5-OperantConditioning2

Question 1

You are (secretly) trying to stop your house mate from leaving their dirty dishes in the sink over night. Every time they leave their dirty dishes you squirt them with water. What is this is an example of?

Answer 1

Positive punishment

Question 2

What is the process of introducing a new behaviour into an animal’s repertoire by reinforcing each time the animal comes closer to performing the desired behaviour?

Answer 2

Shaping

Question 3

Superstitious behaviour in animals is typically the result of what?

Answer 3

Providing random reinforcement

Question 4

What is Skinner’s operational definition of reinforcement?

Answer 4

Reinforcer increases rate of behaviour; punisher decreases rate of behaviour

Question 5

Describe the Drive Reduction theory of reinforcement;

Why doesn’t this theory always work?

Answer 5

Reinforcers maintain physiological homoeostasis; drives need to be satisfied; stimulation needs to be reduced;
Some behaviours don’t reduce drive - Incentive reinforcers (e.g. Money can only indirectly reduce drive); novel stimuli (e.g. sensation seeking - some reinforcement comes from raised stimulation); pleasure seeking - stimulates reward centres in out brain

Question 6

What experiments did Olds & Milner (1954) perform with intracranial reinforcers?

Answer 6

Put electrode into rat’s brains which delivered electrical stimulus directly to reward centres (experienced as pleasure)

Question 7

Describe the Behavioural regulation theory of reinforcement

Answer 7

Behaviour rather than stimulus is the reinforcer (e.g. behavioural homoeostasis - eating is reinforcing not the food); we have a “bliss point” of behaviour (things we prefer to do, so we do more of)

Question 8

What is the Premack (1965) Principle of behaviour regulation?;
Give an example of how this has worked with rats;

Answer 8

More probable behaviours will reinforce less probable behaviours; we have a hierarchy of behaviours arranged according to response probabilities;
When thirsty, rat’s probable behaviour is to drink water but has to run on the wheel first; knows if it runs it’ll get to drink some water; reinforces running behaviour

Question 9

Brown, Spencer, & Swift (2002) saw a 7-year-old boy, who refused to eat all but a few specific foods (low probability behaviour - eating new foods; high probability behaviour - eating favourite foods). How was Premack’s principle applied?

Answer 9

At meal-times, parents told him if he ate a small amount of new food, he could have his favourites; boy gradually began to eat his greens

Question 10

What’s the difference between Escape Learning & Avoidance Learning?

Answer 10

Escape - to run away; emit a response that terminates an aversive consequence (negative reinforcement); avoidance – emit a response to prevent the occurrence of an aversive consequence altogether

Question 11

How can One-way avoidance learning be tested in a lab?;

Apart from this approach being easy to learn, what else makes learning faster?

Answer 11

Chamber with 2 rooms; shock in one, the other is a safe place; present tone/light as cue for shock (classical) so they can escape the shock; initial trials feature escape, then avoidance takes over & they remain in safe room;
With intense aversive stimuli; different compartments (easier to distinguish which is safe); subject spends a long time in safe compartment

Question 12

Describe Two-way avoidance learning

When is learning faster in this approach?

Answer 12

Rats placed in shuttle boxes; get shocked in both rooms; no safe place so can’t avoid & harder to learn; they still get cue of light so they can escape;
With weak aversive stimuli (may give up if too intense - learned helplessness); similar compartments (learn association with behaviour rather than space & safety)

Question 13

Why is it important to learn about avoidance learning?

Answer 13

Helps us to understand anxiety behaviours, phobias, & how they’re maintained; often never encounter aversive event again

Question 14

What are some techniques to reduce avoidance clinically?

Answer 14

In therapy via exposure training so fears can be faced & extinguished, e.g flooding and response prevention; modelling of situation appropriate behaviour

Question 15

If the exposure dimension is in vivo (real life), what would be used for gradual exposure?;
What about for massed exposure?

Answer 15

Habituation training;

Flooding

Question 16

If the exposure dimension is in sensu (in the mind), what would be used for gradual exposure?;
And massed exposure??????

Answer 16

Systematic desensitisation;

In sensu exposure (imagined)

Question 17

In Seligman’s (1967) Learned Helplessness study with dogs, investigating the effect of an unavoidable shock in a yoked control experiment, what were the 3 conditions?;
What were all groups then trained in?

Answer 17

Escapable shock - with avoidance learning; inescapable shock - yoked to the first group’s shock; no shock;
The shuttle box avoidance task

Question 18

In Seligman’s learned helplessness experiment, what effects were found with the inescapable shock group compared to the escapable group?

Answer 18

Impaired subsequent learning - they didn’t even try to escape or learn to adapt; reduced activity; less central norepinephrine; analgesia (opiate production); reduced immune responses; more ulcers (stress related)

Question 19

What can Learned Helplessness stem from?;

How do animals/people in this state behave?

Answer 19

Repeated exposure to punishment

As if their behaviour has no effect on what happens to them; they’ve learned that they’re helpless

Question 20

What are two ways in which to combat learned helplessness?

Answer 20

Place the subject in a situation where it cannot fail, so it learns it has some control over stuff; an initial experience of control often ‘immunises’ against learned helplessness

Question 21

Describe the 3 depression promoting attributions compared to depression reducing attributions

Answer 21

Internal (because of me) vs external (not because of me);
stable (a trait that I have) vs unstable (one off incident);
global (applies to all contexts) vs specific (applies to this one context)

Question 22

Learned helplessness is typically worse if the person thinks what 3 things?

Answer 22

They think everything is helpless; they think it’s their fault; they see the helplessness as long-term

Question 23

If a uni student who has learned helplessness thinks: “I’m no good at any of my classes”, what attribute is this?;
“Because I’m just not very smart “;
“And I’ve just always been that way”:

Answer 23

Global;
Internal;
Stable

Question 24

If a student thinks, “I’m not very good at this class, but that’s because my current situation at home is particularly challenging, & I’ll do better next time, what is this an example of?

Answer 24

A person without learned helplessness

Question 25

What does operant conditioning research suggest about learned helplessness?;
What did Seligman (1975) argue about depression?

Answer 25

If you think you’re not very clever, you also think “why bother?”; therefore, ‘thinking you’re not very clever’ is often worse than actually having a lower IQ;
It is basically learned helplessness

Question 26

What do behavioural therapies aim to modify?;

What’s an example of a common behaviour therapy?

Answer 26

Situation inappropriate behaviours by using conditioning principles;
Applied Behaviour Analysis (treatment depends on Functional Analysis; empirically validated for many conditions)

Question 27

What are the aims of Functional Analysis?

Answer 27

Helps us to target our treatment; tries to determine what reinforcers are maintaining an undesirable behaviour; involves monitoring the relationship between stimuli, behaviour, and consequences; is done on a case by case basis (N = 1)

Question 28

What’s the purpose of a Functional Analysis?

Answer 28

Divides complex behaviours into simple, more manageable ones; behaviour considered normal (non-medical model of pathology) just the amount may be problematic; assess inappropriate behaviour: excess or deficit in a certain situation

Question 29

A mentally disabled 10 year old boy had self-injurious behaviour (SIB). Watson et al. (1999) performed a functional analysis and found that the SIB happened most often as ‘escape behaviour’ – the boy did it in order to stop doing things he didn’t like. What was the best way to stop the SIB?

Answer 29

To get his teacher to switch to a fun task if he did an unliked task without SIB.

Question 30

What did Kanfer & Phillips (1970) argue that the essential ‘behavioural equation’ for a functional analysis included?

Answer 30

Prior Stimulation; the biological state of the organism; the response repertoire; consequence; the contingency relationship (K)

Question 31

Provide the break down of a SORCK functional analysis

Answer 31

S: what happened before the behaviour
O: the skills and state of the organism at the time
R: the behaviour
C: the consequence of the behaviour
K: the effect the consequences of the behaviour have on future behaviour

Question 32

What does a Positive Parenting Programme, such as “Triple P” focus on?

Answer 32

Teaches parents to use operant conditioning principles in child rearing; focuses on reinforcement of desired behaviour (rather than punishment); teaches other principles like chaining, making consequences more effective etc.

Question 33

Describe the principles of “Triple P”

Answer 33

Ensure a safe and interesting environment; promote desired behaviours; create positive learning environment; reinforce desired behaviour rather than punishing undesired; use assertive discipline; be consistent (have clear routines and rules); have realistic expectations; take care of yourself

Question 34

How do Triple P advise to get your children ready for school in the morning?

Answer 34

Teach children the behaviours they need; set a routine (an order for doing them in); reward desired behaviour; avoid nagging or hassling them; make it into a game; use principles like chaining and reinforcement

Question 35

What is CBT?;

What is a lot of it based on?

Answer 35

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - a combination of cognitive therapy and behavioural therapy
Operant conditioning, especially in the treatment of anxiety

Question 36

What are the cognitive areas focused on in CBT?;

What behavioural techniques are used?

Answer 36

Thinking errors and core beliefs

Those based on operant & classical conditioning (e.g., practice exercises & setting homework)