The Fall of Reinforcement

Skinner believed in the idea that behavior that is reinforced tends to be repeated and behavior that is not reinforced tends to not be repeated. In Skinners experiment of operant conditioning, he places rats in a box and trained them to pull the lever to get food. As the rats learned to press the lever to get food, we adapt our behavior to again approval and reinforcement from our environment as well.
We can all think of examples of why our own behavior has been reinforced or punished. Whether our environment may better ourselves, some environments can have a culture of reinforcing negative behaviors. Unfortunately, our society places a negative assumption towards people who follow the rules and talk about their feelings rather than playing it cool with “no worries.” Society places a big emphasis on “YOLO.” We all know it stands for You only live once, but it contains a more meanings than that. It insinuates “whatever. I don’t care. I do what I want.” type of attitude. And sadly, out society reinforces it. Take Miley Cyrus for example, she was an innocent country-pop style singer who’s last hit was “the climb”, a song about pushing through tough times. Ever since her c.d.s did not make it big until she gave society what she saw was getting more reinforcement. She strayed away from her country style and turned to this “yolo” sense of mind. Lyrics containing phrases like “doing whatever we want… we cant stop..forget the haters..” With her new look she has topped charts and broke youtube records. She was reinforced just as the rats and will continue because of her success. Reinforcement reminds me of the human fall. Although, reinforcement could also reinforce good behaviors (like the rats in the experiment), we place high priority on affirmation of others that we may do whatever it takes it gain it.