Classical and Operant Conditioning - Essay Example

ical and operant conditioning: On eating burgers and studying painting 23 February ical and operant conditioning: Oneating burgers and studying painting I have chosen to change my studying and eating patterns. I am not that interested in self-studying painting, but because my mother is learning it and I want to support her, I intend to increase my motivation to learn painting. I aim to read a watercolor painting book and I need to condition myself to read it every day. My goal is to read each chapter of this book and to apply skills mentioned there.

I will use conditioned stimulus to achieve my desired conditioned response of reading the watercolor painting book. For the eating pattern, I realized that I eat too much hamburgers. I want to reduce my hamburger intake from four hamburgers each day to two or none at all, if possible. Hamburgers are full of calories and bad cholesterol and I intend to lessen my calorie and cholesterol intake for the sake of my health. I intend to eat fewer hamburgers by introducing positive and negative reinforcement.

Studying watercolor painting demonstrates classical conditioning, because unconditioned responses are frequently reflexive and are preceded by an unconditioned stimulus. The Unconditioned Response is not reading the book, while seeing the book is the Unconditioned Stimulus (US) to not reading the book. In order to improve my response, I decided that the Conditioned Response (CR) is reading a chapter of the book. I enjoy playing Farmville for an hour or so. I decided to pair my Facebook with reading a chapter of the watercolor painting book.

Every time I finish a chapter, I allow myself to play an hour of Farmville. As a result, the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) is the book that has been paired with the positive feelings of Farmville and this correlation of emotions will change how I see and react to this book. As a result, when I see this book, I will feel happy and I will be more motivated to read it. It helps that after reading a book chapter, I reward myself with playing Farmville. My eating pattern for eating hamburgers shows operant conditioning, because I want to change the likelihood of eating hamburgers per day.

A primary reinforcer is “a stimulus that is directly related to our survival” (Sato, 2010). The primary reinforcer of not eating hamburgers is that I will lose weight and shed bad cholesterol. Losing weight and having lower bad cholesterol is good for my survival. A secondary reinforcer is “a stimulus that is not directly related to survival but is associated with a primary reinforcer” (Sato, 2010). My secondary reinforcer is that every time I do not eat a hamburger, I will buy a favorite book after that week of self-control.

The secondary reinforcer is the favorite book. Positive Punishment happens when a behavior is followed by an unpleasant stimulus (Sato, 2010). The positive punisher is that sometimes when I eat too much hamburgers, I feel sick. I can feel my body drowning in fats. Negative Punishment happens when a behavior is followed by the elimination of a pleasant stimulus (Sato, 2010). The negative punisher for this case is that when I eat more than two hamburgers, I will no longer eat my favorite chocolate cake for that week.

Positive reinforcement occurs when a certain behavior is followed by the presentation of a pleasant stimulus. My positive reinforcement is that every time I eat two hamburgers or less, I will reward myself with a chocolate cupcake. Negative reinforcement takes when place when my hamburger eating behavior is followed by the removal of a disagreeable stimulus. My negative reinforcement is that when I do not eat more than two hamburgers, I will decrease time spent on doing a household chore I hate.

Social/cultural factors can influence my behavior, because they teach me what is wrong and right, even with eating and studying patterns. An example is media, which affects my studying and eating patterns (Schueler, 1997). The conditioned stimulus for eating hamburgers is the advertisement that makes eating it happy and cool. A positive reinforcement of eating hamburger is that I feel happy, since I often eat with my friends. I also like the smell of hamburgers, so it is an unconditioned stimulus to my unconditioned response of eating hamburgers.

The social factor for my dislike for painting is that it seems too time-consuming and serious. The unconditioned stimulus is the media that shows serious painters. The unconditioned response is not “wanting” to paint at all. Thus, social factors also affect and condition responses or my behaviors and preferences in life. References AllPsychOnline. (2011). Classical and Operant Conditioning. Retrieved from http://allpsych.com/psychology101/conditioning.html Gould, J. (2005). Conditioning: Operant versus Classical.

Retrieved from http://uwf.edu/jgould/ClassicalvsOperant.pdf Sato, T. (2010). Classical and Operant Conditioning. Retrieved from http://webspace.ship.edu/tosato/condit.htm Schueler, G. (1997). Social influences of behavior. Retrieved from http://www.schuelers.com/psychology/HS813.htm