Answer to Question #297414 in Psychology for Wealth

Question

What is the role of operant conditioning in our development of reading skills? How do these skills become stronger and more "automatic"? Do you think that many of our skills follow the same path of development and why??

Answer 1

What is the role of operant conditioning in our development of reading skills? How do these become stronger and more automatic?

Operant conditioning was first described by behaviorist B.F. Skinner, which is why you may occasionally hear it referred to as Skinnerian conditioning. As a behaviorist, Skinner believed that it was not really necessary to look at internal thoughts and motivations in order to explain behavior. Instead, he suggested, we should look only at the external, observable causes of human behavior. Through the first part of the 20th century, behaviorism became a major force within psychology. The ideas of John B. Watson dominated this school of thought early on. Watson focused on the principles of classical conditioning, once famously suggesting that he could take any person regardless of their background and train them to be anything he chose.

The major role of operant conditioning in the development of reading skills is to assists psychologists and enable them to deeply understand how behavior among individuals is learnt. It enables them to clearly and aptly explain why reinforcements is so effective in the processes of learning and the manner in which schedules of reinforcement can impact the outcome of conditioning. Operant conditioning also helps and facilitates learners to read comprehensions in a manner that is more meaningful to them.

Actions of the learners that are normally followed by reinforcements recurs again and again over time and this helps the skills becoming automatic and much stronger among the learners.

It is fundamentally correct to assert that most of our skills follow the same path. This is because obtaining the reading skills is a process that ought to be developed in the course of time. These skills can be mastered through reinforcements and repetitions.

Operant conditioning, sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning, is a method of learning that employs rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence (whether negative or positive) for that behavior.

For example, when lab rats press a lever when a green light is on, they receive a food pellet as a reward. When they press the lever when a red light is on, they receive a mild electric shock. As a result, they learn to press the lever when the green light is on and avoid the red light.

But operant conditioning is not just something that takes place in experimental settings while training lab animals. It also plays a powerful role in everyday learning. Reinforcement and punishment take place in natural settings all the time, as well as in more structured settings such as classrooms or therapy sessions.

Reference

Anderson, J. R. (2000). Learning and memory: An integrated approach. New York: Wiley. Google Scholar

Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2007). Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall. Google Scholar

Hayes, S. C., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Roche, B. (Eds.). (2001). Relational frame theory: A post-Skinnerian account of human language and cognition. New York: Springer Google Scholar.