Literature Review

The topic I am going to talk about here is an area that interests me within my psychology coursework. It is about “Operant Conditioning” which looks at behaviours and how they are learned and unlearned.

“Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which behaviours are influenced by the consequences that follow” (Skinner 1938 cited in O’ Brien 2011, p. 63).

My understanding of this is that an organism’s behaviour depends on the outcome that follows. If it is a positive outcome, the organism is more likely to repeat the action. “A behaviour followed by a rewarding or favourable response is more likely to be repeated” (O’Brien 2011, p.63). Skinner based his theory on tests he carried out using a hungry rat in a box. Food was put into a tray by an automatic dispenser which is operated by a lever. The rat learned when he hears the dispenser he has to press the lever to receive the food.

According to Eysenck (2002, p.101), the food in this case is a primary positive reinforcer. This basically means that the food is the stimuli or the reward that will be obtained once the action has been completed. Eysenck stated that we will repeatedly do things that result in rewards and that in our everyday lives our actions being continuously rewarded would almost never be the case.

Today in the area of social care, operant conditioning is used for example: to reward or praise a child for good behaviour or to punish a child for bad behaviour. In a working environment, operant conditioning can be used for example: to reward an employee by giving praise, promotions or a pay rise or it can also be used in the negative sense, to punish an employee for a number of different reasons such as not adhering to their employment contract in some way.

Reference List

Cherry. K, (2012), What is Operant Conditioning, [online], Available at: http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm [Accessed 4th December 2012].  

O’Brien. E, (2011), Psychology for Social Care, An Irish Perspective, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.

Eysenck. M.W, (2002), Simply Psychology, 2^nd Edition, UK: Psychology Press.


Burgemeester. A, (2011), What is Psychology?, [online], Available at: http://whatispsychology.net/operant-conditioning-examples-in-everyday-life/  [Accessed 7th December 2012].