Learning 201parents will cave in and give the child the treat, positively reinforcing the tantrum. The
parent is also being negatively reinforced for giving in, because the obnoxious* behav-
ior stops. The only way to get the tantrum behavior to stop is to remove the reinforce-
ment, which means no candy, no treat, and if possible, no attention from the parent.
(Not only is this hard enough to do while enduring the tantrum, but also the tantrum
behavior may actually get worse before it extinguishes!)
Just as in classical conditioning, operantly conditioned responses also can be gen-
eralized to stimuli that are only similar to the original stimulus. For example, what par-
ent has not experienced that wonderful moment when Baby, who is just learning to
label objects and people, says “Dada” in response to the presence of her father and is
reinforced by his delight and attention to her. But in the beginning, Baby may cause
Dad to cringe when she generalizes her “Dada” response to any man. As other men
fail to reinforce her for this response, she’ll learn to discriminate among them and her
father and only call her father “Dada.” In this way, the man who is actually her father
becomes a discriminative stimulus just like the stoplight or the doorknob mentioned
earlier.
Spontaneous recovery (in classical conditioning, the recurrence of a conditioned
response after extinction) will also happen with operant responses. Anyone who has ever
trained animals to do several different tricks will say that when first learning a new trick,
most animals will try to get reinforcers by performing their old tricks.
APPLICATIONS OF OPERANT CONDITIONING: SHAPING AND BEHAVIOR
MODIFICATION
5.9 Describe how operant conditioning is used to change animal and human
behavior.
Operant conditioning is more than just the reinforcement of simple responses. It can be
used to modify the behavior of both animals and humans.
How do the circus trainers get their animals to do all those
complicated tricks?SHAPING When you see an animal in a circus or in a show at a zoo perform tricks,
you are seeing the result of applying the rules of conditioning—both classical and
operant—to animals. But the more complex tricks are a process in operant conditioning
called shaping, in which small steps toward some ultimate goal are reinforced until the
goal itself is reached.
For example, if Jody wanted to train his dog to jump through a hoop, he would
have to start with some behavior that the dog is already capable of doing on its own.
Then he would gradually “mold” that starting behavior into the jump—something the
dog is capable of doing but not likely to do on its own. Jody would have to start with
the hoop on the ground in front of Rover ’s face and then call the dog through the hoop,
using the treat as bait. After Rover steps through the hoop (as the shortest way to the
treat), Jody should give Rover the treat (positive reinforcement). Then he could raise the
hoop just a little, reward him for walking through it again, raise the hoop, reward him ...
until Rover is jumping through the hoop to get the treat. The goal is achieved by reinforc-
ing each successive approximation (small steps one after the other that get closer and closer
to the goal). This process is shaping (Skinner, 1974). Through pairing of a sound such as a
whistle or clicker with the primary reinforcer of food, animal trainers can use the sound
as a secondary reinforcer and avoid having an overfed learner. Watch the video Shaping
to see this process in action.
*obnoxious: highly offensive or undesirable.
shaping
the reinforcement of simple steps in
behavior through successive approx-
imations that lead to a desired, more
complex behavior.