Classical vs Operant Conditioning [Differences and Examples]

Conditioning is frequently used in everyday life. Let’s look at some examples and differences between classical and operant conditioning. We’ll also examine their use by parents to modify children’s behavior and its implication.

Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov Behaviorism

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who discovered the concept of classical conditioning that had a major influence in the branch of psychology called behaviorism in the early 20th century.

Pavlov first discovered that his dogs salivated whenever it was served food. The food, a biologically potent stimulus, is called an unconditioned stimulus or primary reinforcer.

He then came up with an experiment. Whenever he gave food to his dogs, he also rang a bell. Normally, ringing a bell does not produce any specific response other than getting the dog’s attention. The ringing bell is called a neutral stimulus.

But after repeating this procedure a number of times, ringing the bell on its own could cause an increase in the dog’s salivation. Now the dog had learned to associate the bell’s sound with food and a new behavior had formed.

An originally neutral stimulus, the ringing bell, had become a conditioned stimulus that could elicit the same response as the unconditioned stimulus (food).

When this happened, the salivation was called a conditioned response^​1​.

Classical Conditioning Examples

There are many classical conditioning examples in our daily life. Some are intentionally and some are not.

Here are a couple of classical conditioning examples:

A father comes home and slams the door when he has had a bad day at work. Then it’s usually followed by him yelling at his children for random reasons. So the kids have learned to associate door slamming with being yelled at. Now the children have been conditioned to tremble every time they hear the sound of door slamming.

A mother comes home with a big shopping bag that is usually filled with new toys for the child. So whenever the child sees her mother come home with a big shopping bag, she is happy and excited because she has associated the bag with receiving new toys.

Operant Conditioning

This law of effect was developed based on observing animal behavior, but it applies to human in many situations, too^​2​.

Law of effect example

For instance, if a child opens a box and is happy to find a candy, he is more likely to open the same box again in the future. However, if the child opens the box and is scared by a spider jumping out, he most likely won’t open that box again.

B.F. Skinner

BF Skinner, an American psychologist, rejected the idea that mental states such as “satisfying” or “unfavorable” were necessary in understanding human behavior^​3​. He developed the theory of operant conditioning through observable stimulus and behavior, instead of thinking or feeling.

Skinner’s theory asserts that behavior could be controlled by its consequences. Reinforcement and punishment are the processes of applying discriminative stimuli to increases or decrease target behavior.

Operant Conditioning Examples

Operant conditioning is used extensively by parents and teachers.

For example, whenever a child goes to bed on time, his parent reads him a bedtime story. The story reading is a positive reinforcement used to increase target behavior (going to bed on time).

Animal trainers frequently use operant conditioning to train animals to do tricks. When a dog does a trick correctly, the trainer will award it with a treat. The dog learns to perform tricks to get treats.

Differences Between Classical And Operant Conditioning

There are several distinct differences between classical and operant conditioning:

• Classical conditioning associates involuntary behavior with a stimulus while operant conditioning associates voluntary action with a consequence.
• Classical conditioning is passive in the sense that the learner cannot choose to engage or not engage in a new behavior because the association is made through naturally occurring event. On the other hand, operant conditioning involves the learner actively choosing to receive the reinforcement or punishment by performing or not performing the target behavior.

Operant Conditioning And Parenting

Operant conditioning is often used by parents and teachers to modify children’s behavior. While some measures appear to be effective on the surface, there are many hidden problems.

One of the biggest problems of behaviorism is that it treats human beings as similar entities with no regard to one’s mental state or internal processing^​4​. i.e. Given the same stimulus, we all should respond in the same way.

Period.

It doesn’t care about what goes on inside the person or what that person thinks or feels.

For example, behaviorists believe that when a child is given a reinforcement to do something, the child will continue or do more of that activity.

This has been proven to be not true. Because mental states and inner processing do matter.

Studies have shown that if a child is given a reinforcement to do something he already enjoys, he will do less of it. When a child is intrinsically motivated to do something, e.g. drawing art, receiving a reward to do so actually decreases the child’s interest in it. So the “reinforcement” reduces the behavior instead of strengthening it which behaviorists predict. Behaviorism fails to explain phenomenon like this because higher mental processes such as “free will” does matter.

If behaviorism were the holy grail of parenting, then we would have all beaten our kids into submission and they would’ve done everything we tell them to. In fact, this is what most authoritarian parents believe.

But you already know (hopefully) that this doesn’t work.

First, your child may behave perfectly in front of you, but most likely, they won’t when you’re not watching.

Second, do you want your kids to (really) respect you, have a good relationship with you and visit you when you’re old and they’ve grown up? Well, most authoritarian parents don’t get that.

Related: Authoritarian Parenting

Final Thoughts On Conditioning And Parenting

If used appropriately, operant conditioning can be very useful in teaching young children new behavior, e.g. give a sticker to potty-train a toddler, award first grader a star for raising his hand before speaking, etc.

However, always remember that discipline means to teach. If, instead of teaching, we use punishment or manipulation to elicit a behavior, it will eventually backfire. Because children are not lab rats that respond to stimuli without being affected by the meaning of a treatment.

References