One of the most foundational and well-studied parts of understanding human psychology is the study of experience’s effects on current behavior and cognition. The subdiscipline of psychology known as “associationism,” refers to the search for how past experience affects current or future behavior and cognition by the changing neural pathways based on past activation. Behaviorist, study this with a focus on behavior rather than perception or cognition. One area that takes up a large proportion of behaviorism is operant conditioning, the type of associative learning that rewards or punishes behaviors based on their outcomes.
Operant conditioning, from its outset has appeared quite simple: behaviors that are rewarded, occur more in the future, and behaviors that are punished are less likely to occur in the future. The origins of operant conditioning lay with the highly controlled experiments demonstrating this phenomenon, especially those of B.F. Skinner. While it is important to understand the principles of this type of learning, it is extremely difficult to apply it to our everyday lives.
It is not that operant conditioning is irrelevant to our lives. It is a central tenant and mechanism our actions and emotions, but human lives are far more complex than the lab conditions that have shown such clear results.
What is Operant Conditioning?
Learning or conditioning, one of the big topics of an introductory course in psychology, seems a straightforward way to investigate psychology. Operant conditioning, the punishing or rewarding of behaviors, makes the ways we act seem to be clearly laid out in a utilitarian, experience-based manner. The great accomplishments of this are of psychology lead to an overreaching philosophy known as Behaviorism that says anything psychological must be defined by external factors like stimuli or behaviors. Although this view has its limitations, it has opened the eyes of many psychologists to how the mind works differently from what we can introspect about it, but we still have a long way before we realize the full potential of behaviorism in our lives.
Like Pavlovian classical conditioning, operant conditioning is an associative type of learning; however, instead of the association of two perceptions together, operant conditioning is association between a behavior and its results. The basic idea behind operant conditioning is that behaviors that are rewarded are more likely to occur in the future, and behaviors that are punished are less likely to occur again. It should not surprise us that the mind is organized to adapt to the consequences of action, but despite its apparent obviousness, we still learn a lot about the mechanisms we use to change from experiences.
Limitations of Operant Conditioning
With knowledge of conditioning, we may quickly think we have found the secret to how we should treat others and fix our own behaviors. John B. Watson, a behaviorist showed a lot of confidence in his ability to harness the power of operant conditioning in shaping people’s lives. He proclaimed:
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take an one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief.”
However, this simple and concise science of behavior is not short of flaws, or at least it lacks universal applicability. The principles uncovered by operant conditioning are still very true, but, as with applying many limited theories, the overuse of simple truths always turns into error.
With an understanding of its theory and mechanisms, using operant conditioning works very well for training pets. But the way we treat animals, and how they respond is very different from how we treat people. I don’t think anyone would argue that training a child in the same way you train a dog would not have unintended consequences. The components of operant conditioning are far more complicated in humans than the animals used in behaviorist experiments. It is also more complicated in animals in their natural environments compared to in a controlled experiment. For example, the rats that B.F. Skinner used were deprived of food. With only one current desire (to eat) you could train a rat to do almost anything. But that same method used on another human would certainly have unintended consequences.
Some of the limitations in applying this to our lives can be overcome by better understanding of the principle mechanisms of operant conditioning, incentives, punishments, and other consequences. Some of these include reinforcement schedules, what constitutes a reward, and how some behaviors are more readily learned than others. These principles will be discussed later; for now, we will look generally at the problems of applying operant conditioning in real, complicated situations.
Precise use of operant conditioning is observed in anything addictive like gambling or drug use, harmful emotional patterns such as a history of cathartic violent outbursts, or fear of acting or thinking in a way that was once punished by an abuse parent or partner. So many of our example of operant conditioning seem to be instances of negative behavior. This should be a warning at how easily conditioning mechanisms can be harmful to the person. How can we use conditioning for bettering people’s lives?
Complexity in the Three Elements of Conditioning
Many people think of operant conditioning as entailing only an action and a consequence. However, the situation that elicits an action is just as relevant. What sets the stage for an action is almost as important to the action as the action itself.
The formula for operant conditioning is depicted as follows. S : R à C (Situation: Response à Consequences). We will look at these three elements in order and see how complexity can be dealt with to positively use operant conditioning.
The first element is the situation that initiates the behavior. This is the stimulus or context of the behavior, and that is a vital element to how the behavior gets reinforced. It should be obvious that the context of an action should be relevant in its success and that is proven true in operant conditioning experimentation. The classic example used to demonstrate how behavior also contains the elements of context and its cause, is in our highly-relatable tendency to speed while driving. Our speeding is only punished when we are caught by the state trooper. Thus, we speed in all cases except when we spot a police car or go by a place where there usually is one. How one sees the connection between action and consequence is through the context in which the action was made. This might be something to consider if you are disciplining your son or daughter who could otherwise avoid you to avoid the punishment. The need to control the conditions in which you or others are will never be fulfilled perfectly.
The second element is the behavior. This is made complicated by the fact that when we act, we are doing many things at once. When we eat, we nourish our bodies as well as enact a cultural norm by the food we eat and the manner in which we eat, and by these actions we assert our identity. Which of those behaviors, or elements of behavior, would we be punished if we were to get a dirty or disgusted look? Would it merely be the eating, what you’re eating, the manners you present, or is that look an earth-shattering judgement on your whole identity? The last option seems like hyperbole, but even punishing small behaviors, can be perceived as catastrophic insults on one’s whole being, depending on how closely one’s actions are tied to their identity. To complicate things further, an incentivized behavior can go on despite punishment, because on one level it works, and on another it is self-destructive. We know this feeling when we are rewarded by short-term pleasure and punished by guilt as there are more important things to get done. Being able to connect punishments or rewards to one’s past actions is not so obvious. The effects of our behaviors stretch deep into the future, but our natural proclivity for association between action and consequences does not reach so far.
The final thing to consider is that complexity of the punishment and reward. Punishments may seem obvious in their definition, after all, we know what we don’t like. But what is punishing or rewarding is different from person to person. A trouble-maker in class may be rewarded when reprimanded because he likes the attention and isn’t bothered by the “punishment.” What is considered punishment or reward is dependent on one’s goals, which we may know or may be unable to comprehend.
Navigating the Complexity and Discovering Morality
In the face of this complexity we come to the temptation to give up on the hope that we can use operant conditioning to help us and others. I do not think we can give up too easily. There may be some ways around the unintended effects of using the tools of conditioning too confidently.
It is first important to note that this conditioning is happening to us all the time and without any intelligent intervention. We constantly observe the consequences of our action and learn from them. We can first understand the basics of operant conditioning so that we become aware of how things affect us. If we set up our situations in a way that enables our good behaviors to be rewarded and our bad punished, then we might be able to shape ourselves to become better people.
We are being conditioned by the random forces of the world, but harnessing the “technology” of operant conditioning consciously is a whole different beast. If we are using operant conditioning on someone else, it is clear how it can be manipulative. How do we avoid this sinister possibility? I think that if we seriously consider the variables that were mentioned above, operant conditioning will be both most effective and least manipulative. Let’s consider how we would use operant conditioning to improve someone else’s life.
You must consider their goals, and therefore consider what would be an incentive or punishment for them. That does not mean to get access to what deep punishment you can exploit, but to give them the hint that their actions can lead to consequences that they themselves would consider punishment—so long as it is not a punishment that exists only because you’ve decided to administer it. You want to respect a person’s intellect; they will not be better off if they think cheating on a test results in punishment that has nothing to do with the act. They probably have a goal to make and keep friends, and cheating, is a bad habit that will be punishing enough to help them understand the consequences of cheating. Making someone aware of that possibility can create a perceptibility to the consequences of one’s actions.
You must consider the context in which the action and consequences are associated, if it is you always punishing, then you will have not accomplished your goal. You do not want good behaviors to only occur in your presence and bad ones when you are not around. This cannot mean greater surveillance, but rather a trust, that makes the guilt from the deception a punishment in itself. You can also play a role in creating an environment where good behaviors are rewarded and bad behaviors are punished, or at the very least, are less attractive. Nothing about this element is easy to be done practically without trying to tyrannically control another person’s world.
You must ensure that there is clarity in what an action means, and on what level it should change. Ensure they know it is an action and not the person. This is why precise communication is important. Suggest the why’s that give the person cause to allow their behavior to be changed, and so they know at what level it should be changed. Communication is central to all these dealings with the complexity of human conditioning. That is because our ability to think and be social creatures is what gives us this complexity in the first place.
After considering all these, it would be very difficult to manipulate someone by using operant conditioning. In the end, you treat them like an individual that you want the best for. And you yourself have to work on what you want for that person and how to articulate it and whether it is good for them.
It was no accident that I mentioned only how you would respectfully use operant conditioning on someone else to better themselves, because I think only by thinking about it like that can we think about it in ourselves. If implementing operant conditioning into your own life, treat yourself as someone you wish to help.
There is a wealth of opportunity in the knowledge we have gained from operant conditioning, but we first have to learn how to use it to better our lives before we carelessly use it to manipulate.
