Assignment Unit 9

Title Your Name Subject and Section Professor’s name Date 1 Establishing Versus Abolishing Operations 1 Definition, Differences, and Examples From an operant conditioning perspective, establishing operations increases the reinforcing behavior of frequent occurrence through reinforcement of the behavior with similar or identical facility, increasing the frequency of the behaviors with the provided reinforcement. For example, food deprivation can be seen as a process that aims to make everyday activities that include seeking food the most important ones in an individual's life. This ensues since the organism is in a situation where food has an intense motivational value (Michael, 1993, p. 191). In turn, abolishing the operations also decreases the power of a reinforcer and ultimately reduces positive behaviors related to that reinforcer. One example of this type of reinforcement is called food satiation, which occurs when eating food becomes less and less reinforcing, and behavior that previously was reinforced by food, say, seeking food, usually decreases (Michael, 1993, p. 193). 2 Manipulating Motivating Operations Establishing and abolishing operations are strategic behavior modification techniques. To illustrate both operations, a coach in weight loss programs could use establishing and canceling operations to help change the behavior of eating in clients. Here, the role of healthy food as a reinforcer is justified positively with a mechanism where they become the favored choice ahead of junk food. Conversely, a fast-food restaurant close to the gym could be incriminating due to the possibility of calorie-rich consumption after a heavy workout because people are more likely to be hungrier. Consequently, one ensures that people reluctantly come across junk foods after they have had enough meals; at the point, they are already satiated, this would reduce the reinforcing value of such foods, and thus, they are less likely to eat them. Another good example is when we consider a practical application in an educational setting, such as when a teacher starts an activity by establishing operations by introducing a new and exciting game that the students can play, which will take place after their work is completed. The high reward and excitement increase the task's reinforcing nature, so the students will want to finish their assignments. Alternatively, teachers could remove the money to act as a disincentive to off-task behavior by changing the settings, such as face-to-face versus an online approach, because the former curbs the frequency of accessing educational sites on the classroom-based computers and thus diminishes the value of off-task. 2 Rule-Governed Versus Contingency-Shaped Behaviors The notions of rule-governed and contingency-shaped behavior represent two contrasting areas covered by the behavioral analysis field. The former is controlled by verbal descriptions of conditions or instructions that specify the proper actions that should be taken in a given situation and the consequences of such actions. This type of response is often learned in an extremely short period and can help sophisticated actions be accurate; however, it may lead to a lack of sensitivity to changing circumstances. Likewise, when a child is instructed, "Go when a light is green; do not cross when the light is red," she or he comprehends a rule by which to go across the road without necessarily a direct experience with the consequence of crossing on a red light (Rule Governed Behavior, 2023, p. 2). By contrast, the latter results from the immediate outcome of an action in a particular context. It is a process whereby one acquires knowledge through direct involvement with the causes of reinforcement. For example, a rat will push a lever only when there is a light on because food deliveries reward the behavior of pushing the lever in this condition as it may see some food after the lever has been pressed; however, pushing the lever when the light is off is not delivered any reward. Such activity is produced by the interconnection between the stimulus (the light), the act (the lever pressing), and the result (receiving food) (Rule-Governed Behavior, 2023, p.1). 3 Reinforcements, Punishments, and Extinction 3 Positive Versus Negative Reinforcement Positive reinforcement is based on rewarding behavior after its occurrence, making it more probable that the behavior may occur. The anticipated behavioral result is an increase in the rate of the behavior or an increase in the magnitude (Baron & Galizio, 2005). To illustrate, if a child is given a pat and a sticker for completing their project, they are very likely to finish the project since the praise and the sticker have given the child positive reinforcement. However, negative reinforcement posits that when an aversive stimulus has been removed after a particular behavior has been exemplified, this action increases the probability of the same behavior occurring again (Baron & Galizio, 2005). For example, when a child cleans his or her room to stop the nagging of his or her parent, the elimination of the nagging will work as a negative reinforcement to prompt the child to put the room in order shortly. 4 Positive Versus Negative Punishment Positive punishment happens when the individual is given an aversive stimulus after a specific behavior has been exemplified, increasing the probability of that behavior's occurrence. For instance, a child's reaction when feeling pain after touching a hot stove is a case of positive punishment, which reduces the chances of the child doing the same thing another time. By contrast, negative punishment removes the positive stimulus that sanctions a behavior to prevent such behavior from happening again. An example is when a teenager is left without using his or her phone to get home late after curfew. The teenager then finds that the phone is a negative punishment, which would less likely lead him or her to be late after that (Baron & Galizio, 2005). 5 Extinction Extinction is the process when a behavior decreases as it follows reinforcement longer. Final condemnation would be gaining control of the behavior so it no longer occurs (Campanaro et al., 2019; van Haaren, 2019). This can be illustrated by the example of a teacher who no longer pays attention to a disruptive student. This leads to the student's misbehavior disappearing because the teacher's attention no longer reinforces it. 4 Stimulus Versus Stimulus Class Any perceptible event or object in the environment that might be attended to and cause behavioral change is described as a stimulus. For instance, a flash can act as a trigger for someone by its natural power to attract attention. Conversely, a stimulus class is a cluster that contains similar stimuli, and as a result, they trigger the same reaction. An example is when an individual thinks of various types of fruits as a stimulus class because they all may prompt the individual to think of fruits and eventually decide t...