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1.4 Operant Conditioning 7

VetBooks.ir psychoanalysis, saying that, ‘When they physiology departments. Each department
assumed the other was supervising Skinner,
[Freudians] come to analyse [Little] Albert’s
fear of a [white] seal skin coat, assuming that
Skinner had the freedom to do whatever he
he [Little Albert] comes to analysis at that age, which wasn’t the case. Without supervision,
[Freudians] will probably tease him on the wanted! One of the first things he did was build
recital of a dream which upon their analysis new equipment. Skinner found Thorndike’s
will show that Albert at three years of age experimental setup to be lacking, because the
attempted to play with the pubic hair of the researcher had to place the cat in the puzzle box
mother and was scolded violently for it’ (p. after every trial. To fix this flaw, Skinner invented
14). Clearly, Watson believed behaviour could the Skinner box, or operant chamber. The oper­
be better explained by ones environment and ant chamber contained a bar or key that the ani­
the consequences encountered during his life­ mal pressed to obtain food. Food was delivered
time and not on unconscious thoughts. by a dispenser called a hopper and a light sig­
Almost every semester, my students would nalled the start of an experiment. Data from in
ask me where Little Albert is today, and whether the operant chamber were collected electroni­
he’s still afraid of white rats. Finally, in 2010, I cally on a cumulative record. This recorded
was able to answer. Beck et al. (2009) searched every response the animal made as an upward
medical records and historical documents and movement on a horizontally moving line. This
worked with facial recognition experts for record allowed Skinner to collect data on the
seven years, finally finding a baby and mother effects of contingencies and on the subject’s rate
that matched Little Albert. The puzzle pieces of responding. With this new equipment,
lead them to a boy named Douglas (not Albert) Skinner showed that the rate of responding
Merritte. Sadly, we will never know if Little depended on what followed the bar press and
Douglas is still scared of rats because he died at not what preceded it. This differed from the
the age of six from hydrocephalus. original work of Watson and Pavlov.
Nowadays classical conditioning is regularly To further distinguish his findings from
discussed when training zoo‐housed animals, Pavlov’s classical conditioning, Skinner coined
often when a clicker is involved. If you are an the term operant conditioning (also known as
animal trainer, then you may wonder why I instrumental conditioning). Skinner used
don’t discuss clickers in this section. For those ‘operant conditioning’ to refer to how an
non‐animal trainers, Clickers are hand‐held organism operates on the environment. In
devices that, when pressed, make a clicking other words, according to Skinner, an animal’s
sound. Clickers and similar devices (like whis­ own behaviour can cause events in the envi­
tles) are discussed by animal trainers as condi­ ronment. For example, if the key is turned
tioned reinforces, because they are paired then the car starts; if the tail is pulled then the
with food. However, this has recently been dog bites; if the target is touched then food is
questioned (see Dorey & Cox 2018 for a dis­ delivered; if a leash is pulled then the dog is
cussion on the topic) and more research needs choked; if the electric fence is touched then
to be conducted to make this claim. the animal is shocked. Unlike classical condi­
tioning, operant conditioning involves the
consequence occurring only if the animal
1.4 Operant Conditioning engages in a particular behaviour, making the
behaviour more likely to occur in the future.
Watson, Pavlov and Thorndike set the tone
for future research in animal behaviour. They 1.4.1 Reinforcement and Punishment
were major influences on our next scientist,
B.F. Skinner. Although Pavlov originally coined the term
As a graduate student at Harvard University, reinforcement to describe the strengthening
Skinner worked in both the psychology and the of the association between an unconditioned