Update: 9/16/2016

Operant conditioning, a term I've heard before and found pretty fascinating. Its a way of transforming behavior through positive as well as negative stimuli. I first heard about Operant conditioning through the Military Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC) program I was in for three years in high school. The military relies heavily on this system to condition and train large groups of troops (or cadets in this case) to cooperate and become a single, large, disciplined unit. I served as the S3, the Battalion Operations Officer for two years and reached the rank of First Lieutenant. I dealt with all of the the logistics and operations of the battalion and assumed control of the battalion in the absence of the Battalion Commander and Battalion Executive officer. In order to reinforce the good behavior  of the cadets, the positive reinforcement of rank and medals was given in accordance to those cadets whom completed their tasks and went above to get the job done as well as take care of their cadets. For some, this provided a largely positive incentive and these few cadets achieved the highest rank allowed for their year as well as six or more awards than the other cadets within their year. The positive reinforcement didn't end with the end of a year. It would continue on with positions of authority such as the Battalion staff, Company Commanders, Drill and Rifle team commanders, Platoon leaders, and Squad leaders. Cadets that achieved the highest positions of authority were those that had begun the program their freshman year and continued on into their junior and senior years, providing a follow through of positive reinforcement for those that chose to stay in the battalion for the longest amount of times. On the opposite side, there were the punishments. There were far more punishments than reinforcements, these being the simple pushups and physical training to the more complicated demotions and removal from the program. Cadets that refused to follow orders, cursed, showed up late, and caused issues for the battalion would experience noxious stimuli to try to correct the behaviors. This would start with embarrassment, push ups, and other forms of physical training. However, once this noxious stimuli was removed or had ended the cadets at times would avoid making the same actions to prevent the return of this punishment. This would also work for larger groups, such as entire companies . A company acting unruly would have a worse PT (physical training) day than those companies that had acted appropriate. This back and forth of positive and negative reinforcement and punishment worked well to condition the cadets of the program to work together and to at times stay out of trouble. This would lead to the principle of reinforcement escape as cadets would implement their own punishments on other cadets to try to avoid being punished as a whole. This is the same behavior conditioning employed by the military, minus the Bootcamp drill sergeants that would provide incredibly noxious stimuli. Its what makes a military unit cohesive and well balanced. Skinner's behavioral work on Operant Conditioning is what makes military training effective in building up strong, disciplined soldiers. Switching gears, for my game, I wanted a form of this system in the way of card stealing. My main focused idea is a game based around collecting parts of a car to have a completed car by the end of the game. The player would pick up cards as they progressed on the board with certain parts and scrap metal to repair their vehicle. However, they would pick up cards that would allow them to steal parts from fellow players, provided the players had parts they were looking for.