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177 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Define behaviorism.
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an examination of the role of environmental stimuli in determining behavior.
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Define learning.
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a change in behavior which occurs as the result of experience
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In general, what does behaviorism look for?
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the relationship between external stimuli and our responses
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Define functionalism.
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how behavior relates to its purpose
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What hampered development of the other perspectives when behaviorism originated?
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The biological perspective was hampered by technology, and the cognitive perspective by the subjectivity of introspection.
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Who came up with functionalism but was better at asking questions than answering them?
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William James
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What are the two assumptions of behaviorism?
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parsimony and associationism
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Define parsimony.
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the principle that one should always seek the simplest possible explanation for any event, also known as Occam's Razor
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Define associationism.
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the doctrine that mental processes like learning come from forming connectiosn between ideas and/or events
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Which philosophers have supported associationism?
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Aristotle, David Hume, and J. S. Mill
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When did Thorndike publish his dissertation Animal Intelligence?
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1898
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What is Thorndike most famous for?
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his law of effect
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What did Thorndike study for his dissertation?
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problem solving in animals, whether they could complete puzzle-like tasks like a cat stuck in a box with a lever to push to get out
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What is Thorndike's law of effect?
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Any response that leads to a satisfying outcome will be repeated, and any response that leads to a negative outcome is not likely to be repeated.
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What assumption does Thorndike's law of effect relate to?
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associationism, because it is connecting actions with consequences
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What was new about Thorndike's law of effect?
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It claimed experimental backing.
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What is the major criticism of Thorndike's law of effect?
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"satisfying" is a vague notion that, if we define it, violates the assumption of parsimony
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What did John B. Watson do to the behaviorist approach?
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He restricted it to just factors that could be directly observed and measured.
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What was Watson's major work, published in which year?
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Behaviorism, 1930
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Who said that, given the appropriate environment, he could train a healthy infant to be a "doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents..."
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John B. Watson
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Who was the founder of behaviorism?
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John B. Watson
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During which years was behaviorism the dominant perspective in psychology?
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the 1930s to 1950s
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Who held the position of radical behaviorism?
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John B. Watson
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Who formulated the law of effect?
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Edwin Lynn Thorndike
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What are the three contributions of radical behaviorism to psychology?
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an emphasis on the observable, a rejection of unobservable mental concepts, and a focus on learning and experience in the study of behavior
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What are the two major consequences of limiting the environment to observable characteristics?
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Everything must be done under laboratory conditions, and terms must be defined clearly.
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What does S stand for?
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stimulus
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What is a stimulus?
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anything that is measurable and may affect behavior
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Why must environmental stimuli be defined clearly?
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We want to know which aspect of a stimulus triggers the response.
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What does R stand for?
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response
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What is a response?
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The behavior that is measured.
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Why must responses be defined clearly?
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because there is tremendous variation in general responses like eating
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What are reflexes?
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unlearned responses triggered by specific environmental stimuli
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What are two examples of reflexes?
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people removing their hand from a hot surface and babies sucking on whatever is put in their mouth
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Does learning include reflexes?
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It does, and those too can be learned (or unlearned as the case may be).
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What did Pavlov initially study?
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dogs' salivation when provided with given food
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What did Pavlov discover that was new?
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reflexes such as salivation in dogs could be conditioned
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What do US and UR stand for?
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unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned response
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When did Pavlov say learning occurs in his dogs?
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when neutral stimuli are paired with the unconditioned stimulus
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What do neutral stimuli become when they are paired with unconditioned stimuli?
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conditioned stimuli
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What do CS and CR stand for?
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conditioned stimulus and conditioned response
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What are two other names for classical conditioning?
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Pavlovian conditioning or respondent conditioning
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What is the optimal interval between the stimuli for learning to occur in animals?
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less than a second
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What are the three principles of classical conditioning?
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extinction, higher-order conditioning, and stimulus generalization and discrimination
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What is extinction?
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conditioned responses eventually die out if the unconditioned stimulus is left out repeatedly
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What is an exception to extinction?
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spontaneous recovery
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What is spontaneous recovery?
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when an eliminated conditioned response comes back some time after it was eliminated, such as the next day
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What is higher-order conditioning?
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When a conditioned response is paired with another neutral response, making the second neutral response a conditioned response as well
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Where can higher-order conditioning pop up in humans?
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in the formation of prejudices, with the association with words that were already labeled
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What is stimulus generalization?
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stimuli that are similar to a conditioned stimulus often produce the same effect
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What is stimulus discrimination?
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similar stimuli can be differentiated if some are followed by the unconditioned stimulus but others not
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What did Watson say about classical conditioning?
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It explained a wide array of human emotions and behavior.
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How do commercials teach us to like their products?
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They pair those products with music, attractive people, or otherwise make it appeal to us.
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What did Gorn (1982) study?
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college students pen color preferences after they were shown slides of beige and blue pens along with familiar and unfamiliar music
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Why do people "naturally" fear somethings more often than others?
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Those things are more dangerous to our health, such as snakes, spiders, and heights.
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What is a phobia?
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an irrational fear
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Who studied Little Albert when?
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John Watson and Rosalie Rayner (1920)
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What did Little Albert learn to associate?
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a little furry white rat with loud noises (fear)
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What is counterconditioning?
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when a conditioned stimulus is paired with another stimulus with an opposite response
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What is an example of counterconditioning?
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John Watson and Mary Cover Jones were able to reverse 3-year-old Peter's fear of rabbits by pairing it with a snack of milk and crackers in 1924.
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What research dealt with slugs' sense of smell?
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Sahley, Rudy and Gelperin 1981 associated the smell of carrots with a bitter chemical, and found the slugs avoided carrots and anything else paired with the smell of carrots, like potatoes.
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What research indicates that many animals are more apt to pair taste with illness than sight or sound?
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Garcia and Koelling 1966 and Seligman and Hager 1972
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What research has shown the association of chemotherapy sessions with nausea?
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Dadds et al. 1997 and Redd et al. 1993;
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What research shows higher-order conditioning via chemotherapy sessions?
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Jacobsen et al. 1995 gave patients lemon-lime Kool-Aid before chemotherapy, and the patients learned to dislike the drink.
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How do behaviorists explain placebo?
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Real pills from the past are USs; the effects are URs, and the placebos are CRs.
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What is Little Albert specifically an example of?
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a conditioned emotional response
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What did Watson and Rayner find when they tried to make Little Albert's fear of the rat extinct?
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It didn't work in the three weeks they had to extinguish it.
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Why doesn't extinction work on fear?
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Fear and other autonomic nervous system responses are hard to extinguish. Also, fear is easily generalized, so many objects must be extinguished.
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How does classical conditioning impact language?
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The emotional meanings of words cannot be innate, so they must come from classical conditioning.
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What did Pavlov discover about drug reactions in his dogs?
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He could pair a vomit-inducing drug with a tone successfully.
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What research shows that the conditioned response to a drug can be opposite the normal effects of the drug?
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Siegel 1976, studying morphine in rats
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Why do some drugs condition the same effects while others condition the opposite effects?
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Some trigger a one-time reaction, like Pavlov's dogs vomiting, while others interact with homeostasis, like the rats on morphine.
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What effects can conditioning have on the immune system?
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Conditioning can lower our immune response (Ader and Cohen 1975) or can increase it (Gorcynski et al. 1982, Alverez-Borda et al. 1985).
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What is the fundamental reason why classical conditioning can be so useful?
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It can affect our involuntary as well as voluntary actions.
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While classical conditioning focused on associations, where is the emphasis for operant conditioning?
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environmental consequences for one's actions
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What is the difference in the reactions induced by classical and by operant conditioning?
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Classical conditioning uses reflexes, while operant conditioning uses more complex mental processes.
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Who first studied operant conditioning when?
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Edward Thorndike in 1898
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Who is the main researcher in operant conditioning?
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Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner
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What is different between Watson's and Skinner's approaches to behaviorism?
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Skinner's radical behaviorism focused on consequences (operant conditioning) rather than associations (classical conditioning).
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What did Skinner say about free will?
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It's an illusion; everything is deterministic.
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What were the only three things, according to Skinner, that influence behavior?
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genes, experience, and the current situation
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What are the three general consequences of behavior?
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neutral consequences, reinforcement, and punishment
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What is reinforcement defined as?
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anything that strengthens the response or makes it more likely to occur
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Why to behaviorists avoid substituting 'reward' for 'reinforcement'?
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'Reward' implies the behavior is being rewarded, which it is not, and reinforcement can include negative emotions, unlike rewards.
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What is punishment defined as?
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anything that weakens the response or makes it less likely to occur
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What is operant conditioning akin to in ecology?
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natural selection
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What are primary reinforcers and punishers?
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anything that satisfies biological needs
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What are the limitations of using primary reinforcers and punishers in research?
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It can be ineffective if the organism is not deprived, and it is ethically problematic.
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What are secondary reinforcers and punishers?
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anything that doesn't satisfy biological needs but cause behavioral changes because they have been paired with primary reinforcers/punishers.
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What is the difference between positive and negative reinforcement?
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Positive reinforcement adds something pleasant while negative reinforcement takes something unpleasant away.
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What is the difference between positive and negative punishment?
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Positive punishment adds something unpleasant while negative punishment takes something pleasant away.
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What is shaping?
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reinforcing a tendency towards the desired response, but requiring better successive approximations each time
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Name two things Skinner was able to train pigions to do using shaping?
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play ping pong with their beaks and "bowl" in a miniature alley
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How do animal trainers use shaping?
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They teach dogs to fill in for people's disabilities.
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What was most controversial of Skinner's views?
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He insisted that external influences governed us, not internal influences.
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What did Skinner advocate in the classroom?
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immediate reinforcement, with machines and textbooks taking over the more mundane of teachers' roles
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How have Skinner's principles been applied in sports ability?
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Thomas Simek and Richard O'Brien studied golf and baseball: the task (putting, swinging) is made easier at first, and gradually becomes harder as the easier levels are mastered.
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What can be used to increase workers' motivation, morale, and cooperation?
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when workers share as a whole in the profits of the company (Deutsch 1991)
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When are reinforcement and criticism helpful in a job?
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when they are well-defined, achievable, and specific (Baron 1988) as well as immediate
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What is a good example of immediate reinforcement?
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IBM's Thomas Watson would write out a check on the spot for jobs well done
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How has the US Navy used animals to do useful work by following Skinner's ideas?
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with food reinforcements and shaping (Holing 1988, Morrison 1988)
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What are two examples of ways people are made to use less energy, following Skinner's ideas?
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If people pay their own energy bills, they use 20% less energy than people who don't, and people on energy diets are encouraged by instant feedback (Darley et al 1979).
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What do parent training researchers suggest to counter reinforcement of undesired behavior?
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Give attention for kids behaving well, targeting specific behavior; ignore whining; punish with a time-out, not violence or yelling.
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What negative trends develop in parent-child relationships?
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When parents tell children to do something, the children whine, so they get their way for a while, until the parents get mad and threaten the kids, at which point they obey. Both the whining and the threatening are reinforced.
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What four steps do psychologists recommend for controlling your own behavior?
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State your goal and make it public. Record your progress. Systematically reinforce the desired behavior. Reduce incentives once it becomes habitual.
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What is the equipotentiality premise?
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Principles of conditioning apply to any response and any species.
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What is ethology?
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studying animal behavior in natural environments
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Who founded ethology when?
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Konrad Lorenz in 1967
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What did Lorenz study?
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species-specific behaviors, also known as instincts
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What are species-specific behaviors?
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behaviors that apply to all members of a certain species
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What is imprinting?
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when the young of many species attach themselves to the nearest moving stimulus after birth (usually a mother)
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What is imprinting an example of?
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species-specific behavior
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What did the ethologists find that contradicted what the behaviorists said?
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Not all learning is the same; some tasks are easier to learn than other tasks.
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What are critical periods?
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times during development during which it is easiest to learn something
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What is preparedness?
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the degree to which physiology influences behavior occurence
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Who thought of preparedness?
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Martin Seligman
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How is preparedness worded?
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Innate behaviors are prepared; learned behaviors are unprepared, and nearly impossible behaviors are contraprepared
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What degree of preparedness do behaviorists focus on?
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unprepared behaviors, which can be learned but are not innate
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Who researched physiological reasons for food aversion when?
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John Garcia and colleagues in 1974
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What did Garcia find about food aversion?
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If rats get ill after eating a distinctive-tasting food, they will avoid the food in the future.
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What did Garcia call food aversion and why?
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bait-shyness, because of a belief that fish nearly hooked with one kind of bait will avoid it in the future
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What research supports the widespread connection of food aversion to illness?
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Bernstein 1991: Chemotherapy patients developed lots of food aversions.
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Why is illness so often connected with the last food eaten?
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For survival, it makes sense. Avoid the foods that cause you illness.
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What are 4 examples of prepared behaviors?
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food avoidance, landmark recognition in migratory birds, fear of the dark, and fears of certain things like rats, spiders and snakes by humans
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What are examples of contraprepared behaviors in humans?
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There aren't any at present.
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Why do biological constraints on behavior not play as big a role in humans as they do in animals?
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perhaps because we have a long infancy and childhood as compared to other species
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How do behaviorists treat mental processes in humans?
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They ignore them, calling them scientifically unknowable because of the inherent subjectivity.
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Where would Skinner and Freud agree?
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on emphasizing an organism's past in determining their current and future behavior
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What are the major contributions of the behavioral perspective, according to Glassman?
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the concepts of classical conditioning and operant conditioning, and an emphasis on making psychology scientific.
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Why has behaviorism been dethroned of the prominent approach in psychology?
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It is not as universal as it claims, and cognitive psychologists found ways to study mental processes.
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How do behaviorists explain superstition?
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Success once, even coincidental success, reinforces us to do something or not every time.
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How did Skinner get birds to act superstitiously?
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He built their cages to give them food every 15 seconds, and some of them developed a ritual that "led" to food, like turning around in circles.
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Why are superstitions and rituals not extinguished?
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Random reinforcement, occuring regardless of the ritual, provides enough reinforcement to counter extinction (Schwartz and Reilly 1985).
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From where do superstitions arise?
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from our experience (lucky pen) or from the general consensus (black cat)
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What is an example of animals displaying insight?
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Wolfgang Köhler (1925) gave chimps a task to solve, and some were able to solve it.
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What is insight?
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sudden understanding of relationships or organizations that can arrive at a solution
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How did Epstein and colleagues study insight in pigeons?
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In 1984, they reinforced three different behaviors and extinguished others, then presented a problem for pigeons involving those three behaviors in succession. The pigeons were confused at first but it occured to them suddenly what they needed to do.
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What did Skinner say about human consciousness? Does it exist? Should we study it?
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Skinner said that we can study our own internal events (emotions, thoughts, etc.) but such constructs cannot explain behavior.
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What two social scientists proposed "social-learning theory" when?
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Dollard and Miller, in the 1940s
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Where does social-cognitive learning theory differ from behaviorism?
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SCLT emphasizes interactions between thoughts, beliefs, expectations and behavior.
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How do SCL theorists get around free will?
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They say that most people choose what situations they get into, and their immediate thoughts and feelings affect the situation and are affected by the situation.
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What four phenomena do SCLT's emphasize?
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latent learning, observational learning, perception and interpretation, and motivating beliefs (confidence, doubt, etc.)
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How did Tolman demonstrate latent learning?
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He put three groups of rats in a maze. The first group always got food for reaching the end; the second group (the control) got no food; the third group got food starting on the 11th day. The third group quickly outperformed the first group, showing they had learned something before their behavior was reinforced.
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What problems does latent learning pose for behaviorism?
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It has no reinforcement
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What is latent learning?
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learning that is not immediately expressed
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What do SCL theorists say learning is?
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acquiring knowledge about something
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What did Tolman argue his latent-learning rats learned?
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information about the maze
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What do cognitive psychologists include that behaviorists leave out?
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internal events called mediators
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How are cognitive mediators defined?
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conceptually, with reference to their mediating function
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Who led the two challenges to Watson's behaviorism?
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Wolfgang Köhler and E. C. Tolman
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How did Köhler challenge behaviorism?
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He showed insightful behavior and argued in favor of Gestalt psychology over behaviorism.
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How did Tolman challenge behaviorism?
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He described purpose in animals and men that was hard to get around as a behaviorist. He concluded that learning comes from cognitive maps and that learning and responding are not the same thing.
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How did Köhler describe insight?
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forming an appropriate schema/mental set for a situation
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What did Köhler observe the ape Sultan doing?
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He figured out how to reach some bananas by trial and error, not by successive approximations.
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What is observational learning?
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observing and imitating others' behavior
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What are three examples of how observational learning can affect someone?
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smoking, reading, and practicing religion
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How did Bandura measure observational learning?
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Experimental children were placed in a room where an adult lashes out at a Bobo doll and are then taken alone to another room with several toys including a Bobo child.
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What were the results of Bandura's experiment?
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As can be expected, the experimental group showed a greater likelihood to abuse the Bobo doll than the control group, and even used the same words the adult did.
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What research supports the idea that observational learning leads to imitation of the environment?
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Chamove 1980 studied monkeys separated from mothers and receiving high levels of aggression.
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What kinds of effects can result from modeling?
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antisocial (wife-beating) but also prosocial (nonviolence)
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When are models most effective?
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when their actions match their words
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How do children imitate hypocrites?
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They copy them in both what they do and what they say, becoming hypocrites themselves.
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What did Bandura say determines whether we imitate a model?
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the reinforcers both we and they receive
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What do behaviorists call observational learning?
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vicarious conditioning
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What is an example of observational learning in infants?
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Hanna and Meltzoff 1993: a group of 14-month-olds were shown how to solve some puzzles, then reinforced for imitating, but then they were mixed with other 14-month-olds who saw how they did it and copied the first group.
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What are the three major contribution of the learning perspective to psychology?
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recognition of the influence we have on others, understanding that naming a behavior does not explain it, and a wide range of practical applications
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How did Skinner envision society should be?
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as in his book, Walden Two (1948, 1976), which utilized operant conditioning to have the arts flourish and people live modestly
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How did behaviorists reject simply naming a behavior as explaining it?
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They tried to rid psychology of 'useless' words, words that didn't have an empirical meaning.
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Do behaviorists regard people as passive, simply products of their environment?
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No; they offer many ways to change others' and our own behavior.
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What do behaviorists say goals should be?
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specific, challenging but achievable, and written as getting something, not avoiding something
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What are examples of social-cognitive theories at work?
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determining what goals should look like, giving people self-efficacy, changing bad habits, and advertising
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What is a fundamental limitation of the learning perspective?
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all sorts of things influence us, so it can be hard to isolate one
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What are the three misuses of the learning perspective?
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environmental reductionism, assuming learned habits can be easily changed, and oversimplification of techniques
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What are examples of environmental reductionism?
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ignoring biological preparedness and instinctive drift
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What is instinctive drift?
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reverting from a reinforced or learned behavior to instinctive behavior
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What is an example of assuming everything can be learned?
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differences between males and females - some is innate, some is learned
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What are examples of oversimplification of the learning perspective?
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bribes and threats ruling the workplace, grades almost always being A's, overpraising students for mediocre work, and overusing extrinsic rewards
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