Operant conditioning is best described as which of the following?

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Operant conditioning is about learning from the consequences of voluntary behavior. When a behavior is followed by a reinforcer, the chance it will happen again increases; when it’s followed by a punisher, the chance decreases. This framework can involve positive reinforcement (adding a pleasant outcome), negative reinforcement (removing an unpleasant condition to strengthen the behavior), and positive or negative punishment (adding or removing something to reduce the behavior). The essential idea is that learning is driven by the functional outcome of the behavior, guiding future choices.

This differs from observational learning, which is about learning by watching others and imitating them; it also isn’t about memory consolidation during sleep or simply measuring reaction time, which are separate processes or methods rather than a theory of how behavior changes through consequences.