Free Essay. Contingencies of Punishment That May Interfere With the Acquisition of New Skills

Learning is a relatively permanent change to the human mind and behavior. The acquisition of new skills provides the individuals with an opportunity to acquire new skills to survive the expected milestones, and they get to keep the skills they learn for the next time face the same challenges. Therefore, the individual's memory capacity will determine their ability to hold the learned skills for a longer or shorter period (Bandura & Walters, 1977). As people interact with and in the environment, some events promote their behaviors while others demote their use, depending on the environment's reaction to their actions. The responses of the individual's environment to their practices will inform them of the environment's required behavior. Therefore the individuals' subsequent interaction will be guided by the previous reaction received from the environment.

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Behaviors are not limited to actions only; they include physical processes as well as high-order cognitive functions of the individuals that help in informing the individuals' behaviors and process of analyzing the situations at hand, as well as analyzing the environment's previous reactions to a similar situation that they had faced.

Therefore, behaviors can be defined as anything that people do in their environment, both physically and mentally. Additionally, when there is sufficient information provided about the individual's previous reactions to similar processes, it is possible to predict their expected responses to the situations at hand, if all the other things are held constant (Bandura & Walters, 1977).

An individual's biological make-up is also unique to individuals, and this unique make-ups contribute to the foundation of their basic expected reactions to the environment's interactions. The phylogeny level of an individual's species is responsible for their behaviors, reflexes, and specific patterns of response and behavior pertaining to the environments in which they find themselves. On the other hand, ontogenetic learning occurs when learning is passed to individuals throughout their lifetime.

Learning is affected by two factors, that is, the learning process itself as well as the conditioning that occurs within the context of the situation at hand as well as the cognitive response to the previous interactions with the same environments. When the subject's cognitive processes are brought into question in an environmental setting, their mental processes try to associate the events at hand with previous experiences, and their reactions to their behaviors will advise their behaviors in the particular experience at hand.

Secondly, if there are no past experiences of similar events, the individual in question will try to arrange consequences from similar or related situations and therefore get an idea of the expected result and reaction from the situation at hand. Respondent conditioning is the process through which responses of an individual are controlled by the stimuli that control behavior through their relationship in previous experiences, with positive reactions from the previous interactions allowing the individual to repeat the past actions or reactions, and adverse reactions from the earlier experiences leading to the individual's possibility of shunning their previous responses or actions (Bandura & Walters, 1977).

On the other hand, the likelihood of an individual deciding on the course of action in a specific setting is determined by the association of their decisions to the consequences that will follow their course of action, and this is achieved through the process of operant conditioning. Learning can be a product of the natural relationship of the individual with their environment, or through contingencies that are arranged intentionally by either the individuals themselves or third parties that are interested in their learning processes. When learning occurs through the latter process, it is advised that an effort be made towards the transference of stimuli to the naturally-occurring contingencies available in the environment in an attempt to promote the generalization of behaviors and the learning that occurs, as well as the maintenance of the behaviors presented by the individuals.

Respondent Conditioning

Respondent conditioning, also known as the Pavlovian learning model, is research undertaken by Ivan Pavlov. He was successful in explaining the respondent conditioning process through conditioning his dogs to salivate, without necessarily seeing the food that he had been using as a reinforcement. This learning process helps individuals or subjects subconsciously associate events with the expected outcomes.

Therefore their stimuli are produced when they find themselves in similar situations in future engagements (Todes, 2000). The learning process is also known as the classical conditioning process. It helps distinguish it from the operant conditioning process and identify its unique methods used in producing expected behavior in the subjects.

There are three processes involved in respondent conditioning. First, a stimulus that is unconditioned by the environment or the subject elicits an unconditioned reaction from the respondent. These unconditioned behaviors and reactions when in a specific situation are known as reflexes, whereby the individual's innate responses come into play when they experience particular settings.

Reflexes are present in individuals from birth, and they are not taught how or when to use them; therefore, they are known as unconditioned responses (Poling & Braatz, 2001). The stimuli that lead to the reactions can be objects, people, or occurring events that will determine their behaviors or responses to the setting. On the other hand, elicitation is the process through which stimuli affect an individual's behavior without them necessarily initiating the responses. Therefore, the process of elicitation is automatic, and the individuals have no control over the reactions.

Stimuli have a significant influence on the respondent's conditioning. Therefore it is correct to conclude that stimuli control responses in an individual in the environments that they find themselves in. Incentives have varying frequencies of control, and they, therefore, initiate different reactions of varying degrees of impact, whether voluntarily or involuntarily from the subject. Stimuli control, that is, the likeliness of stimuli to cause a result, is a controlling factor and a determinant of how long the learned behavior will stay with the individual, with more potent stimuli leading to longer memories, and weaker ones leading to shorter spans of memory retention.

The second process of respondent conditioning is when neutral and unconditioned stimuli are combined to elicit responses that are not conditioned by the subject or the enforcing environment. Apart from the innate reflexes that the subjects have from birth, stimulus events may not necessarily have significance or relevance to the situation that the individuals find themselves in coming into control.

They lead to the elicitation of responses from previous experiences by combining the new stimuli, which are unknown with the known and unconditioned stimuli to arrive at the expected endpoints. For such combinations to be successful, there need to be continuous trials to ensure that the subject gets to associate the environments with the stimuli that will be used to elicit the expected responses. If the relationship and association of the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned response is healthy, then there will be no need for more intense or extended periods of tests or trials, since learning will be considered to have occurred (Todes, 2000). The order in which stimuli are presented to the subject will affect their learning activity, with the learning party forming a process of linking which may affect the whole idea if they find themselves in situations that has the order warped or presented in a different order, thus needing them to take more time to adapt to the environments that they are in. Backward conditioning occurs when the unconditioned stimulus is presented to the subject before the neutral stimulus.

This conditioning is ineffective in the transfer of stimulus from the unconditioned stimuli to the neutral one. Therefore, it is common and advised that there be short delays between the time that neutral stimuli are presented to the subjects and when the unconditioned stimuli are presented. Overlapping presentations are the most effective in providing a strong association between the two stimuli, and the association helps in the transfer of the unconditioned stimuli to the neutral stimulus for the expected reactions.

After a successful transfer of stimuli from unconditioned stimuli to neutral stimuli, the neutral stimuli are renamed to conditioned stimuli because of their loss of power to elicit independent responses. The incentives are renamed again in the final phase of the process, being named the conditioned response, as a way of pointing out to the source of the stimuli, that is, the conditioned stimulus. It should, however, be noted that although the terms change and also the introduction of different terms as the process occurs, there are only two stimuli present in the process, with the change in names providing the source from which the control of the behavior has come from (Poling & Braatz, 2001).

Initial associations that individuals establish through the association of relationships and reflexes are known as first-order conditioning, whereby stimuli elicit automatic responses to the situation at hand. Stimuli that directly affect the individuals are considered in the events of the first-order conditioning process, such as the sights, sounds, or scents that the subject experiences. More complex means of association of conditioned stimuli with the neutral stimuli available in the environment that the subject finds themselves in through a process known as higher-order conditioning or second-order conditioning. Through this process, events and reactions such as desensitization bring forth new responses and associations which affect the reflexive responses, as in the case of phobias.

Operant Conditioning

In operant conditioning, the subject's behaviors and responses operate on and are directly influenced by the environment in which they operate. Therefore, there are specific stimuli found in particular environments that come in handy in responding to particular occasions or settings, which in turn leads to the production of particular stimuli and effects. The incentives that exist before a behavior are known as antecedents, and they may be learned from previous experiences or the innate behaviors that the individuals have in them.

The antecedent behaviors are regulated by the stimuli responsible for the setting of occasions and invoking actions that they consider appropriate for a given situation (McLeod, 2015). Antecedents are strengthened through their ability to evoke responses that are deemed acceptable to both the subject and the environment in which they find themselves. When the reactions that the subjects receive are adverse, then the antecedents are phased out slowly by the subject, either consciously or unconsciously.

A consequence of the operant conditioning process is stimuli produce as a result of behavior, and they affect the possibility of action and the similar responses elucidated occurring in the same order as before. Positive consequences and responses increase the likeliness of the reaction in future interactions, while negative ones reduce the chances of the reaction being repeated in the future.