operant conditioning

operant conditioning

n. Psychology

A process of behavior modification in which the likelihood of a specific behavior is increased or decreased through positive or negative reinforcement each time the behavior is exhibited, so that the subject comes to associate the pleasure or displeasure of the reinforcement with the behavior.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

operant conditioning - conditioning in which an operant response is brought under stimulus control by virtue of presenting reinforcement contingent upon the occurrence of the operant response conditioning - a learning process in which an organism's behavior becomes dependent on the occurrence of a stimulus in its environment instrumental conditioning - operant conditioning that pairs a response with a reinforcement in discrete trials; reinforcement occurs only after the response is given