WHAT IS SKINNER'S REINFORCEMENT THEORY? - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

The theory of strengthening Skinner, also known as operant conditioning theory, is one of the foundations of psychology called cognitive - behavioral. It is based on the idea that organisms learn some behaviors or others based on rewards (called reinforcements) or punishments.

Despite the acceptance by the scientific community of Pavlov's classical conditioning, Skinner believed that this model was too simple to fully explain human learning.

Skinner

Therefore, based on Thorndike's law of effect, he began to investigate how animals learned to perform different behaviors. After the formulation of the theory, operant coding served for many years as the sole explanation of human behavior.

Later, many other psychological approaches emerged that questioned some of the foundations of Behavioral Psychology based on Skinner's theories.

Specifically, in the 1970s another approach appeared (cognitive psychology), which complemented the theory of conditioning. In this way, the currently predominant model in Psychology emerged, the cognitive-behavioral theory.

Basis of Skinner's reinforcement theory

Skinner believed that the best way to understand behavior (both human and animal) was by looking at the causes of an action and its consequences. This approach was later known as "operant conditioning."

The name arises due to the so-called "operants", which are actions carried out by an organism and that have an effect on the environment. This effect can be positive (such as an animal finding food if it goes a certain path) or negative (such as burning one's hand when touching fire).

If the organism achieves a positive effect, the behavior is considered to be "reinforced", and therefore it is more likely that it will occur again in the future. On the contrary, if the effect achieved is negative, the behavior is "punished" and will tend to decrease in frequency in the future, or even to disappear.

Skinner Box

Skinner studied the laws of operant conditioning using animals, especially pigeons, which he introduced in the so-called "Skinner Box".

In it, the animals were rewarded or punished depending on the behaviors they exhibited, allowing the scientist to observe the effects of different types of reinforcements and punishments, their frequency…

Types of responses in Skinner's theory

Although we commonly only hear about reinforcement and punishment, Skinner actually divided the possible responses to an organism's behavior into five types: neutral response, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment.

Although each of them has a different effect on the behavior of the body, they can be grouped into three types: those that do not cause changes in behavior, those that increase the probability that it will occur again in the future, and those that decrease.

Neutral response

Neutral operants are all the consequences of an action that neither increase nor decrease the probability that it will occur again in the future. They are the least common of all types of responses: in general, very few operants are totally neutral.

An example of a neutral operant would be the following. If a student goes out to present a work in front of the whole class, and does not receive a warm response (applause, congratulations…) but also a bad response, it is likely that they will not feel any more or less predisposed than before to present a I work in public.

Positive reinforcement

As we already know, a reinforcement is an operant that increases the probability that a behavior will occur again in the future. However, what does it mean for a reinforcement to be positive?

The "positive" label, for both reinforcement and punishment, has nothing to do with whether the answer is good or bad. On the contrary, an operant is considered as positive if something is given to the organism, and as negative if something is taken from it.

Therefore, a positive reinforcement is an operant in which the organism receives something that makes the repetition of the rewarded behavior more likely in the future.

The classic example is this: if a rat presses a lever and receives food, it will be more likely to press it again in the future.

Negative reinforcement

We have already seen that "reinforcement" means that the probability of a behavior in the future is increased, and "negative", that something is eliminated in response to the organism.

That is, a negative reinforcement would be an operant in which something unpleasant for the animal is eliminated, which increases the probability that the behavior will occur again.

An example in which it is clear how this type of reinforcement works is with the behavior of scratching. When a part of the body itches, we have an unpleasant sensation that we want to get rid of; when we scratch, this discomfort disappears, so the behavior is reinforced and it is more likely that we will do it again in the future.

Positive punishment

The other side of the coin of the reinforcements are the so-called “punishments”: operants that cause the behavior to be repeated less frequently, or even to disappear completely.

Positive punishment is what we commonly understand as punishment in colloquial language. It consists of an unpleasant response for the body, which when received, will tend to reduce the behavior that has led to the punishment.

Examples of positive punishment would be the following: burning when touching something hot, receiving a yell after doing something wrong, feeling sick after eating something bad…

Negative punishment

The last type of operant is perhaps the most difficult for most people to understand. It is a punishment, so its main function is to reduce the frequency of a behavior; However, the way to punish the organism is to take away something that is pleasant to it.

A very clear example is taking a toy from a child if he is misbehaving, so that he stops doing it, or withdrawing attention from someone if he is treating us badly.

References

1. "Operant Conditioning" in: Instructional Design. Retrieved on: January 17, 2018 from Instructional Design: instructionaldesign.org.
2. "Operant Conditioning Examples" in: Psychestudy. Retrieved on: January 17, 2018 from Psychestudy: psychestudy.com.
3. "Skinner's Theory on Operant Conditioning" in: Psychestudy. Retrieved on: January 17, 2018 from Psychestudy: psychestudy.com.
4. "Classical and Operant Conditioning" in: Learning Theories. Retrieved on: January 17, 2018 from Learning Theories: learning-theories.com.
5. "Skinner - Operant Psychology" in: Simply Psychology. Retrieved on: January 17, 2018 from Simply Psychology: simplypsychology.org.