How does immediacy affect the strength of a reinforcer

A real-life impact of delayed reinforcement is seen in academics. That is, students have to study and put in efforts but the reinforcer for this behavior is only given after a temporal delay.

As opposed to this, if students decide not to study and instead spend time with their friends, the reinforcement is immediate as the experience of hanging out with friends is an immediate one. Because of this, a lot of students may delay their academic work for later and engage in the immediately reinforcing behavior of enjoying with friends.

That is, they trade off a delayed reinforcement for immediate reinforcement, which appears to be more rewarding at that moment. View Solution. Once you log in, go to the "my account" page to see your menu.

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You will get redirected to pay for your order via PayPal or credit card. Note, this payment is kept on hold until you receive the final solution via email. Custom solutions pass through the editorial team to assure originality and quality. This is what most people think of as a reinforcer. Its proper name is positive reinforcer. Positive comes from medical terminology which means that something is added or present e. There is another type of reinforcer. Some behavior increases because it allows the subject to avoid something.

For example, cleaning the room allows a child to escape a parent's nagging. In this case, an event is subtracted or absent. This type of reinforcer is called a negative reinforcer e. When the behavior is emitted, the unpleasant or aversive stimulus stops. The behavior allows the person to escape an aversive situation and thus the behavior is repeated or increased the next time around. In the animation to the right, the frog looks upward behavior , sees a spider and eats it, enjoying the flavor consequence.

Based on the increased behavior of looking up, the flavor of the spider is functioning as a reinforcer for looking upward. In the animation to the right, the hockey goalie dives for the puck and stops it from entering his net. He avoids the loss of a point for his team.

Therefore, his behavior of "diving for pucks" is likely to increase in the future. Notice that Positive and Negative Reinforcers may be operating simultaneously in the real world.

The frog avoids hunger negative reinforcement and the hockey player hears the cheers of the crowd positive reinforcement. However, there is a primary mechanism in each instance. Even when he isn't very hungry, the frog is likely to scan the sky and may grab an occasional spider. Something unpleasant may occur following some behavior positive punishment , or something pleasant may be removed negative punishment.

Immediacy — When punishment follows immediately after the behavior to be punished. Consistency — when punishment is inconsistent the behavior being punished is intermittently reinforced and therefore becomes resistant to extinction. Intensity — In general terms severe punishments are more effective than mild ones. However, there are studies that indicate that even less intense punishments are effective provided that they are applied immediately and consistently.

For a response to be reinforced, it must first occur. But, suppose you to train a child to use a knife and a fork properly. Such behaviors, and most others in everyday life, have almost no probability of appearing spontaneously.

The operant solution for this is shaping. Shaping is an operant conditioning procedure in which successive approximations of a desired response are reinforced. In shaping you start by reinforcing a tendency in the right direction. Then you gradually require responses that are more and more similar to the final desired response. The responses that you reinforce on the way to the final one are called successive approximations.

Application of the theory of operant conditioning: 1. Conditioning study behavior : Teaching is the arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement, which expedite learning.

For effective teaching teacher should arranged effective contingencies of reinforcement. Example: For. Self-learning of a student teacher should reinforce student behavior through variety of incentives such as prize, medal, smile, praise, affectionate patting on the back or by giving higher marks.

Conditioning and classroom behavior : During learning process child acquire unpleasant experiences also. This unpleasantness becomes conditioned to the teacher, subject and the classroom and learner dislikes the subject and a teacher. Managing Problem Behavior : Two types of behavior is seen in the classroom with undesired behavior and problematic behavior.

Operant conditioning is a behavior therapy technique that shape students behavior. For this teacher should admit positive contingencies like praise, encouragement etc. One should not admit negative contingencies. Example punishment student will run away from the dull and dreary classes — escape stimulation. Dealing with anxieties through conditioning : Through conditioning fear, anxieties, prejudices, attitudes, perceptual meaning develops.

Examples of anxiety are signals on the road, siren blown during wartime, child receiving painful injection from a doctor. Anxiety is a generalized fear response. To break the habits of fear, a teacher should use desensitization techniques. Initially teacher should provide very weak form of conditioned stimulus.

Gradually the strength of stimulus should be increased. Conditioning group behavior : Conditioning makes entire group learn and complete change in behavior is seen due to reinforcement. It breaks undesired and unsocial behavior too. Example: Putting questions or telling lie to teachers will make teachers annoyed in such circumstances students learn to keep mum in the class.

Asking questions, active participation in class discussion will make the teacher feel happy — interaction will increase and teaching learning process becomes more effective. Conditioning and Cognitive Processes : Reinforcement is given in different form, for the progress of knowledge and in the feedback form.

When response is correct, positive reinforcement is given. Each step is built upon the preceding step. Progress is seen in the process of learning.