What Life Event Had The Most Influence on You and Why: Behavioral Perspectives

Introduction

“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work.” (Powell). A significant life event that has helped me develop into the person I am today was becoming valedictorian of my middle school class. During those 3 years of middle school, I always went above and beyond on my school work and exams, I studied every night, and I made sure I knew every single minute detail before a test. Due to this diligence, several of my teachers praised me for the great work and effort that I put in. Out of middle school, this helped me develop a hard work ethic and taught me the importance of not being lazy especially in high school and the start of college courses. I think many of the psychological perspectives could help me explain the importance of this event but overall I chose the second one which was behavioral. I chose behavioral because the many concepts within this perspective correlate with my significant life event such as classical conditioning, operant conditions, and the subcategories within these two realms such as positive reinforces, and generalization.

Classical Conditioning: Influence of Life Event on Behavior

First, at the beginning of the school day, I was not expecting to be called down to the office, let alone speak with the principal of the school I know I didn’t do anything wrong but this still put a big pit in my stomach. This lead to me being very nervous and every time I saw a person of administration I had the thought of me getting in trouble and being kicked out of the school. This would be an example of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning can be seen in responses such as phobias, disgust, nausea, anger, and sexual arousal or the learning when a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus to which the learner has an automatic inborn response (Feist). Another example of classical conditioning would be a dog salivating at the sound of a bell. An additional subcategory of classical conditioning would be an unconditioned stimulus. An unconditioned stimulus is the natural, automatic, inborn, and involuntary reaction to a stimulus (Feist), an unrelated example of an unconditioned stimulus would be when you are just walking around a shopping plaza and you just so happen to get a smell of your favorite food and you immediately feel hungry. An unconditioned stimulus connection I can make to my significant life event was when I came home from school after I was told I was going to be valedictorian and my mother was in the kitchen preparing dinner. As always my mother asked me how my day was and I told her everything that had happened but little did I know my mother was cutting onions which resulted in my eyes to start watering this would be another example of an unconditioned stimulus, my mother cutting onions, therefore, resulting in my eyes to start watering. Next, a neutral stimulus is a stimulus that produces no response other than catching your attention. An example of a neutral stimulus would be a receptionist calling your name over the pa system gaining your attention. This can be connected to my significant life event because when I was called down to the principal's office I was alerted by my teacher and therefore getting my attention. In addition to classical conditioning, unconditioned stimulus, and neutral stimulus operant conditioning and the ideas of reinforcers was also present in my significant life event and can be thoroughly connected.

Influence of Operant Conditioning in My Life Event

Next, operant conditioning was a pretty big factor in my significant life event. Operant conditioning is the process of changing behavior by manipulating the consequences of that behavior. First of all, Thorndike's law of effect notes that “rewarding consequences can make a spontaneous behavior more likely to occur” (Thorndike). and as this wasn’t shown in my life event but an example of Thorndike's law would be if you are beginning to train your dog and he does something that you like and you want him to continue that behavior you would give him a treat, this would also be an example of positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcers mean the presentation or addition of a stimulus after a behavior occurs that increases how often the behavior will occur (Feist), an example of positive reinforcement would be rewarding my little cousin for doing something that I found that needed to be rewarded and her responding by learning the correct way of doing that task. Positive reinforcement is super common in parenting and is also often used with training animals it was proven in a study from Harvard Business Review that the idea of positive reinforcement actually motivated employees rather than a punishment. As stated, “Not only is it more effective at motivating change, but it’s also less damaging to the employer-employee relationship” (Huhman). Opposite of positive reinforcers are negative reinforcers, a negative reinforcer is the removal of a stimulus after a behavior to increase the frequency of that behavior (Feist), an example of negative reinforcement would be you honking your car horn at a car that is sitting at a green light. This would be a negative reinforcement because at first, the car is annoying you by not moving, you behave by blasting the car horn, and after you honk the horn the car is gone so by nature every time you get behind a car that annoys you, you will tend to honk the horn. Another category of reinforcers would be primary reinforcers. Primary reinforcers are unlearned reinforcers that satisfy biological needs, examples of primary reinforcers would be food, water, sleep, air or sex. The opposite of a primary reinforcer would be a secondary reinforcer, secondary reinforcement refers to a situation where a stimulus reinforcers a behavior after being previously associated with a primary reinforcer. Examples of secondary reinforcements would be money or grades in school. Most human reinforcements are secondary rather than primary. Next schedules of reinforcement are patterns of intermittent reinforcement distinguished by whether reinforcement occurs after a set number of responses or after a certain amount of time has passed since the last reinforcement (Feist). A fixed ratio which is part of reinforcement schedules is a pattern of intermittent reinforcement in which reinforcement follows a set number of responses, an example of fixed ratio would be if I were to reward my little cousin for doing something that was worth rewarding I would deliver the reward if she did it 5 times, if she does the action 5 times in a row she will get the prize. Another example of a fixed ratio would be if you are getting a question right every say 10 times you would receive a piece of candy, fixed ratio is also very common in parenting and little do we know we are always using it. The second type of reinforcement schedule would be variable ratio; variable ratio is a pattern of intermittent reinforcement in which the number of responses needed for reinforcement changes (Feist). Common examples of variable reinforcement would be gambling or lottery games since they are reward-based and have an unpredictable number of responses. The last topic of reinforcement schedules would be variable interval; variable interval is a pattern of intermittent reinforcement in which the number of responses needed for reinforcement changes (Feist). Gambling and the lottery can also be examples of variable interval reinforcement due to the fact that there is an unpredictable amount of time that you will, in fact, receive your reward. Reinforcement scheduling played a pretty big part in my significant life event because without certain topics like fixed ratio I wouldn’t have been taught the correct way of achieving something and therefore becoming valedictorian. Reinforces and reinforcement schedules helped me greatly to understand more about myself and so did the idea of punishers.

Punishers: Decreasing Undesired Behavior

Lastly, punishers which are a stimulus that decreases the frequency of a behavior (Feist) are also very relevant with parenting or training an animal. How punishers work is by presenting a negative consequence after an undesired behavior is exhibited (North Shore Pediatric Therapy) for example if your child is acting up you would come up with a punishment in order for your child to stop doing the behavior that you find inappropriate. Next another example of a punisher would be negative punishment, negative punishment is the removal of a stimulus to decrease a behavior (Feist) this means that the goal of the punishment is to decrease a behavior that is unwanted and consists of taking away something that is desired by the subject. For example, a child misbehaving and therefore losing privileges to tv time or their toys, another example of negative punishment would be taking away your dog's treats because of its unwanted behavior. Punishers were pretty big part of my significant life event due to the fact that if I wasn’t focused at a point in time in school my parents would find something of mine to take away in order for me to stay focused on my school work, and this overall helped me become valedictorian of my class and strive to stay diligent and hard working.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this essay helped me understand more about myself and gain a deeper understanding of the psychological perspective behavioral. The many parts of behavioral such as classical condition and operant condition helped me understand the person I am becoming and overall opened my eyes to the way I was acting and behaving at that time. I believe more people should take the time to learn more about a significant life event because this essay was very interesting and informative this could help people see how different psychological variables can affect them and others. “Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard, then succeed on purpose” (G.K. Nelson).

Works Cited

1. “Classical Conditioning” Lumen Boundless Psychology, https://courses.lumenlearning. com/boundless-psychology/chapter/classical-conditioning/
2. Huhman, Heather. “It’s Science, Baby! Proving the Power of Positive Reinforcement at Work.” Entrepreneur. 17 October 2017, https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/ 302489.
3. Feist, Gregory. “Classical Conditioning.”, www.connect.mheducation.com
4. North Shore Pediatric Therapy. “What’s The Difference Between Positive and Negative Punishment?” North Shore Pediatric Therapy. https://nspt4kids.com/parenting/ the-difference-between-positive-and-negative-punishment/