Khan Academy Operant Conditioning Questions

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Coltuna

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Hello all,

I've never had problems with operant conditioning; however, I've missed 2 questions from Khan now pertaining to operant conditioning. One has to do with a patient finding relief from pain due to acupuncture and deciding to continue acupuncture as a result.

I thought this was an example of positive punishment because acupuncture is being added in order to decrease pain; however they say negative reinforcement because pain is being removed and she decides to keep going to acupuncture. How do I keep these sorts of questions straight? By definition, do the (reinforcement/punishment) always refer to a specific BEHAVIOR of a person as opposed to just anything that can decrease or increase such as pain?

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Whenever you see the word relief it's probably gonna mean negative. Negative means the removal of a stimulus, positive means the addition of a stimulus. Reinforcement is to train the subject to continue the behavior, punishment is to stop the behavior.
 
Basically,

Positive punishment: addition of a stimulus to decrease a behavior. So if you pick your nose during the mcat ur proctors gonna call u out for being gross. The reprimand is positive punishment.

Negative punishment: removal of a stimulus to decrease a behavior. Every time sparky eats one of ur flip flops, he doesn't get any of his favorite Scooby snacks for a week. Ur taking the Scooby snacks away

Positive reinforcement: addition of a stimulus to encourage a behavior. When little jimmy ties his shoelaces really good then everyone's gonna tell him what a bright little gem he is. The praise is the positive reinforcement

Negative reinforcement: taking away a stimulus to encourage a behavior. like the example above
 
Why couldn't the answer to my above problem be positive reinforcement then? You're adding acupuncture in o
Basically,

Positive punishment: addition of a stimulus to decrease a behavior. So if you pick your nose during the mcat ur proctors gonna call u out for being gross. The reprimand is positive punishment.

Negative punishment: removal of a stimulus to decrease a behavior. Every time sparky eats one of ur flip flops, he doesn't get any of his favorite Scooby snacks for a week. Ur taking the Scooby snacks away

Positive reinforcement: addition of a stimulus to encourage a behavior. When little jimmy ties his shoelaces really good then everyone's gonna tell him what a bright little gem he is. The praise is the positive reinforcement

Negative reinforcement: taking away a stimulus to encourage a behavior. like the example above
So why couldn't the answer be positive reinforcement? A stimulus is added (acupuncture) in order to increase a behavior (going to acupuncture more). What would cue me to view pain as the stimulus and not the addition of acupuncture?
 
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Why couldn't the answer to my above problem be positive reinforcement then? You're adding acupuncture in o

So why couldn't the answer be positive reinforcement? A stimulus is added (acupuncture) in order to increase a behavior (going to acupuncture more). What would cue me to view pain as the stimulus and not the addition of acupuncture?

The word relief is the giveaway. The stimulus is not the accupuncture. What the accupuncture does is it takes away your pain. THATS the part that makes you want to come back. Without the removal of the pain, accupuncture wouldn't make you want to keep coming back. The removal of the pain is the stimulus that reinforces
 
The word relief is the giveaway. The stimulus is not the accupuncture. What the accupuncture does is it takes away your pain. THATS the part that makes you want to come back. Without the removal of the pain, accupuncture wouldn't make you want to keep coming back. The removal of the pain is the stimulus that reinforces
Makes sense! Thanks a lot!
 
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