Journal Topic 2: How Did Your Parents Do? Think back to when you were growing up

Question

Journal Topic 2: How Did Your Parents Do?

Think back to when you were growing up. As a child, your parents attempted to motivate you to do certain things: clean your room, get good grades, etc. For this journal entry, choose two behaviors that your parents attempted to modify or promote and discuss the ways that your parents tried to motivate you. Relate your parents’ attempts to learning theory, discussed in this chapter, and determine why they succeeded or failed. Provide proper APA citations to your textbook and any additional sources you discovered.

Explanation / Answer

Learning is a process that involves modifying a certain behaviour. As a kid, while growing up, I always conformed to whatever my parents said because I knew that 'good' behaviour would be rewarded and 'bad' behaviour would be punished. By punishment I do not mean that I got beaten up. My parents were lenient. However, if I exhibited an undesirable behaviour, I simply lost the privilege of indulging in activities that are fun to me. For example, if I hit my younger brother, mom would not only put me on time-out but also, she wouldn't take me to the park to play because I hit my brother. She did that a couple of times, and I eventually learnt that my privileges would be taken away if I continued to exhibit the same behaviour. This is a form of Operant conditioning- Negative Punishment.

One of the other things that my parents did to me while growing up was, baiting me into finishing food. I mostly wasted food as a kid. My mother would tell me that I would get a 'treat' if I finished my food. I never knew what my treat was before finishing, but it made me finish all my food due to the curiosity of knowing what my 'treat' would be like. My mother was smart, she started off with a small hard candy, and each day the treat would be more enticing than before. In the greed to unveil the treat after the next meal, I would always finish my food. This is the Premack principle. A more preferred activity was used to reinforce an otherwise less preferred activity.

Note: we do not provide citations as we don't copy material from the internet. It is purely subjective.

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