SHAPING BEHAVIOR WITH OPERANT CONDITIONING

Shaping Behavior with Operant Conditioning

Tommy Robinson
Salt Lake Community College

SHAPING BEHAVIOR WITH OPERANT CONDITIONING

2
Shaping Behavior with Operant Conditioning
Everyone is affected by anger in one way or another. Most people can easily tame their
anger so it does not cause too many issues. However, almost everyone has encountered a time
where they have almost lost control of their anger. Temper outbursts can have severe
consequences and may result in things such as criminal charges, broken families, and lost
friends. I have personally experienced severe temper outbursts and wanted to research further
into why they occur for me and how I can change this behavior.
When I was a child I always had a bit of a temper. I remember a number of incidents
where I would be thrown out of baseball games for losing control of my emotions. I have even
said hurtfull things to people I love from losing my temper. I knew that the behavior was
unacceptable. While growing up I seemed to get a bigger grasp on my ability to control my
anger. Throughout the rest of my childhood and my teenage years I rarely lost my temper.
However, recently my temper has seemed to awake from being dormant. Since about December
of 2015 I have encountered severe anger and temper outbreaks. I have recently decided that this
behavior is unacceptable and something needs to be changed to eliminate my anger once and for
all.
From March 11th 2016 to March 21st 2016 I decided to keep a journal. The journal
included things like consequences that came from the anger, steps I took to eliminate the anger,
and finally what exactly caused the anger. I knew that this certain week would be a great week to
do it because a huge amount of stress was going to be gone during that week due to spring break.
One of the most important aspects of my experiment was to include positive reinforcement and
other forms of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a form of association that links
someones actions to a different consequence. (Myers, 2014, P. 263) There are many different

SHAPING BEHAVIOR WITH OPERANT CONDITIONING

3
forms of consequences that are involved in operant conditioning. Reinforcement is known to
increase the frequency of a behavior while punishment decreases the frequency of a behavior.
(Myers, 2014, P.268) I decided to incorporate positive reinforcement into my experiment and
would reward myself every time I was able to control my anger and let it disappear. My
girlfriend helped me change the behavior and agreed to buy me a drink at my favorite store every
time I was able to effectively take control of my anger.
On March 11th I was very surprised that I did not have any anger issues that day. I usually
have at least one incident where I get upset even if I do not lose my temper, but on this day
nothing seemed to happen. I even considered addressing a different issue instead of the anger,
but I decided to keep the journal for a few more days to see what would happen. On Friday
March 12th I went into work and carried on with my normal duties. A few hours into the shift a
member of the gym that I work at started going off on me and called me names because his
payment was overdue and I would not let him use the facility. It took all that I had to not have an
outburst. However, the positive reinforcement was not what stopped me from having the
outburst. It was actually negative punishment that stopped me. I knew that if I were to get upset
that it could cost me my job. The next few days went by with little results. It was odd but my
next occurrence actually occurred at my job again on Wednesday March 16th. I had another
problem with a member and once again the positive reinforcement was the last thing on my
mind. It was only the negative punishment that kept me from having an outburst. I knew that I
would have lost my job if I lost my temper. On Friday March 18th I was just in a bad mood all
day from being at work. It seemed like I had a never ending amount of complaints and was not
enjoying my time there.

SHAPING BEHAVIOR WITH OPERANT CONDITIONING

4
Most of my anger seemed to be related to my job and the anger and outbursts in my
journal were non-existent on days that I had off. The most interesting thing was that the positive
reinforcement never once helped my anger and I actually went the whole 10 days without ever
getting a drink from addressing the anger in a positive way. The only reason I did not lose my
temper was from the negative punishment and the thought of losing my job.
Towards the end of the 10 day log I was surprised to find that my job was the source of
my anger. Stress is a common thing for everybody, but the amount of stress that I had was too
much for me to handle and caused me to have anger. I have recently decided to change jobs and
after the decision was made a huge amount of stress had been lifted. I have not really seen any
instances where I have lost my temper recently. I have used negative reinforcement. Negative
reinforcement strengthens behavior by removing something negative. (Myers, 2014, P. 265) I
would have never realized that using negative reinforcement could help so much with my anger.
I now have a healthy amount of stress in my life.
Through this experiment and this 10 day journal I have learned a lot about Operant
conditioning. B. F. Skinner believed that external influences were needed to shape behavior.
(Myers, 2014, P. 270) I agree completely with this statement. I do not think it is possible to
change a behavior without some sort of reinforcement or punishment. Through the journal I was
able to control my anger with negative punishment and eventually eliminate it with negative
reinforcement. I now realize that it is essential to use reinforcement and punishment if someone
is really trying to shape a certain behavior. No behavior can just be changed without any form of
consequence. Through my experiment I was able to use operational condition to its fullest and
eventually change my behavior. The most interesting part was that I had never planned on using
negative reinforcement or negative punishment in the experiment. Both of them seemed to

SHAPING BEHAVIOR WITH OPERANT CONDITIONING

5
present themselves after logging certain events in the journal. If I have a similar or different issue
in the future I now know that using the different methods of operant conditioning are crucial for
changing a certain behavior. I would also recommend using the different types of reinforcement
and punishment to anyone else trying to shape a behavior. Negative punishment and negative
reinforcement worked the best for me. However, the different types of operational conditioning
might have diverse effects on other people.

SHAPING BEHAVIOR WITH OPERANT CONDITIONING

6
References
Myers, David G. (2014). Exploring Psychology in Modules with Updates on DSM-5. New York:
NY: Worth Publishing. ISBN: 9781464163425