It is late and 3-year-old Betty is alone in her room. Her parents had just put h

Question

It is late and 3-year-old Betty is alone in her room. Her parents had just put her to bed not 10 minutes earlier. Her parents are quietly watching television downstairs. Betty begins to cry and after a short time the crying turns into more screaming than crying. Her parents hear her crying and screaming and run up to her room to see what is the matter. Her mother holds Betty in her arms and tells her she is alright. She stops after a few minutes, but when her parents leave her room, she starts crying again. Her father thought that it may be good to bring her down with them and let her lay on the couch while they watch television. Betty is quiet for the rest of the evening, falling asleep on the couch. Betty continues to cry each night for a week and each time her parents take her down to the living room with them until they go to bed or when she falls asleep. Betty's parents are concerned that she will be unable to sleep in her room anymore. Learning (i.e., operant conditioning) has taken place for Betty and her parents.

Explain how learning has taken place.

If Betty's parents asked you for advice (in operant conditioning terms) on how to get Betty to stay in her room and not cry, what would you tell them?

Explanation / Answer

Learning process in operant conditioning is influenced by reinforcements and punishments. According to operant conditioning theory, individual's behavior and responses depend on previous experiences. In operant conditioning, we have reinforcements (positive and negative) which actually encourage particular behavior in individual and punishment (positive and negative) which reduces particular behavior or response in individual.

Let us consider Betty's case. Betty is conditioned as when she cries and screams she will get pampering from parents and also can avoid sleeping alone. Here, at first, Betty may be afraid of sleeping alone and this has caused fear in her, resulting in crying. This crying action of Betty resulted in favorable consequence of pampering by parents (positive reinforcement) as well as avoidance of sleeping alone (negative reinforcement). By these reinforcement, Betty learns whenever she needs pampering and avoid seclusion, she just needs to cry or scream.

Betty's parents also conditioned in this event. Here, parents learn to stop or avoid crying and screaming noise from Betty by taking Betty with them and pampering her. Here pampering their kid while watching television will avoid bad experience of disturbance from Betty's screaming (negative reinforcement).

Now to reduce this behavior and make Betty sleep alone comfortably, consider some operant conditioning techniques:

(i) New positive reinforcement for Betty. Betty may be given appreciation as "brave girl" or "strong baby" whenever she sleeps alone without crying. This will break old learning and Betty may acquaint with new conditioned response. Even offering some good comic books or cookies as reward for sleeping alone will serve as positive reinforcement.

(ii) Negative reinforcement for Betty. Root cause of Betty's crying while sleeping in room may be absence of bed lamp or some scary object near bed. If these unpleasant things removed, then Betty may not have any issue sleeping alone without any fear.

(iii) Negative punishment for Betty. If Betty is not consolable from reinforcement, then can try some negative punishment like saying "no chocolate for crying baby" or "comics only for brave kids." This sense of losing pleasant experience may cause Betty sleep quiet alone at night.

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