Operant conditioning, for many centuries, has been believed to be one of the principal factors that, as humans, we have learned in our early education. Today, operant conditioning has an essential paper in almost everything, but especially into the education field. It could be more than just one perspective of operant conditioning, depending on where area it’s been used. But the educational space has become essential and a particular way of conditioning students. Operant conditioning should be considered positive, useful, necessary, and crucial in education students need to understand the positive and punishment.
The positive stimuli into a classroom essential areas to create and increase the probability of desirable behavior. In the first place, operant conditioning is a learning process in which the behavior of every person is modified by reinforcement or discipline. In the same way, operant conditioning helps, and it’s been seen as an effective way of learning, such as school rules and a way of trolling the behavior of students. There is a difference that many people need to know between positive and negative. In the psychology field, positive and negative does not mean good and bad.
In other words, when it is heard, the word positive means to add something while negative means to take something away. Positive reinforcement is considered the most effective way to teach and trolling the behavior of a person or even an animal. For example, in positive reinforcement, most of the time, it is used as a reward for a child, students, and even adults. Even when most people do not agree on why they should reward a child for what they are supposed to do, but believe it or not, it is the most effective way to do it.
To have a better idea of why it is useful, reward a child when the teacher mentions that she is going to give five extra points on the test for the people that answer three exact questions. Students tend to answer the three questions to gain those five extra points and get a better grade. According to Spielman, R. M., et (2018). Psychology: Houston, TX: OpenStax, Rice University “ If students answered questions correctly, they received immediate positive reinforcement and could continue if they answered incorrectly, they did not receive any reinforcement. The idea was that students would spend additional time studying the material to increase their chance of being reinforced the next time” (P-200).
In other words, if students receive and get one point extract, they tend to study more and put more effort into school. In other words, getting better grades could give us the chance to get into our preferred school and become a reward. While on the other hand, negative reinforcement is found to be undesirable to remove aggressive behavior. For example, if a student came late to the class, and the teacher did not allow her /him to get in the classroom, that’s considered negative reinforcement. In the second place, there is a difference between negative punishment and positive punishment. Remember that brutal punishment always results in even more immoral and continuously increases the aggressive behavior of the person.
While on the other hand, positive discipline decreases aggressive behavior of the person. For example, a negative punishment would be losing the access of a kid of their favorite toy; in other words, when something good for the person, it is taken away. As a result of negative punishment, it always increases the undesirable behavior of the individual. Well, on the other hand, positive punishment always results even more effectively as an example of positive punishment and having a better idea of how it works, when a child is rewarded with two-dollar after cleaning her toys. In agreement with Spielman, R. M., et (2018). Psychology: Houston, TX: OpenStax, Rice University. “In positive punishment, you add an undesirable stimulus to decrease a behavior today’s psychologists and parenting experts favor reinforcement over punishment—they recommend that you catch your child doing something good and reward her for it. (P-201). ”
In other words, positive punishment is considered one of the best and effective ways to decrease aggressive behavior and essential in every area, such as school, psychology, and home. Besides, the best and most effective way to decrease the undesirable behavior of individuals is positive punishment. There are more advantages than disadvantages that a positive reaction has than a negative response. Besides that, it could be used in every area such as school and recommended by a psychologist. Positive punishment is essential in every classroom because it is an effective way.
It’s been also viewed as an effective way of learning since it helps to control the behavior of students in agreement with Shields, C., & Gredler, M. (2003). A Problem-Solving Approach to Teaching Operant Conditioning, “Prior classroom observations revealed that most students defined positive reinforcement as a reward and equated negative reinforcement and punishment. Students also labeled positive reinforcement as rewarding good behavior and negative reinforcement as punishing bad behavior” With this in mind, it is evident that positive punishment is essential in school. It controls the behavior of students and motivates them to continue studying a little bit more. To do, they can receive a reward, such as good grades or extract points for the class.
In conclusion, with this in mind, it is evident the positive punishment should be considered one of the effective ways to be used as conditioning students. Positive punishments help to control the behavior of every individual and motivates students to study more to have better grades. While on the other side, it could be some people that do not agree to be using positive punishment. Because from their point of view why they should be rewarding their kids for their responsibilities, every child needs to learn at an early age what is a responsibility and how to manage the situation.
References
- Shields, C., & Gredler, M. (2003). A Problem-Solving Approach to Teaching Operant Conditioning.TeachingofPsychology,30(2),114–116.https://ezlib.lamission.edu:2277/10.1 207/S15328023TOP3002_06
- Spielman, R. M., Dumper, K., Jenkins, W., Lacombe, A., Lovett, M., & Perlmutter, M. (2018). Psychology. Houston, TX: OpenStax, Rice University. https://ezlib.lamission.edu:2277/10.1207/S15328023TOP3002_06