student is bullied at school, they may start hating the school and respond with fear at the
very thought of school.
Students might also dislike particular subjects if they have been humiliated or punished by the
particular teacher of the subject. This behavior might even continue throughout the academic
career of the student.
3) Suppose, in an office you regularly eat lunch at 12pm. In the office, you have a colleague
who immediately alerts everyone about the lunch time. Eventually, you might not even check
the time when your colleague reminds you that its lunch time. Even if its just 11 am, you might
feel that its already lunch time. This is because your response to hunger has been conditioned
with the sound of your colleagues voice.
4) Classical conditioning is not a natural occurring phenomenon and conditions can be manually
organized to learn new behavior. For instance, a teacher can create positive classroom
environment to help students overcome anxiety or fear.