Instrumental Behavior

In my own case, I grew up in a very critical household, and nothing I ever did was good enough. This criticism only made me try harder, and so was instrumental in making me study to obtain better grades. I never received any positive encouragement for my hard work, so there were never any positive rewards forthcoming from my parents: studying to get better grades became a natural response to me in a vain effort to win my parents approval. After a while, the criticism became the stimulus to which I responded best, directing my behavior towards higher and higher achievements. Positive feedback or rewards from others had no effect on me because I did not know how to respond to them. I had become conditioned to respond to criticism.

In instrumental conditioning, the subject responds and this produces an outcome (Domjan,

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Some common words found in the essay are:
, domjan 2003, aversive stimulus, instrumental response, classical conditioning, studying harder, avoid criticism, References Domjan, domjan 2003 135, Learning Behavior, 2003 135, negative reinforcement, instrumental conditioning, two-process theory, Thomson Wadsworth, fear reduction fear, conditioned respond criticism, outcome domjan 2003,
Approximate Word count = 953
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)

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