First, it is an empirical fact quite beyond dispute that
operant conditioning can work on human beings regardless of our (straightforward) beliefs.
Moreover, many of the studies trained infants, however briefly, to make discriminations or to show preferences, by reinforcing appropriate responses (although the authors rarely, if ever, referred to their training as
operant conditioning).
The first reason is that learning courses typically focus heavily on the use of
operant conditioning procedures for increasing the likelihood of desirable behaviors and decreasing the likelihood of undesirable behaviors.
Development of a science unit on
operant conditioning at the elementary school level.
Is awareness necessary for
operant conditioning? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17, 424-425.
Operant conditioning preparations usually measure and take into account the operant response selected (lever-pressing, key-pecking, etc.), assuming that the rest of the behaviors vary according to the contingencies scheduled for the operant responses.
There are three basic ways you can use
operant conditioning:
Part II, "Learning About the Consequences of One's Behavior," covers
operant conditioning and related ideas, including reinforcers as sources of incentive motivation, successive approximation, differential and partial reinforcement, making choices, inference and the similarities between
operant conditioning and natural selection.
Operant Conditioning of fusional convergence ranges using random dot stereograms.
Research on the modification of apparently "involuntary" isolated muscle contractions using sEMG represented a major early application of
operant conditioning. For example, adult subjects initially were found to be able to voluntarily control vasomotor activity, but only when they were able to observe a polygraph record of their own continuous physiological changes (Razran, 1961).
This includes
operant conditioning and the principles of reinforcement of B.F.
Operant Conditioning uses an electric shock as the stimulus to decrease the likelihood of a particular behavior being repeated, such as a bird landing on a building.