Operant conditioning is a theory that explains how behaviors are influenced by their consequences or results. It’s often used today to help people adopt new behaviors or change old habits.
If you’ve ever been to see a health coach or counselor to stop smoking or lose weight, or tried to train your dog to sit, then you’ve likely practiced operant conditioning in some way.
This theory of behavior and learning proposes that if you are “rewarded” after a behavior, you will do that behavior more, and if you are “punished” after a behavior, you will do it less or stop doing it altogether.
The idea of operant conditioning helps explain why people do the things they do and how individuals may be influenced to do something different.
Researchers began exploring the notion of measuring behavior and behavior change as the basis and core of psychology in the 1800s, but it wasn’t until 1937 that B.F. Skinner created the term “operant conditioning” and popularized it as a primary theory about behavior and motivation.
Read on to learn more about operant conditioning, what it means, and how it might help you make changes in your behavior.
Operant conditioning, also called instrument conditioning or behavior modification, is the idea that all behavior is learned and that the learning is based on a system of reinforcement.
Simply put, when you experience a pleasant result (reward), you are motivated to do a behavior again. When you experience an unpleasant result (punishment), you are motivated not to do that behavior again or to do less of it.
In the context of operant conditioning, the term “punishment” means an unpleasant experience. This may range from getting a social response that feels embarrassing, like unexpected laughter, to things like the beep in your car if you forget to buckle your seatbelt or feeling physically ill if you eat too much at a meal.
The key concepts of operant conditioning involve the idea that the type of reinforcement and how often it occurs will affect how an individual responds to conditioning.
It’s important to understand a few basic terms used in operant conditioning. They are words you likely know the usual or common meaning of, but they have different meanings in this context. For example, “positive” and “negative” don’t refer to something that’s good or bad when used to describe operant conditioning.
Here are common terms used in operant conditioning:
- Positive: when something is added to a situation
- Negative: when something is removed from a situation
- Reward: something pleasant
- Punishment: something unpleasant
- Reinforcement: when a behavior is strengthened or more likely to occur because of a repeated consequence of that behavior (for example, when a child does assigned chores and gets an allowance)
- Primary reinforcers: activities, items, or states of being that people (and animals) naturally enjoy, like food, comfort, and sexual pleasure
- Secondary reinforcers: things that have meaning or value because of their association with primary reinforcers (for example, money, which is just paper or metal but becomes motivating because you can use it to acquire primary reinforcers like food or shelter)
- Extinction: when a behavior stops because there is no longer a reinforcement (for example, if a child stops doing assigned chores when they no longer get an allowance)
In operant conditioning, there are four primary ways to change behavior. They are based on the addition or removal of reinforcers (rewards or punishment).
These four types include:
- Positive reinforcement: Positive reinforcement means adding something positive to cause more of a desired behavior.
- Negative reinforcement: Negative reinforcement involves removing something unpleasant to cause more of a desired behavior.
- Positive punishment: Positive punishment has to do with adding something negative to cause a decrease in undesirable behavior.
- Negative punishment: Negative punishment refers to removing something positive to decrease undesirable behavior.
A key component of operant conditioning is determining when and how often to reinforce the behavior that needs to be changed. This is where reinforcement schedules come in.
Reinforcement planning
When and how often reinforcement occurs can affect its effectiveness at changing behavior. Four factors help determine how strongly an individual responds to reinforcement, which can help determine the reinforcement schedule.
These factors include:
- Accuracy: How well did the reinforcer produce the desired behavior?
- Duration: How long did the response last?
- Frequency: How often did the desired response happen?
- Persistence: Did the desired response continue to happen?
Reinforcement schedules
Starting a reinforcer is part of the planning and strategy of operant conditioning.
When learning starts, reinforcement is usually continuous — every time a behavior you want to happen or you want to change occurs, a reinforcement is introduced. For example, if you’re potty training a child, you would reward them every time they use the toilet.
Once the child is using the toilet all the time, you can change how reinforcement is used by giving rewards intermittently (some of the time). This is called a partial schedule.
Here are four types of partial reinforcement:
- Fixed-interval schedules: providing reinforcement for behavior after a predetermined amount of time following the display of the desired behavior
- Fixed-ratio schedules: providing reinforcement for a behavior when the desired behavior has occurred a predetermined number of times
- Variable-interval schedules: providing reinforcement for a behavior if the behavior happens after a random or undetermined amount of time has passed
- Variable-ratio schedules: providing reinforcement for a behavior after a random or undetermined number of times the desired behavior occurs
Operant conditioning is the foundation for many types of parenting training, behavior in the classroom, pet training, motivation in work settings, and much more. It can be highly effective, especially when positive reinforcement is used.
Operant conditioning is used in counseling, behavior modification, health coaching, and many other health and mental health settings.
Examples of operant conditioning
| Humans | Animals | |
|---|---|---|
| Positive reinforcement | awarding quarterly bonus payments to employees for high performance like high sales or production | providing a treat to your parrot if they climb up on your finger when you say “step up” |
| Negative reinforcement | putting on your seatbelt to stop the beeping in your car | a trained sheepdog backing off pressure (barking, eye contact, moving toward the sheep) when a stray sheep moves back toward the herd or moves in the desired direction |
| Positive punishment | awarding quarterly bonus payments to employees for high performance, like high sales or production | spritzing a cat with water when they jump on a countertop |
| Negative punishment | •taking away a child’s favorite toy until they quit having a tantrum •grounding a teen until they stop cutting classes at school | turning away and ignoring your dog until they stop barking |
While operant conditioning can be used to create positive, ethical, and beneficial behavior change, if misused or used improperly, it has the potential to be abusive and cause long lasting harm. A few ethical concerns of using operant conditioning techniques include:
- They have the potential to cause trauma, abuse, and harm through the use of punishment.
- Operant conditioning relies too heavily on behavior change and doesn’t address the emotional complexity and needs of individuals.
- This technique may affect motivation by limiting the development, understanding, and appreciation of intrinsic value, which means doing something for the value of doing it rather than the reward you may get.
- There is a significant risk of unintentional consequences. It’s impossible to know how using operant conditioning techniques on individuals may affect them long term.
- Operant conditioning doesn’t account for individual differences and uniqueness, and it cannot be generalized to everyone in every situation.
- Children, individuals with disabilities, neurodivergent individuals, and those with unique or challenging behaviors may be abused if the techniques of operant conditioning are intentionally or unintentionally misused or used unethically.
Professionals who use operant conditioning or behavior modification are generally well-trained and work hard to ensure that operant conditioning and other treatment methods are beneficial.
Many professional organizations have developed codes of ethics for mental health professionals, behavioral analysts, and other healthcare professionals who use operant conditioning and other behavior modification methods when working with individuals and groups.
When practiced ethically, behavior modification based on operant conditioning can be highly effective and helpful.
Operant conditioning is one theory of human behavior and how to change it. The theory is based on the idea that people continue doing things that bring them rewards and stop doing things that do not.
It can be a highly effective way to help people make lifestyle and health changes and learn new skills. Developed in the 1940s, it still influences psychology, behavior change, and learning today.
Operant conditioning uses “rewards” and “punishments” — aka pleasant or unpleasant consequences — to increase desirable behaviors and decrease undesirable ones. It can be highly effective.
Professionals from many fields use ideas and methods from this theory to help people. You can talk with a mental health or healthcare professional about whether these methods may be appropriate and helpful for your situation.