Operant conditioning  From Scholarpedia John E. R. Staddon and
Yael Niv (2008), Scholarpedia, 3(9):2318.
doi:10.4249/scholarpedia.2318 revision #91609 [link to/cite this
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Curator: John E. R. Staddon  Operant conditioning (also known as
instrumental conditioning) is a process by which humans and
animals learn to behave in such a way as to obtain rewards and
avoid punishments. It is also the name for the paradigm in
experimental psychology by which such learning and action
selection processes are studied.    The behavior of all animals,
from protists to humans, is guided by its consequences. The
bacterium finds its way, somewhat inefficiently, up a chemical
gradient; the dog begs for a bone; the politician reads the
polls to guide his campaign. Operant conditioning is goal-
oriented behavior like this.  These examples are instances of
ontogenetic selection, that is guidance by consequences during
the life of the individual. Other names for ontogeneti