11 Skinner

Question 1

Knock Wood! Year

Answer 1

1948

Question 2

Knock Wood! Author

Answer 2

Skinner

Question 3

Knock Wood! Background (3 things)

Answer 3

(1) Skinner was probably the most radical behaviorist.
(2) He was inspired by Pavlov and Watson.
(3) Sometimes we associate a certain behavior with a certain outcome, even when the two are not causally linked (such as superstition). Skinner called this noncontingent reinforcement - that is, a reward that is not contingent on any particular behavior. You believe that the relationship is causal, even when it is not.

Question 4

Knock Wood! Method and Results (6 things)

Answer 4

(1) Created the Skinner Box, a box that is empty except for a dish or tray into which food may be dispensed.
(2) To study superstitious-like behavior in pigeons, Skinner rigged the box to release food every 15 seconds. This was noncontingent reinforcement - the animal received a reqard every 15 seconds no matter what it did.
(3) Each pigeon was placed into the experimental cage for a few minutes each day, and several days of conditioning in this way, two independent observers recorded the birds’ behavior in the cage.
(4) One bird was conditioned to turn around clockwise two or three times. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the box. Other pigeons developed other behaviors.
(5) Then Skinner increased the time interval between reinforcements to 1 minute. The pigeons’ behavior became more intense and lasted for the full minute.
(6) Then Skinner ended reinforcement, and the pigeons’ new behaviors went extinct.

Question 5

Knock Wood! Significance (2 things)

Answer 5

(1) “The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relationship between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking.”
(2) Skinner thought his findings could be generalized to humans.
(3) The reason superstitions are so resistant to extinction was demonstrated by the pigeon that hopped 10,000 times before giving up the behavior. When any behavior is only reinforced once in a while in a given situation (partial reinforcement), it becomes very difficult to extinguish.

Question 6

Knock Wood! Legacy (3 things)

Answer 6

(1) Criticism: Humanistic Psychologists can investigate issues which are meaningless to behaviorists: purposes, goals, values, choice, etc. Note that these things do nevertheless influence human behavior.
(2) Research: high school students were placed in front of four buttons. They were told that each time they pressed the correct button, a bell would sound and they would earn 5 cents. The number 3 key gave the desired result, but only after a delay of 10 seconds. The high school students ended up developing a sequence of buttons which they thought gave the reward. However, it was just the 3 key that was necessary.
(3) Research: boys with and without ADHD were asked to participate in a game in which they would receive rewards of coins or small toys. Although the reinforcement was delivered at fixed 30-second intervals, all the boys developed superstitious behaviors that they believed were related to the rewards. In the next phase, reinforcement was discontinued. Extinction of the behaviors occurred in the boys without ADHD, but the behaviors that occurred in the boys with ADHD continued.