Respondent and operant interactions can be a tough area to wrap your head around, given that most of the time, the terms are taught exclusively of each other. It’s important to learn the differences and discriminate those specific details so you can get those questions right on the big exam. But, what can get lost is that respondent and operant conditioning can actually occur simultaneously. A situation can result in both an operant contingency being formed, as well as a respondent contingency.
Imagine you use the microwave to warm up your dinner. The food goes in the microwave, you start the timer, then you wait. In a few minutes, the timer sounds, and your food is ready. You take it out, and you enjoy your meal. This is something that you do often. The respondent part of that scenario is the presentation of the food, which elicits that reflexive response—your salivation glands get activated. Now, if we pair that presentation of the food with the microwave tone, respondent conditioning is what results in that microwave tone actually causing you to salivate. The food, which is an unconditioned stimulus, is now paired with this neutral stimulus— the beeping of the microwave, and that results in the beep becoming a conditioned stimulus that elicits that conditioned response— salivating when hearing that microwave beep.
Does this sound kind of familiar? It should sound like Pavlov and his dog. The operant part of this story has to do with the MO that’s in place, which would be the hunger that you experience before a meal. Combine that with the beeping of the microwave, which is our SD that signals the food is available, and therefore evokes the behavior of taking the food out of the microwave, the response, which now leads to contacting that delicious food— the reinforcer. Remember, reinforcers only occur in operant conditioning.
What does this lead to? The likelihood of this behavior happening again in the future when the same conditions are present. You have the MO— you’re hungry, and an SD, the microwave beep signals the availability of food, given that behavior of taking the food out and consuming it. Of course, you do that again in the future because you know that behavior results in feeling full if you were hungry.
To sum this up: the respondent piece is the beep, which may make you experience salivation. But the operant piece lets you know that the beep means that food is ready, a reinforcer is available, given a specific behavior to attain it.