Question

Suppose you were in charge of toilet training your two-year-old sister. Set up a reinforcement system using the operant conditioning method of shaping. What steps toward the goal would you reinforce? What reinforcer do you think would be most effective?

Answer 1

Operant conditioning is teaching someone something using rewards. Every time they do what you want, they get a reward. So in your example, you'd need to break down the toilet training process a bit. First the child needs to figure out that her body is telling her she has to use the bathroom. Then she needs to learn to tell that to you in time to go. Then she needs to actually go.