Question

mark and kathy take their 2 - year - old son to the supermarket every saturday. each week, the same sequence of events unfolds: their son screams, demanding that they buy him treats. although they refuse to give in to his demands, he continues to scream. finally, either mark or kathy gets in their sons face and yells at the top of their lungs \shut up!\ he stops screaming instantly. what operant conditioning concepts are illustrated in this story? their son probably learned how to scream by observing his parents at home, and now he is reinforced on a variable - interval schedule of reinforcement. the parents are using punishment to suppress the screaming; their use of punishment is negatively reinforced by the cessation of screaming. the parents are using negative reinforcement to increase their sons screaming. the parents are in a very dysfunctional marriage; their childs screaming is his way of trying to get his parents to remain married.

Explanation:

Punishment in operant conditioning aims to decrease a behavior. When the parents yell at their son, they are applying an aversive stimulus (punishment) which suppresses the screaming behavior. Their action is negatively reinforced because the unpleasant situation of the son's screaming stops. There is no evidence of the son learning through observation and variable - interval reinforcement as described in the first option. Negative reinforcement increases a behavior, not decreases it as the parents want with the screaming, so the third option is incorrect. The fourth option about the marriage has no basis in the operant conditioning concepts and is not relevant to the question about operant conditioning.

Answer:

The parents are using punishment to suppress the screaming; their use of punishment is negatively reinforced by the cessation of screaming.