Psychology Ch: 5

Front 1

Learning

Back 1

Any relatively permanent change in the way an organism responds based on its experience

Front 2

Reflexes

Back 2

Behaviors elicited automatically by environmental stimuli

Front 3

Stimulus

Back 3

An object or event in the environment that elicits a response in an organism

Front 4

Habituation

Back 4

The decreasing strength of a response after repeated presentation of the stimulus

Front 5

Laws of Association

Back 5

First proposed by Aristotle, basic principles used to account for learning and memory that describe the conditions under which one thought becomes connected or associated with another

Front 6

Classical Conditioning

Back 6

A procedure by which a previously neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response after it is paired with a stimulus that automatically elicits that response

Front 7

Conditioning

Back 7

A form of learning

Front 8

Unconditioned Reflex

Back 8

A reflex that occurs naturally, without any prior learning

Front 9

Unconditioned Stimulus

Back 9

A stimulus that produces reflexive response without any prior learning

Front 10

Unconditioned Response

Back 10

An organism's unlearned, automatic response to a stimulus

Front 11

Conditioned Response

Back 11

In classical conditioning, a response that has been learned

Front 12

Conditioned Stimulus

Back 12

A stimulus that the organism has learned to associate with the unconditioned stimulus

Front 13

Phonia

Back 13

An irrational fear of a specific object or situation

Front 14

Stimulus Generalization

Back 14

The tendency for learned behavior to occur in response to stimuli that were not present during conditioning but that are similar to the conditioned stimulus

Front 15

Galvanic Skin Reponse

Back 15

An electrical measure of the amount of sweat on the skin that is produced during states of anxiety or arousal

Front 16

Stimulus Discrimination

Back 16

The tendency for an organism to respond to a very restricted range of stimuli

Front 17

Extinction

Back 17

In classical conditioning, the process by which a conditioned response is weakened by presentation of the conditioned stimulus without the unconditional stimulus

Front 18

Spontaneous Recovery

Back 18

The spontaneous reemergence of a response to an operant that has been extinguished

Front 19

Interstimulus Interval

Back 19

The duration of time between presentation of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus

Front 20

Blocking

Back 20

A phenomenon that occurs when a stimulus fails to elicit a conditioned response because it is combined with another stimulus that already elicits the response

Front 21

Latent Inhibition

Back 21

A phenomenon in classical conditioning in which initial exposure to a neural stimulus without a UCS slows the process of later learning the CS-UCS association of developing a CR

Front 22

Prepared Learning

Back 22

Responses to which an organism is predisposed because they were selected through natural selection

Front 23

Law of Effect

Back 23

Law proposed by Thorndike which states that the tendency of an organism to produce a behavior depends on the effect the behavior has on the environment

Front 24

Operant Conditioning

Back 24

Learning that results when an organism associates a response that occurs spontaneously with a particular environment effect

Front 25

Operants

Back 25

Behaviors that are emitted by the organism rather than elicited by the environment

Front 26

Reinforcement

Back 26

A conditioning process that increases the probability that a response will occur

Front 27

Reinforcer

Back 27

An environmental consequence that occurs after an organism has produced a response and makes the response more likely to recur

Front 28

Positive Reinforcement

Back 28

The process by which a behavior is made more likely because of the presentation of a rewarding stimulus

Front 29

Positive Reinforcer

Back 29

A rewarding stimulus that strengthens a behavior when it is presented

Front 30

Superstitious Behavior

Back 30

A phenomenon that occurs when the learner erroneously associates an operant and an environmental event

Front 31

Negative Reinforcement

Back 31

The process whereby a behavior is made more likely because it is followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus

Front 32

Negative Reinforcer

Back 32

An aversive or unpleasant stimulus that strengthens a behavior by its removal

Front 33

Escape Learning

Back 33

A negative reinforcement procedure in which the behavior of an organism is reinforced by the cessation of an aversive event that already exists

Front 34

Avoidance Learning

Back 34

A negative reinforcement procedure in which the behavior of an organism is reinforced by the prevention of an expected aversive event

Front 35

Punishment

Back 35

A conditioning process that decreases the probability that a behavior will occur

Front 36

Continuous Reinforcement Schedule

Back 36

An operant conditioning procedure in which the environmental consequences are the same each time an organism emits a behavior

Front 37

Partial Schedule of Reinforcement

Back 37

An operant conditioning procedure in which an organism is reinforced only some of the time it emits a behavior

Front 38

Ratio Schedules of Reinforcement

Back 38

Operant conditioning procedures in which an organism is reinforced for some proportion of responses

Front 39

Interval Schedule of Reinforcement

Back 39

Operant conditioning procedures rewards are delivered according to intervals of time

Front 40

Fixed Ratio Schedules of Reinforcement

Back 40

Operant conditioning procedures in which the organism receives reinforcement at a fixed rate, according to the number of reponses emitted

Front 41

Variable Ratio Schedules of Reinforcement

Back 41

Operant Conditioning procedures in which organisms receive rewards for a certain percentage of behaviors that are emitted, but this percentage is not fixed

Front 42

Fixed Interval Schedules of Reinforcement

Back 42

Operant Conditioning procedures in which organisms receive rewards for their responses only after a fixed amount of time

Front 43

Variable Interval Schedules of Reinforcement

Back 43

Operant conditioning procedures in which organisms receive rewards for their responses after an amount of time that is not constant

Front 44

Discriminative Stimulus

Back 44

A stimulus that signals that particular contingencies of reinforcement are in effect

Front 45

Shaping

Back 45

The process by teaching a new behavior by reinforcing closer and closer approximations of the desired response

Front 46

Biofeedback

Back 46

A procedure to monitoring autonomic physiological processes and learning to alter them at will

Front 47

Chaining

Back 47

A process of learning in which a sequence of already established behaviors is reinforced step by step

Front 48

Drive

Back 48

An unpleasant tension state that motivates behavior, classified as either primary or secondary (acquired)

Front 49

Drive-Reduction Theory

Back 49

Mid-twentieth century theory which proposed that motivation stems from a combination of drive and reinforcement, in which stimuli become reinforcing because they are associated with reduction of a state of biological deficit

Front 50

Primary Reinforcer

Back 50

A stimulus that is innately rewarding to an organism

Front 51

Secondary Reinforcer

Back 51

A stimulus that acquires reinforcement value after an organism learns to associate it with stimuli that are innately reinforcing

Front 52

Cognitive-Social Theory

Back 52

A theory of learning that emphasizes the role of thought and social learning in behavior

Front 53

Cognitive Maps

Back 53

Mental Representations of visual space

Front 54

Latent Learning

Back 54

Learning that has occurred but is not currently manifest in behavior

Front 55

Insight

Back 55

The ability to perceive a connection between a problem and its solution

Front 56

Expectancies

Back 56

Expectations relevant to desired outcomes

Front 57

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Back 57

An impression of a situation that evokes behaviors that, in turn, make impressions become true

Front 58

Generalized Expectancies

Back 58

Expectancies that influence a broad spectrum of behavior

Front 59

Locus of Control of Reinforcement

Back 59

Generalized expectancies people hold about whether or not their own behavior will bring about the outcomes they seek

Front 60

External Locus of Control

Back 60

The belief that one's life determined by forces outside oneself

Front 61

Internal Locus of Control

Back 61

The belief that one is the master of one's fate

Front 62

Learned Helplessness

Back 62

The expectancy that one cannot escape from aversive events

Front 63

Explanatory Style

Back 63

The way people make sense of events or outcomes, particularly aversive ones

Front 64

Pessimistic Explanatory Style

Back 64

A tendency to explain bad events that happen in a self blaming manner, viewing their causes as global and stable

Front 65

Social Learning

Back 65

Learning in which individuals learn many things from the people around them, with or without punishments

Front 66

Observational Learning

Back 66

Learning that occurs by observing the behavior of others

Front 67

Modeling

Back 67

A social learning procedure in which a person learns to reproduce behavior exhibited by a model

Front 68

Vicarious Conditioning

Back 68

The process by which an individual learns the consequences of an action by observing its consequences for someone else

Front 69

Tutelage

Back 69

The teaching of concepts or procedures primarily through verbal explanation or instruction