Practice
Operant Conditioning Quiz
Twenty questions, from a dog and a treat to motivating operations, with an explanation the moment you answer. Most people get the negative-reinforcement questions wrong. Will you?
The two-question test
For any scenario, ask, in this order: (1) Did the behavior become more or less likely? More likely means reinforcement; less likely means punishment. (2) Was something added or removed? Added means positive; removed means negative. Ignore whether the consequence seems pleasant, ignore what anyone intended, and look only at what happened to the behavior.
What this operant conditioning quiz covers
This operant conditioning quiz has 20 multiple-choice practice questions that get harder as you go. The first eight ask you to identify the quadrant — positive or negative reinforcement, positive or negative punishment — from everyday scenarios that are written to catch the classic mistakes: the seat-belt chime, the candy that ends a tantrum, the scolding that turns out to be attention, the time-out that is really an escape. The rest cover schedules of reinforcement, the extinction burst and spontaneous recovery, shaping versus chaining, operant versus classical conditioning, a little history, and the two ideas that separate people who understand this subject from people who have memorized it: the motivating operation and the functional definition of a reinforcer.
How the quiz is scored
One point per question, no penalty for wrong answers, and a short explanation after every answer whether you got it right or not. Your score appears at the end, and you can retake the quiz as often as you like. Nothing is recorded or sent anywhere.
Answer key and explanations
Every question from the quiz, with the correct answer and the reasoning. Open any question to check your thinking.
Q1. A dog sits when told to and immediately gets a treat. Over the next week, the dog sits on cue more reliably. Which process is this?
Answer: Positive reinforcement.
Ask the two questions. Did the behavior increase? Yes, so it is reinforcement. Was something added or removed? A treat was added, so it is positive reinforcement.
Q2. You start the car and an irritating chime sounds until you buckle your seat belt. Over time you buckle up faster and more consistently. What is maintaining the buckling?
Answer: Negative reinforcement.
Buckling increased, so this is reinforcement, and it increased because an aversive stimulus (the chime) was removed, so it is negative reinforcement. Nothing here is punishment: no behavior decreased.
Q3. A teenager comes home after curfew and loses the car keys for a week. Curfew violations become less frequent. Which quadrant is this?
Answer: Negative punishment.
The behavior decreased, so it is punishment. It decreased because access to something (the car) was removed, so it is negative punishment. Grounding and losing privileges are the classic examples.
Q4. A teacher scolds a student every time he calls out without raising his hand. Over the month, calling out increases. What has happened?
Answer: Positive reinforcement, because the behavior increased.
Consequences are defined by their effect, not by how they look. Scolding added a stimulus (attention) and the behavior went up, so the scolding functioned as a positive reinforcer. For a student who gets little attention, even a reprimand can be the payoff.
Q5. A child screams for candy in the checkout line. The parent hands over the candy and the screaming stops. On later shopping trips, screaming becomes more frequent. What is the candy, for the child?
Answer: A positive reinforcer for screaming.
Candy was added after the screaming and the screaming increased: positive reinforcement of the tantrum. Call it a bribe if you like, but the contingency is still doing its work, and it is working on the child.
Q6. In the same checkout-line scenario, the parent finds herself handing over the candy faster and faster on each trip. What is happening to the parent’s behavior?
Answer: It is being negatively reinforced by the end of the screaming.
The parent’s candy-giving increased because an aversive stimulus (the screaming) stopped when she did it. That is escape, which is negative reinforcement. Two behaviors were strengthened in one exchange, and neither person intended either of them.
Q7. A student hits the snooze button, the alarm stops, and she drifts back to sleep. Over the semester she hits snooze more and more often. Which process best explains the snooze-pressing?
Answer: Negative reinforcement: the alarm is removed.
The immediate consequence of pressing the button is that the alarm stops: an aversive stimulus is removed and the behavior increases. That is negative reinforcement by escape. Extra sleep may add positive reinforcement on top, but the defining event is the removal of the noise. Being late is delayed and inconsistent, which is exactly why it fails to punish.
Q8. A boy who dislikes math worksheets is sent to the hallway for five minutes every time he swears during math. Swearing during math increases. What is the hallway time-out actually doing?
Answer: Negatively reinforcing swearing by removing the worksheet.
Time-out is a punishment procedure only when the behavior decreases. Here swearing increased, and what changed when he swore was that the aversive task went away, so the time-out is functioning as negative reinforcement (escape). Time-out only works when the time-in environment is more reinforcing than the time-out.
Q9. A garment worker is paid a fixed amount for every 20 shirts she sews. Which schedule of reinforcement is this?
Answer: Fixed ratio (FR).
Reinforcement depends on a set number of responses, so it is a ratio schedule, and the number is always the same, so it is fixed: FR 20. Fixed-ratio schedules produce a high rate with a brief pause after each reinforcer.
Q10. New email arrives at unpredictable times. Checking your inbox more often does not make messages arrive sooner, but the first check after a message lands is the one that pays off. Which schedule is this?
Answer: Variable interval (VI).
Reinforcement depends on time passing, not on how many checks you make, so it is an interval schedule, and the time is unpredictable, so it is variable: VI. Variable-interval schedules produce moderate, steady responding.
Q11. Which schedule of reinforcement produces behavior that is most resistant to extinction?
Answer: Variable ratio.
On a variable-ratio schedule the organism can never tell whether the next response will pay off, so responding persists long after reinforcement stops. It is the schedule behind slot machines and infinite scroll. Continuous reinforcement is at the other extreme: fast to learn, fast to extinguish.
Q12. On a cumulative record, one schedule shows a pause after each reinforcer followed by a gradually accelerating rate of responding as the next reinforcer approaches, a pattern called a scallop. Which schedule is it?
Answer: Fixed interval (FI).
The FI scallop appears because responding early in a fixed interval is never reinforced, so the organism waits, then speeds up as the interval ends. Students who study little after an exam and cram before the next one show the same curve. Fixed ratio produces a pause too, but it is followed by an abrupt switch to a high, steady rate, not a gradual acceleration.
Q13. For months, a toddler’s bedtime crying has always brought a parent into the room. The parents decide to stop going in. On the first night the crying is louder, longer, and more varied than ever before. What is this?
Answer: An extinction burst.
When a reinforcer is first withheld, behavior often becomes more frequent, more intense, and more variable before it declines. That is the extinction burst. Giving in at this point reinforces the louder version of the crying on an intermittent schedule, which makes it harder to extinguish later.
Q14. The parents hold firm and the crying stops within a week. Ten days later, with nothing else changed, the crying briefly returns one night at a lower intensity, then fades again. What is this called?
Answer: Spontaneous recovery.
Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of an extinguished behavior after time away from extinction, usually weaker than before and weaker each time if reinforcement is still withheld. It is not a sign that extinction failed. Resurgence is different: an old behavior returning when a newer replacement behavior stops being reinforced.
Q15. A trainer teaching a dog to spin in a circle first rewards a slight head turn, then a quarter turn, then a half turn, and finally a full spin, withholding rewards for earlier versions as each new step is learned. Which procedure is this?
Answer: Shaping.
Reinforcing successive approximations of a target behavior while extinguishing earlier ones is shaping. Chaining is different: it links separate, already-learned behaviors into a sequence in which each step cues the next, usually built from a task analysis.
Q16. A dog starts to salivate when it hears the treat bag rustle. Which kind of learning best describes the salivation?
Answer: Classical (respondent) conditioning.
Salivation is a reflex elicited by a stimulus, not a voluntary behavior strengthened by its consequences. The rustle was paired with food and now elicits the response on its own: classical conditioning. The dog’s running to the kitchen when it hears the bag, by contrast, is operant behavior, reinforced by getting the treat.
Q17. Which statement correctly distinguishes operant conditioning from classical conditioning?
Answer: Classical conditioning involves reflexive responses elicited by antecedent stimuli; operant conditioning involves emitted behavior controlled by its consequences.
Classical conditioning is stimulus-stimulus learning: a neutral stimulus paired with an unconditioned stimulus comes to elicit a reflexive response, and the key event comes before the response. Operant conditioning is behavior-consequence learning: the organism emits a behavior and what follows changes its future probability. Both apply across species.
Q18. Whose puzzle-box experiments with cats produced the law of effect, the principle Skinner later developed into the concept of reinforcement?
Answer: Edward Thorndike.
Thorndike timed cats escaping from latched boxes and found that responses followed by a satisfying outcome were “stamped in.” He published the law of effect in 1898. Skinner coined the term “operant” in 1937 and formalized the science in The Behavior of Organisms (1938); Pavlov studied reflexes; Watson launched behaviorism in 1913.
Q19. A rat has learned to press a lever for food pellets only when a light is on. One day the experimenter feeds the rat to fullness before the session. The light comes on, but the rat barely presses. What is the pre-session feeding?
Answer: An abolishing operation that reduces the value of food as a reinforcer.
The light is the discriminative stimulus: it signals that pressing will pay off, and it still does. What changed is the rat’s motivation. Satiation is an abolishing operation, a motivating operation that lowers the effectiveness of a reinforcer and reduces the behavior that produces it. Discriminative stimuli signal availability; motivating operations change value.
Q20. A manager begins praising employees publicly whenever they submit reports early. Over the next month, early submissions decrease. Which statement is correct?
Answer: The praise was not a reinforcer for this behavior; whether a stimulus is a reinforcer is determined by its effect on behavior.
A reinforcer is defined by its effect: a stimulus that follows a behavior and increases it. If early submissions fell after public praise was added, the praise was not reinforcing them; if the drop was caused by the praise, it functioned as a positive punisher, which is common when public attention is embarrassing. The only way to know what reinforces a behavior is to watch what happens to the behavior.
Study guide: where each topic is explained
Missed a few? Each question maps to one page on this site. Read the page, retake the quiz, and the same scenarios should feel obvious.
| Questions | Topic | Where to study it |
|---|---|---|
| 1, 4, 5, 20 | Positive reinforcement and the functional definition of a reinforcer | Positive reinforcement |
| 2, 6, 7, 8 | Negative reinforcement, escape, and avoidance | Negative reinforcement |
| 4, 20 | Positive punishment and why attention is not always punishment | Positive punishment |
| 3, 8 | Negative punishment, grounding, and time-out done correctly | Negative punishment |
| 9–12 | Fixed and variable, ratio and interval schedules; the scallop; resistance to extinction | Schedules of reinforcement (with a simulator) |
| 13, 14 | Extinction burst, spontaneous recovery, resurgence, renewal | Extinction |
| 15 | Shaping, successive approximations, chaining | Shaping |
| 16, 17 | Respondent vs. operant behavior | Operant vs. classical conditioning |
| 18 | Thorndike, Watson, Skinner | B. F. Skinner · History |
| 19 | Discriminative stimuli and motivating operations | The ABC model |
For quick definitions of any term that appeared in the quiz, use the operant conditioning glossary; for more scenarios to practice on, see the 50+ examples sorted by quadrant. The complete guide covers everything on this page in one place.
Frequently asked questions
Is this quiz free?
Yes. Nothing is recorded, you can take it as many times as you like, and the full answer key with explanations is printed on this page.
How many questions are in the operant conditioning quiz?
Twenty multiple-choice questions, each with four options and an instant explanation. Eight cover identifying the four quadrants from scenarios, four cover schedules of reinforcement, two cover extinction, and the rest cover shaping, operant versus classical conditioning, history, motivating operations, and the functional definition of a reinforcer.
Can I use this to study for AP Psychology or an intro psych exam?
Yes. The quiz covers the operant conditioning material that appears in AP Psychology and most introductory psychology courses: the four quadrants, the schedules and their response patterns, extinction and spontaneous recovery, shaping, and the difference between operant and classical conditioning. The scenario questions are written in the same style as exam items, and the study guide above links each topic to a full explanation.
What score is good?
Fourteen or more out of twenty (70%) indicates a solid grasp of the fundamentals; eighteen or more means you could teach it. If you score below ten, the quadrant pages and the schedules page will fix most of the gaps, because those topics account for more than half the questions. Most first-time mistakes are the negative-reinforcement items, which is exactly what the quiz is designed to expose.