Operant Conditioning Strategies in Everyday Life
What operant conditioning strategies are being used in the following scenarios?
1. Megan, a baker, stops sharing her cookies with her roommate when there are dirty dishes in the sink.
2. Kai's parents give him a piece of candy each time he uses the toilet instead of dirtying his diaper.
Operant Conditioning Strategies:
Megan employs negative punishment, while Kai's parents use positive reinforcement. In both cases, the goal is to influence behavior — Megan aims to decrease an undesirable behavior, while Kai's parents want to increase a preferred one.
Explanation:
In the context of operant conditioning, Megan is using negative punishment as a strategy. Here, 'negative' refers to the removal of something, and 'punishment' indicates a decrease in behavior. In Megan's case, she withdraws the reward of her cookies (the negative part) to decrease the behavior of leaving dirty dishes (the punishment part).
For the second part of the question, Kai's parents are using positive reinforcement. In this scenario, 'positive' implies that something is added (the piece of candy), and 'reinforcement' signifies that this strategy aims to increase a certain behavior (Kai using the toilet). Hence, by giving Kai a piece of candy each time he uses the toilet, his parents are increasing the possibility of him repeating the same behavior.