Answer: involuntary; voluntary
While classical conditioning involves the conditioning of _____ behavior operant conditioning involves the conditioning of _____ behavior.
Operant conditioning (also called instrumental conditioning) is a type of associative learning process through which the strength of a behavior is modified by reinforcement or punishment. It is also a procedure that is used to bring about such learning. Although operant and classical conditioning both involve behaviors controlled by environmental stimuli they differ in nature. In operant condit…
Operant conditioning (also called instrumental conditioning) is a type of associative learning process through which the strength of a behavior is modified by reinforcement or punishment. It is also a procedure that is used to bring about such learning. Although operant and classical conditioning both involve behaviors controlled by environmental stimuli they differ in nature. In operant conditioning stimuli present when a behavior that is rewarded or punished controls that behavior. For example a child may learn to open a box to get the sweets inside or learn to avoid touching a hot stove; in operant terms the box and the stove are "discriminative stimuli". Opera nt behavior is said to be "voluntary". The responses are under the control of the organism and are operants. For example the child may face a choice between opening the box and petting a puppy. In contrast classical conditioning involves involuntary behavior based on the pairing of stimuli with biologically significant events. The responses are under the control of some stimulus because they are reflexes automatically elicited by the appropriate stimuli. For example sight of sweets may cause a child to salivate or the sound of a door slam may signal an angry parent causing a child to tremble. Salivation and trembling are not operants; they are not reinforced by their consequences and they are not voluntarily "chosen". However both kinds of learning can affect behavior. Classically conditioned stimuli—for example a picture of sweets on a box—might enhance operant conditioning by encouraging a child to approach and open the box. Research has shown this to be a beneficial phenomenon in cases where operant behavior is error-prone. The study of animal learning in the 20th century was dominated by the analysis of these two sorts of learning and they are still at the core of behavior analysis. They have also been applied to the study of social psychology helping to clarify certain phenomena such as the false consensus effect. Read more on Wikipedia
Thorndike's law of effect Operant conditioning sometimes called instrumental learning was first extensively studied by Edward L. Thorndike (1874–1949) who observed the behavior of cats trying to escape from home-made puzzle boxes. A cat could escape from the box by a simple response such as pulling a cord or pushin…
Thorndike's law of effect Operant conditioning sometimes called instrumental learning was first extensively studied by Edward L. Thorndike (1874–1949) who observed the behavior of cats trying to escape from home-made puzzle boxes. A cat could escape from the box by a simple response such as pulling a cord or pushing a pole but when first constrained the cats took a long time to get out. With repeated trials ineffective responses occurred less frequently and successful responses occurred more frequently so the cats escaped more and more quickly. Thorndike generalized this finding in his law of effect which states that behaviors followed by satisfying consequences tend to be repeated and those that produce unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated. In short some consequences strengthen behavior and some consequences weaken behavior. By plotting escape time against trial number Thorndike produced the first known animal learning curves through this procedure. Humans appear to learn many simple behaviors through the sort of process studied by Thorndike now called operant conditioning. That is r...
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