Operant Conditioning: How Consequences Shape Behavior — and the Limits of That Power
In 1930, B.F. Skinner placed a rat in a box with a lever. When the rat pressed the lever, a food pellet dropped. The rat pressed more. When pressing the lever produced a mild electric shock, the rat pressed less. Skinner spent the next four decades mapping the relationship between consequences and behavior with a precision that transformed psychology, education, and animal training — and provoked a backlash that permanently changed how we understand learning.