operant conditioning: a standalone construct

B. F. Skinner coined the term operant conditioning in The Behavior of Organisms (1938) to name learning in which the frequency of a voluntary behavior is shaped by the consequences that follow it: consequences that make a behavior more likely are called reinforcement, and those that make it less likely are called punishment. The idea built on Edward Thorndike's earlier law of effect (1911), which held that actions followed by satisfying results tend to be repeated, but Skinner reframed the behavior as an operant that acts on the environment rather than a reflex triggered by a preceding stimulus, distinguishing it from the classical (Pavlovian) conditioning of involuntary responses. In Skinner's method the animal or person emits a behavior freely and the experimenter arranges the schedule on which reinforcement is delivered, so the same principles describe a rat pressing a lever, a pigeon pecking a key, or a student earning marks. The construct is distinctive as an account of how new voluntary behavior is acquired and maintained through its own results, and its schedules of reinforcement and shaping procedures gave psychology a precise, replicable framework that has carried into education, behavior therapy, animal training, and organizational behavior.[1][2][3]

Unit

A form of associative learning, one of the two major conditioning paradigms alongside classical conditioning

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Operationalised by measuring the rate or probability of a target response under specified reinforcement schedules, classically in the operant chamber (Skinner box) with cumulative response records