Our lady of Fatima University
Lagro, Quezon City
Impartial Fulfillment on a Subject
HRM4 Front Office Management
A research paper on Operant System
Presented to:
Mrs. Sheryl Salazar
Faculty College Hospitality Management
Name:Mark Darren N. Ruiz
CYS:BSHRM2A1-4
Date:September 22, 2009
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Introduction
The behavior of all animals, from protists to humans, is guided by its consequences. The bacterium finds its way, somewhat inefficiently, up a chemical gradient; the dog begs for a bone; the politician reads the polls to guide his campaign. Operant conditioning is goal-oriented behavior like this.
These examples are instances of ontogenetic selection, that is guidance by consequences during the life of the individual. Other names for ontogenetic selection are instrumental or operant (B. F. Skinner’s term) conditioning.
Closely related to, and often thought to be a component of, operant conditioning is classical or Pavlovian conditioning. The prototypical example of Pavlovian conditioning is of course Pavlov and his dogs. In Pavlovian conditioning, the repeated pairing of a stimulus such as Pavlov's bell to an affectively important event like the receipt of food, leads to the anticipatory elicitation of what is termed a conditioned response, such as salivation, when the bell is sounded. Unlike operant conditioning, in classical conditioning no response is required to get the food.
The distinction between Pavlovian and operant conditioning therefore rests on whether the animal only observes the relationships between events in the world (in Pavlovian conditioning), or whether it also has some control over their occurrence (in operant conditioning). Operationally, in the latter outcomes such as food or shocks are contingent on the animal's behavior, whereas in the former these occur regardless of the animal's actions. However, the distinction between these two paradigms is more than technical -- in Pavlovian conditioning, changes in behavior presumably reflect innately specified reactions to the prediction of the outcomes, while operant learning is at least potentially about maximizing rewards and minimizing punishment. Consequently, Pavlovian and operant conditioning can differ in the behaviors they produce, their underlying learning processes, and the role of reinforcement in establishing conditioned behavior. The scientific study of operant conditioning is thus an inquiry into perhaps the most fundamental form of decision-making. It is this capacity to select actions that influence the environment to one’s subjective benefit, that marks intelligent organisms.
There is also phylogenetic selection – selection during the evolution of the species. Darwin’s natural selection is an example and behavior so evolved is often called reflexive or instinctive. Much reproductive and agonistic (aggressive/defensive) behavior is of this sort. It emerges full-blown as the animal matures and may be relatively insensitive to immediate consequences. Even humans (who should know better!) are motivated to sexual activity by immediate gratification, not the prospect of progeny, which is the evolutionary basis for it all.
The selecting consequences that guide operant conditioning are of two kinds: behavior-enhancing (reinforcers) and behavior-suppressing (punishers), the carrot and the stick, tools of parents, teachers – and rulers – since humanity began. When the dog learns a trick for which he gets a treat, he is said to be positively reinforced. If a rat learns to avoid an electric shock by pressing a lever, he is negatively reinforced. There is often ambiguity about negative reinforcement, which is sometimes confused with punishment – which is what happens when the dog learns not to get on the couch if he is smacked for it. In general, a consequence is called a reinforcer if it strengthens the behavior that led to it, and it is a punisher if it weakens that behavior.
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Review of Literature
An outline is given of the use of operant conditioning techniques in the study of the behavior of farm animals. Using operant methods, pigs and sheep placed in cold environments have been trained to perform simple responses in order to obtain radiant heat. Factors which influence this behavior such as level of nutrition, ambient temperature and the intensity of the radiant heat have been examined. The effect of warming or cooling the hypothalamus on the motivation to work for heat production has been studied. Experiments are also described in which, using operant methods, an attempt has been made to determine the illumination preferences of pigs and ruminants.
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Conclusion
Differential rearing environments affect a number of behaviors displayed by rats in adulthood. For example, rats reared in an impoverished condition (IC; reared alone in hanging metal cages), social condition (SC; reared in standard shoebox cages, 2 per cage), or enriched condition (EC; reared in a large metal cage with bedding, 14 novel objects, and 10 cohorts) display clear differences in the amount of drug they consume and/or self-administer through operant responding. Animals reared in an EC consume greater amounts of ethanol compared with rats reared in an IC when provided free access, but it is not known how differential rearing conditions affect operant responding for ethanol. METHODS: Twenty-eight male Long-Evans rats were reared in 1 of 3 environments (IC, SC, or EC) during postnatal days 21 to 111. At the conclusion of the rearing period, all rats underwent sucrose/ethanol fading and then were tested for lever press responding for 10% ethanol as well as ethanol preference. RESULTS: Rats reared in an IC responded for 10% ethanol at significantly higher rates than SC and EC rats. A greater percentage of IC rats were able to switch lever responding when the ethanol availability was changed to a second lever. Lastly, the IC group was the only one to display a clear preference for 10% ethanol when both this fluid and water were available. CONCLUSION: Rats reared in an IC show greater proclivity to respond operantly for 10% ethanol compared with rats raised in either SC or EC (which did not differ from each other). These findings agree with a number of studies that have shown isolate reared animals to consume greater amounts of ethanol compared with their socially reared counterparts yet contrast some studies showing EC animals consume greater amounts of ethanol than IC rats. The current findings illustrate that rearing environment also plays an important role in an animal's proclivity to respond for ethanol.
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Reaction
Authors frequently refer to gene-based selection in biological evolution, the reaction of the immune system to antigens and operant learning as exemplifying selection processes in the same sense of this term. However, as obvious as this claim may seem on the surface, setting out an account of "selection" that is general enough to incorporate all three of these processes without becoming so general as to be vacuous is far from easy. In this target article, we set out such a general account of selection to see how well it accommodates these very different sorts of selection. The three fundamental elements of this account are replication, variation and environmental interaction. For selection to occur, these three processes must be related in a very specific way. In particular, replication must alternate with environmental interaction so that any changes that occur in replication are passed on differentially because of environmental interaction. One of the main differences among the three sorts of selection that we investigate concerns the role of organisms. In traditional biological evolution, organisms play a central role with respect to environmental interaction. Although environmental interaction can occur at other levels of the organizational hierarchy, organisms are the primary focus of environmental interaction. In the functioning of the immune system, organisms function as containers. The interactions that result in selection of antibodies during a lifetime are between entities (antibodies and antigens) contained within the organism. Resulting changes in the immune system of one organism are not passed on to later organisms. Nor are changes in operant behavior resulting from behavioral selection passed on to later organisms. But operant behavior is not contained in the organism because most of the interactions that lead to differential replication include parts of the world outside the organism. Changes in the organism's nervous system are the effects of those interactions. The role of genes also varies in these three systems. Biological evolution is gene-based (i.e., genes are the primary replicators). Genes play very different roles in operant behavior and the immune system. However, in all three systems, iteration is central. All three selection processes are also incredibly wasteful and inefficient. They can generate complexity and novelty primarily because they are so wasteful and inefficient.
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references/bibliograpy
page 1:Title The Operant System/page2 :A.introduction of Operant System/page3:B. Review of literature of Operant System/page4:C. Conclusion of Operant System/page5:D. Reaction
