Psych

In the article “’Superstition’ in the Pigeon” by B.F. Skinner, the main idea is that we use reinforcement following a response if we see that it benefits us in a positive way. We will often demonstrate actions considered to be reinforcement, which means that conditioning takes place even if we were unaware of the behavior of the organism that is making the presentation. This conditioning process is very simple to understand. When an organism performs and action and a beneficiary reward occurs by coincidence as that organism is demonstrating that action, the organism assumes that the action they performed triggered the reinforcement. Because of this, if the organism wants to experience the same reinforcement as before, they will repeat their actions that they performed previously so that they can get the same reward. In their mind, the actions that they performed were the reason why they were rewarded with a positive reinforcement. Sometimes, if the organism repeats the action and there is no reinforcement they will try again because they think that they will still be rewarded. Doing this strengthens the response and makes subsequent reinforcement more probable. Skinner did research and found that the interval of time in between the reinforcement was also a big factor when it came to how fast an organism could be conditioned. He found that the shorter the time interval, the speedier and more marked the conditioning. Having a longer interval of time between reinforcements wouldn’t be beneficial because then there is a greater amount of intervening responses that are emitted without reinforcement. If the organism continuously performs that actions necessary for the reinforcement over a long period of time and still nothing happens, then the conditioning can become “extinct” and the organism wont continue to try to receive any type of reward until they can become reconditioned again after periodic reinforcement. This theory can be seen as a superstition if you think...