Operant Conditioning in Marketing

Abstract

Next we turn to operant conditioning. Experiments in this type of conditioning started within a year or two of Pavlov’s work, just at the turn of the century. The source in this case was an American, Edward Thorn-dike, who was studying the way animals solve problems. From watching a number of animals learn to solve mazes and to get out of puzzle boxes, he concluded that when an action is followed by a “satisfying state of affairs,” it tends to be repeated, and when it is followed by an “aversive state of affairs,” it tends not to be repeated. He called this principle the Law of Effect, because the factor which controls behavior is the effect it has on the environment. Later researchers, most notably B. F. Skinner, expanded the work of Thorndike, and worked out the conditions under which it takes place.