Section 1: Conditioning

Behaviourism is a school of psychology that deals solely with what can be directly observed– stimuli (that is, things in the environment that we experience) and behavioural responses to them (i.e., what we do; Berk, 2014). Behaviour theories propose that people are conditioned to behave or ‘respond’ to the events they experience. Behaviourists believe that people are formed by the environmental forces that act upon them, including events and other people. Expressing this, Watson, one of the founding fathers of behaviourism, said:

Learning theories seek to describe, explain, and predict behaviour. Behavioural learning theories look at a particular behaviour, and what happened before the behaviour and/or what happened after it (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2013). As you can see, Watson believed that external, observable forces such as learning and experiences – rather than internal forces, as Freud suggested – determine the course of human development.

This is one of the ways that these theories are helpful to counsellors: they help us understand how ideas and behaviours develop through a person’s interactions with their environment, including the people around them and the events that occur. Often, learning theories also support the notion that because behaviours are developed through learning, it is possible to ‘unlearn’ undesirable behaviours (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2013). As such, understanding how individuals learn and develop certain behaviours and ideas also helps counsellors to facilitate the development of new, more helpful behaviours and perspectives.

This takes us to one of the key weaknesses of behaviourism. Critics of behaviourism argue that it places too little emphasis on the contributions people make to their own development and ignores less ‘observable’ aspects that are nonetheless highly influential, such as thoughts and emotions (Berk, 2014; Sigelman et al., 2019). As such, behaviourism has largely been overtaken by the cognitive revolution in the second half of the century. That said, many behavioural theories still have relevance today in relation to learning and many behavioural interventions have been combined with cognitive approaches in cognitive behavioural therapy.

The most common behavioural theories and approaches relate to two types of conditioning: classical conditioning and operating conditioning. These theories explore how aspects of the environment directly influence people’s behaviour – that is, how they drive learning.

Classical conditioning, some forms of which are also known as stimulus and response theory, was accidentally discovered by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (Sigelman et al., 2019). Watson, who rejected psychoanalytic theory, used his findings to demonstrate that some elements of human behaviour (including some Freud believed to be innate) could actually be explained as a learned association between a stimulus and a response. In this theory, a stimulus (plural: stimuli) is an object or event in the environment, and the response is a subject’s reaction to it. So, how did Pavlov happen upon classical conditioning?

The Discovery of Classical Conditioning

Pavlov was studying the digestive system in dogs when he realised that he could elicit a salivation response in his subjects when he presented a particular sound (Lilienfeld et al., 2019). (It is interesting to note that, despite the common belief that Pavlov used a bell in his experiments, he did not – he used a metronome, tuning forks, and whistles.) The dogs had an innate tendency to salivate at the sight of food (something that is innate is automatic and does not need to be learned). Over time, the dogs came to associate the sound that Pavlov made (one stimulus) with the presentation of food (another stimulus), and developed the same response to the sound that they automatically had to food: they started salivating when the sound was presented. Even once the food was no longer presented along with the sound, the salivation response to the sound remained evident for some time.

It turned out that this learning process occurs in humans, too. In another famous experiment, but one that would not pass ethical clearance today, Watson and his colleague Rosalie Raynor presented a white rat (one stimulus) to an infant they gave the pseudonym Little Albert (Sigelman et al., 2019). Little Albert initially showed no fear of the rat. Over time, however, Watson started accompanying the appearance of the rat with a loud noise created by banging a steel rod with a hammer (another stimulus) behind Little Albert, which frightened the child (the response). Through repeatedly pairing the loud noise with the appearance of the rat, Little Albert learned to be frightened of the rat. The rat itself had become a stimulus to be feared. Further, this fear became generalised: Little Albert started showing a fear response to anything sufficiently similar to the rat, including white, furry items such as a rabbit, a coat, and a Santa Claus beard (Steinberg, Bornstein, Vandell, & Rook, 2011).

The Process of Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning provides us with the ability to create order and make sense of aspects of the world that we experience. We are able to learn that certain stimuli are signals for what will happen next (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2013). To understand how classical conditioning works, you need to get to grips with several key concepts. These concepts and how they relate to each other can be confusing at first, so take your time working through what follows.

There are three kinds of stimuli and two kinds of responses that you need to understand. Let’s start with unconditioned (that is, unlearned) stimuli and responses:

• An unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is a stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response. For Pavlov’s dogs, the UCS was the food; for Little Albert, the UCS was the loud noise.
• An unconditioned response (UCR) is an innate behaviour or reflex elicited in response to a UCS. For Pavlov’s dogs, this was salivating in response to food; for Little Albert, the UCR was his feeling of fear at the loud noise.

We know that we all have responses to certain stimuli that are automatic – that do not need to be learned. But how do these responses generate learning? In classical conditioning, learning happens when a different kind of stimulus occurs very close in time to a UCS (this is known as pairing):

• A neutral stimulus (NS) is an object or event that does not elicit the UCR. For Pavlov’s dog, this was the sound; for Little Albert, this was the rat.

Through presenting the unconditioned and neutral stimuli together or very close in time, the subject’s unconditioned response is triggered by the UCS but, because the NS is also present, the response becomes associated with the NS as well. This generates:

• A conditioned stimulus (CS): This is what the previously neutral stimulus is called once it has been paired with the UCS enough to generate the response.
• A conditioned response (CR), is the same as the UCR, except that it is now occurring in response to the CS.

Classical conditioning can be understood in phases: before conditioning, during conditioning, and after conditioning (Nevid, 2012). The following diagram summarises the classical conditioning process in relation to Pavlov’s dogs. We recommend that you re-read the information and review the diagram several times, as well as make your own notes and test yourself on the content. As we mentioned earlier, many students find the concepts and processes in conditioning challenging; you will probably need to work through the material a number of times before you get an adequate understanding of it and are able to remember and use the information effectively.

There are also several factors related to the timing and intensity of stimuli that can strengthen a conditioned response:

• The frequency of pairing: “Generally, the more often the CS is paired with the US, the stronger and more reliable the CR will be. In some cases, however, even a single pairing can produce a strong CR. An airline passenger who experiences a sudden free fall during a flight may develop an immediate and enduring fear of flying” (Nevid, 2012, p. 167). (Note: Some resources may use ‘US’ for unconditioned stimulus and ‘UR’ for unconditioned response.)
• The intensity of the UCS: More intense UCS’s will generally result in quicker acquisition of the CR. For example, a louder noise will generally result in a quicker learning process than a softer sound (Nevid).
• The timing of the NS and UCS: The closer in time that the NS and UCS are presented, the more quickly the NS will become a CS. The important thing is that the NS is presented before the UCS, with “about a half-second delay typically being the optimal pairing for learning. Longer delays usually decrease the speed and strength of the organism’s response. This makes good evolutionary sense because a stimulus that immediately precedes a second stimulus is more likely to have caused it than a stimulus that came a long time before it” (Lilienfeld et al., 2019, p. 202). Essentially, we ‘learn’ that the initially neutral stimulus has ‘caused’ the response that is actually caused by the UCS. This means that having the NS immediately precede the UCS (and therefore the UCR) tends to increase the chances that the association will be learned.

While classical conditioning can have long-lasting effects, it should be noted that a CR is not necessarily permanent. Pavlov identified two important concepts in relation to this:

• Extinction is the weakening of the CR when the CS is repeatedly presented without the UCS. For example, if Pavlov keeps presenting the sound but not the food, at first, the dogs will salivate in response to the sound. Over time, however, this response will reduce and eventually disappear.
• Spontaneous recovery is the return of a CR after extinction has occurred. For example, if Pavlov’s dogs stopped salivating at the sound and then didn’t hear the sound for a while, they might salivate when the sound was presented again.

Pavlov's classical conditioning

Watch the following video on Pavlov's Classical Conditioning and answer the questions that follow.

Watch

Applications for Counselling

In counselling, classical conditioning can be used in two primary ways: to help understand how a behaviour or other response developed and to help clients learn different ways of responding. Let’s look at a case study to see how classical conditioning can help explain the development of a client issue.

Case study – Jack

Jack attends counselling because his aggressive reactions to people smoking near him is causing problems. When Ahn, his counsellor, explores Jack’s background, it emerges that Jack was physically abused by his father, who was a heavy smoker. Jack described how he could smell his father coming down the hall towards his room, which would be followed by a beating. Now the mere smell of smoke is enough to trigger a ‘fight or flight’ response in Jack.

Jack has learned (i.e., been conditioned) to associate the smell of smoke with a beating, triggering an intense response. This process is shown in the following diagram:

Ahn can help Jack understand how he has learned to respond this way and help him see how he might be able to learn to respond differently by using classical conditioning concepts. Ahn does not say to Jack, “Well, Jack, you see, your father beating you was an unconditioned stimulus …” and so on using technical terminology, but still responds using his understanding of classical conditioning. Ahn explains, “Often, our current responses to situations or things are shaped by our previous experience. My guess is that, when you were young, you learned that the smell of cigarette smoke often predicted a beating, which is an incredibly harmful, painful event, both physically and emotionally. We sometimes call this an ‘association’ – you came to associate cigarette smoke with an extremely negative event. This was such a powerful learning experience that now the smell of cigarette smoke evokes the same sort of reaction that the beating used to. Does that sound like I might be on the right track?”

It is important to be tentative when we suggest explanations for client experiences, such as using a questioning tone of voice or following up with a ‘check out’ question like, “Does that sound reasonable?”, “Could that be what’s going on?” or “I might not be right here – what do you think?”

If a client agrees that a learned response explanation is likely, the counsellor can also use their knowledge of conditioning theories to help Jack see that change is also possible. In this case, Ahn says, “The good news is, just like we can learn one way of responding, we can also learn a different way to respond. That’s something we can work on together if you’d like.”

In the case study, Jack reacted aggressively to people smoking because the smell of smoke triggered a fight or flight response conditioned by the association with childhood beatings. Similarly, classical conditioning can help explain the development of phobias. This is what happened in the case of Little Albert: through repeatedly paring the rat (NS) with the scary sound (UCS), Little Albert learned to be afraid (CR) of rats and similar objects (CS).

But classical conditioning is not necessarily a bad thing. As well as teaching unhelpful responses such as phobias, it can also help us learn positive or helpful things and to change unhelpful responses. For example, while the Little Albert experiment is famous, Mary Cover Jones’ work using classical conditioning to cure the rabbit phobia of another young child – known as Little Peter – is much less widely known, despite being just as worthy of attention:

So, as well as explaining how a client may have learned or acquired a behaviour, classical conditioning principles can be used to facilitate change. Certain behavioural techniques in counselling are based on classical conditioning principles and aim to teach or condition a different, more helpful response to a particular stimulus.

For example, systematic desensitisation involves teaching a client to use a relaxation technique before and while the counsellor exposes them to the feared stimulus in a particular, controlled manner (Corey, 2017). In this way, the stimulus no longer produces the anxiety response. Systematic desensitisation is a lengthy but effective intervention (Corey, 2017). It is important to note that the complexity of the assessment and treatment process, as well as the vulnerability of clients, means that further specialised training is required to use systematic desensitisation and other exposure therapies. Systematic desensitisation involves:

1. Comprehensive assessment: The assessment process for this intervention is lengthy and detailed and involves gathering background information and exploring the development and specifics of the anxiety, including the circumstances under which it developed and under which the response appears.
2. Training the client in relaxation strategies: There are various relaxation techniques that counsellors might use, but progressive muscle relaxation is the common one.This involves deep breathing accompanied by mental and physical relaxation strategies, including tensing and relaxing muscle groups throughout the body. As they do so, clients deliberately draw their attention to the different experiences of tension and relaxation. Clients are expected to practice the technique regularly.
3. Construction of an anxiety hierarchy: The counsellor and client draw up a list of the client’s feared situations, ranking them from least to most anxiety provoking. A situation where they will not feel afraid is given a rank of 0; a mild fear might be 10 or 20; and so on, up to the most anxiety-provoking situation, which is 100. For example, a client with a fear of spiders may include on their list things such as seeing a picture of a cartoon spider, seeing a realistic drawing of a spider, seeing a photograph of a spider, seeing a video of a spider, knowing a spider is in the house, being in the same room as a spider, being within a metre of a spider, and touching a spider, in order of increasing severity of anxiety. To take another example, a student who experiences severe anxiety relating to examinations might develop the following hierarchy: 

   0	School is over, and I have no more exams for another year.
   10	On the first day of class, the professor tells us the course plan and mentions examination plans.
   30	About a week before the examination, I realise it’s coming.
   50	Two days before the examination, I get particularly nervous and begin to find it hard to concentrate.
   70	The day before the examination, I get sweaty palms and feel I am forgetting things that are important.
   85	The night before the exam, I can’t sleep and wake up in the middle of the night.
   90	As I walk to the exam, I find myself shaking and feeling almost ill.
   95	As I enter the room, my hands sweat; I fear I am forgetting everything; I want to leave.
   99	When the tests are passed out, I feel totally tense, almost unable to move.
   100	As I look at the examination, I see a question or two that I really don’t know, and I absolutely panic. I leave the room.                                                           Ivey, D’Andrea, & Ivey, 2012, p. 291

4. Exposing the client to the stimuli in the hierarchy: The client uses the relaxation technique. Then the counsellor and client begin with the item (object or situation) at the bottom of the hierarchy (that is, the one that causes the least anxiety). The counsellor exposes the client to the object or situation while the client continues using the relaxation technique. The exposure may be imaginal – using imagination to visualise the situation or object – or in-vivo (real life), depending on the nature of the item. This is repeated until the item no longer triggers anxiety, at which point the counsellor and client move on to the next item on the hierarchy. This continues until the most anxiety-provoking situation does not trigger anxiety.

As you can see, the actual ‘desensitisation’ process only begins after a great deal of preparation work has been done, which requires commitment from the client (e.g.,practicing relaxation at home regularly). Counsellors or therapists who apply systematic desensitisation with clients will need to have a thorough understanding of such methods and their applications and make determinations about whether they are likely to be suitable for particular clients based on comprehensive assessments. The work does pay off, however, and the relaxation strategies clients learn are often useful for managing other anxiety-provoking situations that clients face, long after counselling has concluded (Corey, 2017). Remember, however, that systematic desensitisation is a specialist intervention and if you would like to use it, you will need to access additional training.

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Now let’s look at another form of conditioning, where we learn through the consequences of our actions.

Operant conditioning differs from classical conditioning in a number of ways. Crucially, in operant conditioning, learning occurs through consequences rather than associations; the second difference is that operant conditioning tends to relate to voluntary behaviour, while classical conditioning generally relies on automatic responses (Lilienfeld et al., 2019). However, like classical conditioning, operant conditioning can help to explain how we learn to do many things. In particular, complex behaviours that are part of our daily lives, such as cooking, socialising, work tasks, and ways of interacting with others, can all be explained, at least in part, by operant conditioning principles. These principles are also used in situations as diverse as training animals to do tricks and teaching children to use the toilet.

Perhaps the name most associated with operant conditioning is B. F. Skinner. Skinner was a controversial psychologist in the 1900s who created what is now known as a ‘Skinner box’: an animal cage that releases food when the animal shows a particular behaviour, such as pressing a lever or pushing a button. Skinner posited that the consequence of the animal pressing the bar (i.e., getting food) would increase the chance of the animal pressing the lever (or pushing the button, etc.) again (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2014). The behaviour that leads to the consequence is known as an operant “because the animal ‘operates’ on its environment to get what it wants” (Lilienfeld, 2019, p. 207). Hence the name operant conditioning.

Operant conditioning is based on Skinner’s work and relates to the operation of two fundamental principles: reinforcement and punishment. These combine with two other concepts – positive and negative – to create four different kinds of consequences: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. As we explore these concepts in more detail, keep in mind that many people find these terms confusing. As such, we recommend that you spend extra time on this section and ensure that you thoroughly understand the differences between each type of reinforcement and punishment. Use note-taking, draw tables, and test yourself using examples to ensure that you really do understand what each term means and can identify each type of consequence. (This will also help you in your assessment for this module, in which you will need to identify different types of consequences.)

Understanding ‘Positive’ And ‘Negative’ In Operant Conditioning

In general usage, ‘positive’ means ‘good’ and ‘negative’ means ‘bad’, and we tend to think of punishment as ‘bad’ and ‘negative’. But this is not the way these terms are used in operant conditioning. This is the source of a lot of confusion when it comes to operant conditioning, so make sure you understand the usage as it applies here before you continue with this module. Once you do understand the usage in this context, what follows will make sense to you, and you will be able to apply the knowledge in assessments and in the real world. In operant conditioning:

• Positive means adding a stimulus. Think of it as if you are doing maths: it’s like the plus sign +, which is also sometimes used as a symbol for ‘positive’. In operant conditioning, ‘positive’ means we are adding something to the situation.
• Negative means taking away a stimulus. Again, think about maths and the subtraction sign –. In operant conditioning, ‘negative’ means we are subtracting something from the situation.

This is very simple in principle, but many people find it hard to remember and to use when learning about operant conditioning and analysing case studies. The crucial thing is that you recognise that positive and negative have very different meanings in operant conditioning as compared with their general usage.

Reinforcement

The key thing to remember about reinforcement is that it strengthens a response (Lilienfeld et al., 2019). That is to say, that reinforcement makes it more likely that the behaviour for which the reinforcement is being applied will be repeated in the future. (For this reason, positive reinforcers are often referred to as ‘rewards’ in general conversation.)

There are two kinds of reinforcement. As you read about them, remember the difference between positive and negative that we have already discussed: positive means something is added, and negative means something is taken away.

• Positive reinforcement is the presentation (adding) of a stimulus that strengthens the response. This will be a stimulus that is pleasant for or valued by the subject. Examples include food, money, and social approval (Nevid, 2012). However, it is not the nature of the stimulus that makes something a positive reinforcer; it is only a positive reinforcer if the effect of it is to increase the behaviour. For example, if you try to positively reinforce someone’s behaviour by presenting them with something that they do not value (say, offering chocolate to someone who does not like chocolate), this is unlikely to increase the likelihood of the behaviour, so it is not positive reinforcement (Lilienfeld et al., 2019).

Lilienfeld and colleagues provide an amusing example of positive reinforcement:

• Negative reinforcement is the removal of a stimulus, such that the removal strengthens the response. In such a situation, the stimulus being removed is generally unpleasant to the subject. For example, imagine a child who is in the habit of dropping their school bag on the floor when they get home. If they do not like washing the dishes (and what child does like doing the dishes?!), their parents might exempt them from dishwashing duty when the child remembers to put their school bag away without being asked. Here, an unpleasant stimulus (washing the dishes) is removed in hopes that it will make remembering to put their bag away a repeated behaviour. Similarly, if taking an aspirin when you have a headache removes the headache, this makes it more likely that you will take an aspirin the next time you have a headache: the removal of the headache is a negative reinforcer. But remember, it is not the nature of the stimulus that determines whether it is reinforcing; instead, the removal of the stimulus is only a negative reinforcer if it encourages repetition of the behaviour.
  
  Note: Negative reinforcement is not another term for punishment. This type of reinforcement can sometimes be difficult to remember, since the word ‘negative’ seems to imply an unpleasant stimulus. As we have discussed, however, negative does not have that meaning in the context of operant conditioning; rather, it means the removal of a stimulus.

Let’s look at another example. If a parent wants to reduce the swearing of their child, they could use either positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement in response to a day without swearing:

Punishment

Punishment, on the other hand, is an outcome that weakens or decreases the likelihood of a behaviour occurring again (Lilienfeld et al., 2019). As with reinforcement, there are two kinds of punishment: positive and negative.

• Positive punishment involves the presentation of an aversive (i.e., unpleasant) stimulus such that the likelihood of a behaviour occurring again is decreased. Spanking and scolding are examples of attempts at positive punishment.
• Negative punishment is the removal of a valued stimulus after a behaviour, such that the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated decreases. For example, confiscating a child’s toy after misbehaviour is an example of an attempt at negative punishment.

As with reinforcement, it is not the nature of the stimulus that determines whether or not its presentation or removal constitutes a punishment. Instead, it is whether or not it functions to reduce or discourage the behaviour. If it leads to a reduction in the behaviour, it is punishment; if it doesn’t, then no matter how aversive the stimuli are, it is not punishment.

Remember the parent who wants to reduce their child’s swearing? Let’s have a look at possible punishment options they could try:

Understanding Reinforcement and Punishment

It may be helpful in clarifying the terms positive, negative, reinforcement, and punishment to develop a grid with reinforcement and punishment on one axis and positive and negative on the other. This way, you can map out possible consequences. You might like to do this with different examples as you learn and test yourself on these concepts and when working out the answers to your assessment in this area. For the 'swearing' example, the grid would look like this:

Getting To Grips with Operant Conditioning Concepts

Because these concepts are so challenging for so many students, we have put together a few reminders, resources and a quiz to help you get them clear in your own mind.

The basics:

• Positive indicates the presentation of a stimulus, like a plus sign in maths.
• Negative indicates removal of a stimulus, like a minus sign in maths.
• Reinforcement increases the frequency of a behaviour.
• Punishment decreases the frequency of a behaviour.
• Negative reinforcement and punishment are not the same!
  • Negative reinforcement strengthens behaviour because an unpleasant condition is stopped or avoided as a consequence of the behaviour.
  • Punishment weakens behaviour because an unpleasant condition is experienced as a consequence of the behaviour, either through presentation of something unpleasant (positive punishment) or removal of something desired (negative punishment).

The following table summarises the four techniques we have just explored.

The following flow chart can aid you in determining which type of reinforcement and punishment is performed in a particular scenario, or even in helping you design a strategy to increase or decrease your own behaviour. Taking the steps from left to right, begin with the purpose of the strategy, followed by considering the features that distinguish each type of reinforcement and punishment.

Now, to make sure that you can correctly identify each type of operant, determine whether each of the following is positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, or negative punishment:

You will find the correct answers at the end of this section. If you find that your answers are not correct, review the terms positive, negative, punishment, and reinforcement, and try again.

Other Key Concepts in Operant Conditioning

There are a number of other concepts and processes relevant to operant conditioning (Lilienfeld et al., 2019). We focus on five here: primary and secondary reinforcers, shaping, extinction, and schedules of reinforcement.

Let’s start with types of reinforcers. Primary reinforcers have intrinsic value that does not need to be learned. For that reason, they are often associated with the satisfaction of a biological need or drive, such as food or sexual stimulation (Nevid, 2012). In contrast, secondary reinforcers do not have such intrinsic value. Rather their value is learned.

Zastrow and Kirst-Ashman (2013) use money as an example. A one-hundred-dollar note on its own has no value. It’s just a piece of paper. However, it is associated with the ability to gain things of value, such as food, safety, and things that meet other needs and fulfil other desires. As such, money becomes a reinforcer. Another example of the primary and secondary reinforcers can be found in the following example:

(Did you notice that this example of reinforcers also includes a process of classical conditioning?)

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Shaping is a method of reinforcement that rewards actions that are more and more like a target behaviour – that is, rewarding successive approximations. Over time, rewards are only given for attempts that are closer and closer to the target behaviour, and then just for correctly performing the target behaviour.

You already know about extinction from our discussion of classical conditioning. Similar to its use in that form of conditioning, in operant conditioning, extinction refers to the weakening or elimination of a previously reinforced behaviour when the reinforcement is no longer applied. For example, if a child no longer receives attention (the positive reinforcer) for misbehaving, they may gradually cease the behaviour. This does not mean that extinction occurs whenever reinforcement is withdrawn, but it is a possibility in some circumstances.

The effectiveness of reinforcement in operant conditioning is related to how often and reliably the reinforcement, either positive or negative, is presented. This is known as a schedule of reinforcement. Schedules of reinforcement are either continuous or partial:

• Continuous reinforcement rewards every instance of a behaviour (Plotnik & Kouyoum-djian, 2014). It is the most effective form of reinforcement for establishing behaviour quickly, but when stopped, the behaviour is rapidly lost (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2013).
• Partial or intermittent reinforcement occurs when a behaviour does not receive a reward at every instance (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2014). It may take longer to learn behaviours using this type of reinforcement, but once learned, the behaviours are less subject to extinction (Lilienfeld et al., 2019).

In fact, the main schedules of reinforcement in use are all partial. They vary according to whether the rate of reinforcement is fixed or variable and whether the schedule is determined by a ratio or by the time between reinforcements (known as an interval). If you’re confused, don’t worry – Lilienfeld and colleagues give a clear explanation of what this means, describing the four major schedules:

A good way to make sense of and remember these concepts is to associate them with something common in your daily life. Let’s imagine that you are a coffee lover, and you intend to use coffee as a reinforcer to help you get through the process of completing your assessments. Having studied different schedules of reinforcement, you decide to experiment with each of the four partial reinforcement schedules to see which one is the most effective and practicable for you. Here’s what your plan might look like:

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Applications for Counselling

Operant conditioning principles form the basis of several behaviour therapy programs, such as those that help parents encourage positive behaviours in their children and help adult clients develop self-management skills or change problematic behaviours, such as in the behaviour change programs we cover in the final section of this module (Corey, 2017). Positive reinforcement is probably the most direct behavioural technique that is used in counselling, although ‘punishment’ may also be used, in the sense of doing things to discourage a behaviour. Let’s consider a few examples:

• Positive reinforcement is designed to increase the frequency of a desirable behaviour through adding or giving something of value to an individual. Counsellors use positive reinforcement almost constantly in their work, even if they don’t realise they’re doing it. For example, they encourage client communication and certain thoughts, ideas, or reflection through positive body language and facial expressions, verbal encouragers, and feedback. Positive reinforcement can also be used in behaviour change programs by providing a reward for engaging in positive habits or goal-directed behaviours.
• Negative reinforcement is designed to increase the frequency of a desirable behaviour by taking away something that is unpleasant. Although positive reinforcement is more common in counselling, negative reinforcement can also be used. Let’s look at a couple of examples of how this can be done. A client who behaves unacceptably in session may be discouraged from doing so again by the session being terminated, with an explanation as to why it had to end early. A client who is attempting to build a habit of exercising daily might work with a counsellor to develop ideas for negatively reinforcing that behaviour; for example, if they exercise for thirty minutes four times a week, they will allow themselves to avoid doing chores on the weekend by getting a cleaner in instead. Reinforcement principles are often used as the basis for behavioural change programs (we discuss these in the last section of this module).
• Punishment is designed to decrease undesirable behaviour by either adding an unpleasant consequence (positive punishment) or removing a pleasant or desired stimulus (negative punishment). Nevertheless, as Sigelman, de George, Cunial, and Rider (2019) note, Skinner and other learning theorists generally recommended using positive reinforcement instead of punishment, particularly in child-rearing. Whilst punishment may bring compliance in children in the shorter term, Skinner and others have argued that using punishment alone:
  • teaches what should not be done but not what should be done;
  • can be anxiety-producing, which in turn reduces the capacity for learning;
  • can encourage sneaky disobedience (a punished child may continue with the behaviour, simply making sure they do so when they are not being observed); and
  • physical punishment can encourage aggressive behaviour (Lilienfeld et al., 2019).

The issue of using physical punishment, such as spanking, with children, remains controversial, with questions about whether it is even effective. Indeed, evidence is gathering that it is no more effective than other non-violent forms of punishment. In addition, there are serious issues with physical punishment, including the finding that physical abuse often results from physical punishment (The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, 2013) and that harsher punishment is associated with increased violent behaviour (Lilienfeld et al.).

As such, counsellors can talk through the use of punishment as a strategy with a client who is attempting to deal with their child’s unacceptable behaviour, helping the parent to consider when punishment may be appropriate and how to deliver it so that it is safe and more likely to be effective.

On the other hand, counsellors can help clients identify problematic communication patterns in couples or family relationships based on punishment principles. For instance, one partner may ‘punish’ the other partner for what they have said or done (or not done) by withdrawing emotionally or not responding to them. Repeated occurrences of such a pattern may result in disconnection and estrangement in the relationship. As such, counsellors can help clients understand the impacts of their responses to each other and help them learn more positive ways to communicate. So while the counsellor is not using, or encouraging their clients to use, punishment, understanding this process is still valuable for the counsellor and clients.

• Extinction is encouraged by ceasing reinforcement of a previously reinforced behaviour. For example, parents may reinforce the behaviour of children who act up by the attention they give in response to misbehaviour; by consistently ignoring the behaviour, they eliminate the positive reinforcer (attention), and the behaviour often decreases through the process of extinction (although the child may act up more before the behaviour extinguishes; Lilienfeld et al., 2019). As well as helping parents understand how their behaviour may reinforce undesired behaviours in children, counsellors may also use extinction to discourage particular client behaviours in counselling sessions. For instance, in a couple counselling session where one partner speaks over the other partner frequently, the counsellor may avoid responding to the partner when they speak over (thereby avoiding reinforcement of the behaviour) but continue paying attention to the other partner.

Applied behaviour analysis (ABA) is a specific technique that applies principles of behaviour and reinforcement. The use of ABA extends over various situations, including use with people with clinical disorders, improving educational practices, and implementing anti-pollution and conservation programs (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013). However, it is perhaps most well known as a method for working with children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), where it is used to help manage undesirable behaviours such as self-injuring and repetitive, aggressive, or disruptive behaviours. ABA has seven key principles (Fisher, Groff, & Roane, 2011):

1. Applied: Focuses on behaviours that are applied, which is to say behaviours that are both socially acceptable and currently important to the individual. For example, teaching a child with ASD to imitate speech sounds.
2. Behavioural: Uses direct observation, objective measurement, prediction, control of behaviours, and identification of the functions of the behaviour.
3. Analytic: Seeks to demonstrate a link between the treatment and the target behaviour.
4. Technological: Procedures are thoroughly and accurately described when interventions are implemented.
5. Conceptually systematic: Interventions are based on basic behaviour principles validated by scientific research.
6. Effective: Analyses the effectiveness of the intervention by investigating whether behavioural change has occurred.
7. Generalisable dimensions: Aims to create changes that are generalisable to other settings. For example, a person with anger issues at home who is treated with ABA should also improve their anger management at work and in social settings.

ABA therapists are specially trained in this intervention. They perform a detailed assessment of the client’s skills and set several treatment goals designed to modify the client’s behaviour; goals and skills are then broken down into manageable steps that are taught from the most simple to the most complex (Autism Speaks, 2014). Clients learn the required skills by being given opportunities to acquire and practise them in structured and unstructured situations, with positive reinforcement for appropriate and successful attempts.

Skinner’s Operant Conditioning: Rewards & Punishments

Operant conditioning is based on the idea that we can increase or decrease a certain behaviour by adding a consequence.

Watch

In this section, you have learned about conditioning theories, specifically classical conditioning and operant conditioning. You have worked through various concepts associated with each type of conditioning, and considered how these models are applied in the real world. This includes their use in counselling, where counsellors use classical and operant conditioning principles and strategies to understand clients and their issues, as well as helping clients address problems and make positive changes. In the next section, we look at a different type of learning that is often used in counselling, even when counsellors do not realise they are using it: social learning.

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