PsychSim -- Operant Conditioning

Introduction

One of the most basic principles of human behavior is that we learn from our experiences.

In particular, we learn to repeat the actions that tend to produce favorable results and to avoid the actions that have produced unpleasant results. B. F. Skinner, one of the pioneers in the study of learning, called this form of learning operant conditioning to distinguish it from the respondent form of conditioning (called classical conditioning) studied earlier by Ivan Pavlov and by John Watson.