AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Skinner is regarded as the father of Operant Conditioning, but his work was based on Thorndike’s (1898) law of effect. According to this principle, behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is less likely to be repeated.

Detailed explanation-2: -Edward Thorndike (1898) is famous in psychology for his work on learning theory that lead to the development of operant conditioning within Behaviorism. Whereas classical conditioning depends on developing associations between events, operant conditioning involves learning from the consequences of our behavior.

Detailed explanation-3: -Thorndike called this process ‘learning by trial and accidental success’. In subsequent writings on the matter, Thorndike proposed the Law of Effect1 – a relation between a behaviour and its consequences.