Question

. Classify each of the following situations as involving either classical conditioning or operant conditioning. For each situation, defend your answer by analysing (explaining and interpreting) the situation within the context of the type of conditioning you have chosen.

a. A mother reminds her daughter Maggie to be quiet at the dinner table. Maggie stops talking, and her mother smiles at her.
. b. Amina's friend offers her an illegal drug. Amina takes the drug and finds that it makes her feel euphoric. Amina begins to buy the drug herself and takes it more and more frequently.
c. Remy is a bright, academically capable boy. Once, when he was sick, he failed an important test. Now he is very anxious whenever he takes a test.

Answer 1

A. A mother reminds her daughter Maggie to be quiet at the dinner table. Maggie stops talking, and her mother smiles at her.

Explanation: Above situation is an example of Operant Conditioning

Operant Conditioning :

Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for expected behavior. Through operant conditioning, an individual makes an association between a particular behavior and a consequence.

In given example, Maggie is a girl, whenever talks at the dinner table her mother gives her reminder and Maggieshe stops talking. As a reward for Maggies this behavior( stop talking at dinner table) her mother smiles at her. Maggie can make association between her mother's smile after being quiet at dinner table.

This shows, Maggies mother gives appreciation for expected response from Maggie. As a result, Maggie may develop habbit of quietly having a dinner. Maggie acquiring this learning from her mother with the method of operant conditiong.

B. Amina's friend offers her an illegal drug. Amina takes the drug and finds that it makes her feel euphoric. Amina begins to buy the drug herself and takes it more and more frequently.

Explanation: Operant Condtioning

In given example Anima's friend offers her an illegal drug and Anima found herself euphoric. Anima found taking drug as rewarding experience as she felf euphoric as a consequence. To have this consequence more frequently she started buying and taking drug more frequently. Here we can see Anima learned behavior because she started liking it's consequences, this is called as operant conditioning, a way of learning.

C. Remy is a bright, academically capable boy. Once, when he was sick, he failed an important test. Now he is very anxious whenever he takes a test.

Explanation: Operant Conditioning

In the given example, it is stated that Remy is a bright, academically capable boy. But once he was sick during an important test. For him being sick at the time of test was a kind of behavior and negative consequence of which was feelling sick. Through this association he learned a new pattern of behavior , that whenever he appears for a test he becomes anxious. This is the learning with the help of operant conditioning of beavior.