Name: Nguyễn Triệu Minh

Class: 11BSM4 – PSYCHOLOGY

Midterm Assignment

1. What are the differences between classical conditioning theory and operant conditioning

theory of learning?

The classical conditioning theory and operant conditioning theory are the two basic and most

typical theories in Psychology. They help us explain many problems, especially in Psychology,

they help us to understand the acts of people in a scientific definition. Two theories have their

own characteristic, different from each other to specify different state of psychology in the

human thinking.

The definition of classical conditioning theory is “A process of behavior modification by which a

subject comes to respond in a desired manner to a previously neutral stimulus that has been

repeatedly presented along with an unconditioned stimulus that elicits the desired response”1.

The example of classical condition theory could be Pavlov’s experiment or something closer to

your daily life. Imagine you have a little sister, she’s about 4 years old. She’s a little bit shy,

usually keep silence in the kindergarten, and therefore she don’t have any close friends. You try

to encourage her by saying to her that every time she makes a new friend, you will take her to the

zoo or the waterpark. She will like it and make you promise to do what you said. After 2 days,

she comes home with 3 other kids and said that are her new friends. They play with each other

1 The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Update d in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

very fun and you noticed that she is more confident right now. After this, she will know that it is

easy to make friend with other people, and it help her become more confident, so she will try to

be friend with everyone in her class, even you don’t promise to take her to the zoo, she will keep

doing that.

.In other hand, the operant conditioning theory stated that “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”2. For example, if you work in a

company which have a strict rule, always recommend you to go to work on time. When you have

some family business or just simply you wake up late, and it makes you late for work for a few

times, just barely make it in time. In the end of the month, you receive yours salary and notice a

decline in yours salary. You come to the office and ask your boss why you got yours salary

deducted. His answer is that because you went to work late, so he deducted the salary of yours

according to the company’s rule. From that time, you will automatically know that every time

you go to work late, you get a chance of your salary deducted, and of course, you don’t want that

to happen and try not to go to work late.

Both examples support for their own theory with different situation and the way how people

solve their problem. From the first example, the girl tries to make new friend because you award

her act with a trip to the zoo or waterpark. Even if next time you don’t promise to take her out,

she now has confident and courage to make new friend and she will make more friends. The

second example, in the contrary, the behavior happen because of the result you received at the

end of the month hurt your wallet. You know that if you continue to go to work late, your salary 2 The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Update d in

2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

will be deducted and you will try not to be too late for work anymore. But if the company’s rule

change and they don’t give a fine for being late to work, you might be continuing to late for work

sometime.

The first difference between classical conditioning theory and operant conditioning theory is the

way they work to affect people’s behavior and cause them to do the desired action. In the

classical conditioning theory, you give a direction to the subject and then reward or punish it for

specific action it make in order to reinforce the desired action of the subject. Meanwhile, in the

operant conditioning theory, you do not give the direction to the subject. After the subject had

done some specific actions, depend on the action is desired or not, you will give the subject

reward or punishment to reinforce the action, make it recognize and remember the desired action.

The second difference between classical conditioning theory and the operant conditioning theory

is the level of reward or punishment. In the classical conditioning theory, you give the warning to

the subject first as a reward or punishment, the subject receive the warning and the give specific

action. After the action, you will execute the warning you have said before. In the order hand, the

operant conditioning theory does not give the warning to the subject. You just wait for the

subject take some action, see if it desired or not, and then give the proper reward or punishment

to reinforce the desired action. The subject will have to understand why they got

reward/punishment and know what to do next time in order to get the credit or not being

punishment.

I think both the classical conditioning theory and operant conditioning theory can be apply to

each situation to solve the problem and lead the subject to do what we want it to do. But in my

own opinion, I think the operant conditioning theory will have more effect to reinforce the

desired action of the subject. It will be obvious if you give the subject a warning for reward and

punishment, and after that the subject will take the right action that you want. But I think after a

period of time, the reward or the punishment maybe not enough to make the subject do what we

want. And if we stop the warning, the subject might not do the expected behavior. This happen

because the subject now rely on the warning to do the specific desired action and becoming more

passive in the behavior.

Meanwhile, the operant conditioning theory does not rely on the stimulus before the subject’s

action. You give the reward/punishment after the specific action, it make the subject to

understand that every time it does that, it will received the reward or punishment, and it will keep

in their mind and continues to do it even you don’t give it a reward/punishment (of course you

should not completely stop the reward or punishment).

Those are the two differences between the classical conditioning theory and operant conditioning

theory. Each theory have its own characteristic, advantage and disadvantage, so if you want to

reinforce the specific action of the subject, you should think carefully before choosing the right

method to make the reinforcement on specific action of the subject.

2. Explain how you would apply the theories of learning in human resource management to

reinforce staff in your prospective businesses.

As you know, the classical conditioning theory needs to give the warning first and then wait for

the specific action to be taken by the subject. For example, I am the Human Resource Manager

(HR Manager) of a company which produces energy drink. Some of my workers are often lazy

recently. They usually gather in group while working in other to chat with each other more often.

The consequence is that the rate of output production is reduced slightly showed in the report at

the end of the month. I decide to take the positive stimulus to encourage the worker to work

more efficiently. I say to the workers in the company’s meeting that I will have a new plan. I said

that there will be a competition for all the workers in the factory, at the end of the month, who

got the high rate of production, work the efficiently will receive a chance to enter the second

competition between those who got that quality. Then they will compete with each other to see

who the best, and the one who won will receive a 50 million in cash as a prize. After that,

everyone will be inspired and try their best to work hard and produce more products and benefit

the company.

The operant conditioning theory, in the other hand, does not give the direction to the subject

before the subject’s action. The example of operant conditioning theory in HR Manager can be

simply like this: I’m the HR Manager of a telecommunication company. Recently I notice the

employees usually come back to work later than normal after the afternoon break. I investigated

and find out that some of them drinking in the afternoon break, so they took too much time than

they should to get back to work. This cause the working rate of the office fall down dramatically,

so I decide to take the action. I send my secretary to go after them, see who is usually come back

to work late. After a week, I choose the person who has the most time come back late to clean

the whole office after work. I tell him that because of his laziness that makes him to do this

work. So every time he come back late, I make him to clean the office after work. After a few

times, he will scare of the cleaning work will come if he continues to late after the break. He will

stop as soon as possible and come back to work on time. Eventually, he will spread his work

among his colleagues about my move, so every one of them will automatically aware of the time

to get back to work.

Both theories provide different ways to solve the problems in human behavior. In Human

Resource, if you are a manager, it is always good to give a compliment or a reward to the

employee when he achieves something in working process. But it is also necessary to reprimand

or give them a soft punishment to make them figure it out how bad it is for what they have done.

As a manager, it is very important to know when to give a reward and when to give a punishment

to the employees, because depend on the method you choose, it will encourage or discourage the

employees in work.