| Operant conditioning has become a very influential area of psychology, because it has successfully provided practical solutions to many problems in human behavior. Operant principles discovered in the laboratory are now being employed to improve teaching techniques so that even slow or unmotivated students can learn faster and better.
Behavior modification is the application of operant conditioning techniques to modify behavior. It is being used to help people with a wide variety of everyday behavior problems, including obesity, smoking, alcoholism, delinquency, and aggression. For example, people with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa have been helped to gain weight, and animals such as primates have been trained to assist physically disabled individuals by feeding and caring for them. It has been successfully used in child rearing, in school systems, and in mental institutions. One example of a therapeutic use of behavior modification is the token economy method. A classic study was conducted in a mental hospital with psychiatric patients who had difficulty performing expected behaviors (Ayllon & Azrin, 1968). The researchers chose a number of simple grooming behaviors, including face washing, hair combing, teeth brushing, bed making, and dressing properly. The researchers first recorded baseline, or normally occurring, frequencies of the behaviors. Then they gave the patients a token every time the proper behavior was performed. The tokens could be exchanged for food and personal items at the hospital drugstore. The patients significantly increased the frequency of the desired behaviors when they were reinforced with tokens. It has even been suggested that the principles of operant conditioning can be used efficiently to control a society. B. F. Skinner, in his 1948 novel, Walden Two, presented a utopian society guided by operant conditioning principles. His 1971 book, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, caused a controversy by presenting his ideas on how operant conditioning could be utilized in an actual society. Although most people are not willing to accept Skinner's utopian ideal, the principles of operant conditioning are being applied in our everyday lives. |
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