Monday, 15 October 2012

   In learning psychology class, we have so much fun and learned interesting knowledge. Our lecturer Madam Lihanna is a warm and caring person, with her cute gesture and communicative personality, it would be hard for us to not attend the class as her attentiveness is a sort of reinforcement for us to come to class. Madam Lihanna had given her students notes and extra reading materials for us to be prepaired, this makes the students wants to take her class Of course, sometimes the lectures could get boring but, after the lectures we usually get to do some fun activities with our group members.

   Once, Hafiz ate too much for his lunch and got sleepy and eventually slept in class, Mdm. Lihanna woke him with knocking his desk. Everybody laughed making Hafiz felt ashamed, so after that Hafiz would eat moderately so he wouldn't feel sleepy in class. Later, Ain didn't take her luch at all so a result she couldn't even concentrate in class at all. Next she have learned that she have to take her luch before coming to class.
Mali have problems in her attendance, after three times not attending the class she got a warning letter. If she is absent for another three times she would be bar from the class, so to not get the bar letter she intend to have full attendance from that moment on.

  In the class we would be given many assignments, even though it was tough but her criticism and praises made the effort worth while to do. At the end of the lesson Mdm. Lihanna would ask some question, and the person who'd answers the question can leave early. Students would concentrate in class and would compete to raise their hand so they could leave early.


The story above can be related to characteristic of positive reinforcement :

  • Activity reinforcer:

               "Mdm. Lihanna would ask some question, and the person who'd answers the question can leave early. "
  • Natural consequences:

               "Hafiz ate too much for his lunch and got sleepy and eventually slept in class" 
  • Logical consequences:

          "she got a warning letter. If she is absent for another three times she would be bar from the class, so to not get the bar letter she intend to have full attendance from that moment on."      
  • Positive feedback:

               "we would be given many assignments, even though it was tough but her criticism and praises made the effort worth while to do"
  • Intrinsic reinforcer:

               "In learning psychology class, we have so much fun and learned interesting knowledge."
  • Social reinforcer:

               "Our lecturer Madam Lihanna is a warm and caring person, with her cute gesture and communicative personality, it would be hard for us to not attend the class as her attentiveness is a sort of reinforcement for us to come to class."
  • Material reinforcer:

              "Madam Lihanna had given her students notes and extra reading materials for us to be prepaired, this makes the students wants to take her class"

Friday, 5 October 2012

Activities In Class As Positive Reinforcer


We had a very interesting learning with Dr. Hanna on our 4th topic which is instrumental conditioning. The instrumental conditioning currently is also well known as operant conditioning. We just know that operant conditioning is actually a kind of voluntary action rather than involuntary action which is refer to classical conditioning.  Therefore, we could easily differentiate between of the two.

            There are several subtopics under this chapter which are Thorndike’s early research and Skinner’s operant conditioning. Actually we had already learned all these subtopics in the Introduction to Psychology course. Therefore we managed to get the information easily.


For the first subtopic we learned about Thorndike’s early research that containing three components which are law of effects, law of readiness, and law of exercises. Moreover, the second subtopic is Skinner's operant conditioning. It is divided into two which are reinforcement and punishment. After detailed explanation by Dr. Hanna we can identify between reinforcement and punishment as well as the different between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. For the last 30 minutes in the class session, we had group activity to identify the element of the classical conditioning based on our previous  story, The Phenomenon of Red Riding Hood.

On Thursday, 4th October 2012 we were given a task by Dr. Hanna since Dr. Hanna cannot attend the class due to other commitment. The task is about the differentiation between the operant and classical conditioning we were very satisfied because we can complete the task in unexpected time. We hope that the activity in class could become as a positive reinforcer for us ‘to hunt’ the knowledge and attend the class consistently.