Classical and Operant Conditioning - Essay Example

ical and operant conditioning 28 February The two current behaviors that I wish to change are playing World of Warcraft and not exercising as often as I would have wanted. I am quite addicted to Warcraft, in my opinion, because I often play 4 hours during school days, or 8 or more hours during weekends. Because of this addiction, I sacrifice sleep and other extra-curricular activities, although I make sure that I do not sacrifice my studies by playing. Lately, however, I have been increasing my play hours and this is bothering me.

I want to decrease my hours of play to only 2 hours during school days and 3 hours during non-school days. As for exercising, I plan to change my nearly-sedentary lifestyle. I want to walk for an hour every morning. I know that walking will be good for my health and I will have more energy to do my everyday tasks and activities. Thus, my target behaviors are supposed to enhance my well-being, because they will improve my time management skills and overall health. Exercising demonstrates classical conditioning, because walking can be considered as an unconditioned response to the unconditioned stimulus of feeling heavy or weak.

Classical conditioning means that I will increase the probability of my target behavior through a neutral stimulus paired with a conditioned stimulus (Gould, n.d.). When I feel heavy or I lack physical strength, I am conditioned to exercise. For example, a few months ago, I felt that I was increasing in weight, so I enrolled in a gym, where I worked out for a month. The sight of my increasing weight had served as my unconditioned stimulus for the response of exercising (Brock, 2012). As for my target behavior, a “good” conditioned stimulus is to look at a picture of me that I have manipulated graphically to look heavy and unenergetic.

The conditioned stimulus will have a “predictive value” (Creem, 2001). This picture will condition me to feel depressed over my physical self, so I will be motivated to have the conditioned response of exercising. Another conditioned stimulus is to see my picture, where my head is placed on a better looking body. When looking at this conditioned stimulus, I will attain the conditioned response of exercising, because I will be motivated to reach this dream body image (Mayer, 2003). Playing games demonstrates operant conditioning, because I will be trying to increase the probability of a response (the conditioned response, CR) in the presence of some stimulus, and then following the response with a reinforcer (Sato, 2010).

The reinforcer should immediately follow the response to boost the frequency of behavior (Brock, 2012). For playing games, the primary reinforcer refers to a particular behavior that follows after a pleasant stimulus has been presented (Sato, 2010). For example, after playing games, I feel satisfied with my high score. This satisfaction becomes my primary reinforcer (Sato, 2010). Sometimes, I eat out when I get a high score, because I feel happy. This reinforces my love for the game. However, in altering this game addiction, the primary reinforcer is the need for more sleep or time for other activities and people.

The secondary reinforcer is a reward; I will reward myself with spending quality time with family or friends after spending fewer hours on online gaming. The primary punisher is feeling less tired when not playing games. The secondary punisher I will use is to ground myself at home if I play more than my target hours. My positive reinforcement is that I will have more happy times with my family and friends. My negative reinforcement is that when I play fewer hours on my games than usual, I will remove the negative stimulus of feeling sleepy and tired.

My society influences my behavior, because it introduces unconditioned stimuli for a wide range of unconditioned responses. For instance, the unconditioned stimulus could be seeing a computer or the Internet and the unconditioned response is playing online games. The media can also present conditioned stimuli, where advertisements aim to produce conditioned responses of particular behaviors, such as eating at McDonald’s, when one smells its food scents. My culture also affects my behavior, because it establishes the norms of what is acceptable positive or negative reinforcement.

In my culture, it is considered positive reinforcement to spend more time with family and friends. My culture also accepts the negative reinforcement of spending less time on leisure activities, if it will lead to achieving greater life goals. Thus, society affects the kinds of reinforcements and punishments that can help change or produce new behaviors. References Brock, S.E. (2012). Classical vs. operant conditioning. Retrieved from http://www.csus.edu/indiv/b/brocks/Courses/EDS%20240/EDS%20240%20Handouts/Operant%20Conditioning%20O_H%20&%20H_O.

pdf Creem, S. (2001, January 16). Classical and operant conditioning. Retrieved from http://www.psych.utah.edu/~sc4002/psych3120/3_Jan16.pdf Mayer, R.W. (2003). Module 2: Operant conditioning. The Nature of Learning. Retrieved from http://www.csus.edu/indiv/b/brocks/Courses/EDS%20240/EDS%20240%20Handouts/Operant%20Conditioning%20O_H%20&%20H_O.pdf Sato,T. (2010). Classical and operant conditioning. General Psychology. Retrieved from http://webspace.ship.edu/tosato/condit.htm Gould, J. (no date).

Conditioning: Operant versus classical. Retrieved from http://uwf.edu/jgould/ClassicalvsOperant.pdf