Differentiate Between Respondent and Operant Behavior with Examples

Essay

Differentiate between respondent and operant behavior with examples.
B.
F.Skinner drew an important distinction between two types of behavior: respondent and operant behavior.He labeled unlearned reflexes or stimulus-response (S-R)connections respondent behavior.This category of behavior was said to describe a very small proportion of adult human behavior,such as shedding tears while peeling onions and reflexively withdrawing one's hand from a hot stove.Skinner attached the label "operant behavior" to behavior that is learned when one "operates on" the environment to produce desired consequences.Some call this the response-stimulus (R-S)model.Years of controlled experiments with pigeons in "Skinner boxes" helped Skinner develop a sophisticated technology of behavior control,or operant conditioning.For example,he taught pigeons how to pace figure eights and how to bowl by reinforcing the underweight (and thus hungry)birds with food whenever they more closely approximated target behaviors.