What is the definition of operantly conditioned mean? Or at least explain it to me.?

Answer 1

Operant conditioning is the modification of behaviour through the use of consequences (i.e., rewards and punishments).

Examples: You put a rat in cage. Every time it goes to one side of the cage you give it food. (positive reinforcement). It starts spending more time on that side of the cage.

You put a rat in a cage. Every time it goes to one side of the cage, you give it an electric shock. (punishment) It starts avoiding that side of the cage.

You put a rat in a cage. You pipe an irritating noise into the cage. Every time the rat goes to one side of the cage, you turn off the noise (negative reinforcement). The rat spends more time on that side of the cage.

It builds from there and can get fairly complicated - you can have positive and negative punishment, extinction, etc. But it's all variations on the theme of modifying behaviours through consequences.

Hope that helps make sense of it.

Answer 2

According to B.F. Skinner, contemporary behavior therapy can be understood by considering four major areas of development; Classical Conditioning, Operant conditioning, Social Learning Theory and Cognitive Behavior Therapy. I’ll give you some info on the two types of conditioning.

Classical conditioning refers to responsive behaviors to passive stimuli and occurs PRIOR to learning a desired effect. I.E. knee jerks or salivation. This is like the Pavlovian dog case where Ivan Pavlov conditioned a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell by pairing the bell with its food. Because the dog will salivate at the sight of food, it was conditioned to salivate to the sound of the bell because every time it was fed it heard the bell. This is not a permanent condition and will diminish if the two stimuli are not paired together continuously for reinforcement.

Operant conditioning refers to the type of learning in which behaviors are influenced mainly by the consequences that follow them. If the environmental changes brought about by the behavior are reinforcing, that is, if the provides some reward to the organism or alleviates adverse stimuli, the chances are increased that this behavior will occur again. Inversely, if there are no rewards or the actions bring about adverse stimuli, the chances that the behavior will be repeated diminish.

Basically, being operant conditioned means that you are being encouraged to repeat some desired behavior through a system of rewards. Or, that you are being conditioned to NOT repeat an undesired behavior through a system of punishment.

So, if you fumble a football and your coach makes you run 5 miles, you're clearly going to try and NOT fumble the football anymore. Or if you get straight A's on a report card and your parents extend your curfew, you're being conditioned to try and get straight A's
.

Answer 3

A definition is: Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behaviour.

It's basically just learning through punishment and reinforcement. If you're looking for a study based on operant conditioning look up 'Pavlov's Dogs'. Hope that helps.