Who: My Girlfriend’s Nephew.
When: September 10, 2016.
With Who: My girlfriend’s family gathering.
Throughout our daily life we are constantly observing and learning. On Saturday night, my I attended a family party from my girlfriend, she has a three year old nephew that always misbehaves in family gatherings. However, he got used to being given chocolate every time he stayed close and didn’t hit another child. the more he behave the more chocolate he received. The chocolate would serve as a reinforcement to behave well and I witnessed how he would act just to receive one. He was learning and observing that his parents will reward him with a chocolate if he behaved good and if he did something bad her nephew would learn that his actions caused him not to get a chocolate. Eventually he learned and observed by other children how to receive a chocolate.
A nice observation of operant conditioning. It would be good to give some more information: How many times did he have to be rewarded before he started to behave better? The boy certainly learned something, but is he the only one who did? What was the effect on the family system of his learning that he’d be rewarded with chocolate for good behavior? That is, how did this type of learning affect other people – such as his parents?