Years from now, I'm sure I'll still remember the concept of operant conditioning. If you aren't aware, operant conditioning is a theory of psychological learning that deals with "reinforcement" and "punishment." Good behavior is rewarded with reinforcement, while bad behavior is met with punishment. Operant conditioning differs from classical conditioning in that it deals with one's own behavior, rather than others'.
I'm sure I'll remember operant conditioning simply due to the vast number of occurrences in our society. Even now, I'm a slave to my conditioning: I get frustrated while working on homework, which punishes my behavior of working on homework, so I tend to do it less or put it off. However, completing the homework is rewarded (hopefully!) with a good grade, so I tend to do it more. There are nearly infinite similar examples of operant conditioning's affect on our day to day life, in big ways and small.
An example of operant conditioning (possibly taken to extremes) is applied in this big bang theory clip: http://youtu.be/qy_mIEnnlF4
Note: Embedding is disabled on the video, otherwise I would have embedded it.
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