Attachment & Behaviourist & Social learning Flashcards
What is learning?
A change in behavior as a result of experience.
What is behaviorism?
The branch of psychology that focuses on basic mechanics of learning.
What are the basic mechanisms of learning?
Habituation, classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
What is habituation?
The process of becoming habituated to a stimuli, stop responding to a stimulus as is repeated. Simplest way of learning that can have important consequences, such as habituation to violence.
What is affective forecasting?
People tend to overestimate the emotional impact of future events, both good and bad.
What is classical conditioning?
Process of learning what things or stimulus go together.
What is learned helplessness?
Behavioural pattern caused by the anxiety that results from unpredictable rewards and punishments.
What is operant conditioning?
Learning to do more of certain behaviours that lead to good outcomes. From this Skinner built behaviorism.
What is the social learning theory?
An influential descendant of behaviorism that has its roots in observations that behaviors came from more than just reinforcements. It had three major theories all called social learning.
What are the social learning theories?
Frustration-aggression theory
Rotter with people deciding based of their understanding of likely consequences
Bandura with self-efficacy
What does Bandura’s theory of social learning gives emphasis to?
Self-efficacy, the expectation that one can accomplish something successfully. Self-efficacy interacts with others self-judgements and create capacities.
What techniques would a psychotherapist that follow Bandura use?
Modelling and verbal persuasion. JUST DO IT.
What is the most influential aspect of Bandura’s theory?
Observational learning, learning a behaviour by watching someone else do it. Bobo doll experiment.
Who created the attachment theory?
John Bowlby
What was the importance of Harry Harlow’s experiment?
It showed that mammalians want their mother’s bond for more than just basic needs such as food, they want “contact comfort”.
What is an attachment figure?
A caregiver that provides support, protection and care. It’s the parents at childhood but it transitions to romantic partners later on.
What is the attachment behavioral system?
A system that continuously monitors the accessibility of the primary attachment figure like a thermostat. Evolved across time, promotes proximity in times of distress and promotes exploration when secure.
What are attachments behaviors?
Behaviours done to reestablish a desirable level of physical or psychological proximity to the primary attachment figure.
What is the technique called strange situation?
A laboratory task force studying infant-parent attachment.
What are the individual attachment styles proposed by Ainsworth?
Secure: Upset when parent leaves but easily comforted by parent.
Insecure:
Avoidant - Do not consistently behave as if they are stressed by the separation and avoid contact upon reunion
Anxious or ambivalent - Not easily comforted by the parent m, they want to be comforted but also punish the parent.
Why is Aindworth’s work important?
She provided empirical demonstration of attachment behaviour in unfamiliar context
Provided the first taxonomy of individual differences in infant attachment patterns
She correlated the individual difference to infant-parent interactions at home.
Who were the researchers to first investigate attachment patterns in romantic relationships?
Hazan and Shaver.
What are the similarities between infant bonds and adult bonds?
Both feel safe and secure with their primary attachment figure
Turn to their primary attachment figure in times of distress
Use the other person as a secure base to explore the world
Have baby talk lol
What is found in people with secure attachment style?
They date other people with secure attachment style, have better relationships with their parents in adulthood and have high functioning relationships.
What theories do attachment theory fall under?
Biological, evolutionary, learning and objects relations theory.
How does individual differences arrive in kids?
By individual experiences, by having their needs met or not. Depends on the caregiver being responsive.
What are the working models that children develop with early experiences?
Model of self and model of others. Am I worthy of attention? and can I depend on others?
What is the fourth attachment style added later on?
Disorganized, display confusion and unusual behaviours when the parent leaves, shows contradictory or disoriented behavior when caregiver returns. Result of highly inconsistent caregiver.
What are the causes of the attachment styles?
Secure - responsive and consistent
Avoidant - unresponsive
Anxious - inconsistent
Disorganized - trauma, neglect
In practical terms, what are the styles talked about?
Avoidance (model of others) and anxiety (model of self).
Low avoidance and low anxiety: secure
Low avoidance and high anxiety: anxious-preoccupied, anxious and sensitive, believe in others but not self, worry about like cheating
High avoidance and low anxiety: dismissive, avoidant and self-reliant, view others as unreliable
High avoidance and high anxiety: fearful-avoidance, self-sabotaging, unpredictable and isolated.
What are the critiques for the attachment theory?
Cultural bias, specially on the strange situation, some kids are more used to it (daycare)
Over emphasis on the mother and early childhood, some kids have more family they’re close to too, not just parental interaction.
Limited explanation of individual differences, lack of considering individual differences, eg autism
Not as fixed as originally thought, different relationship and times.
What is the lifespan view of attachment?
Posits that working models and attachment styles are plural and become more complex over time. It’s more like attachment quality rather than style.
What is an important factor in classic conditioning?
Timing, one has to be slightly before the other.
What is the S-R theory of personality?
The stimulus response theory of personality, the theory that these patterns of stimuli and response build up over time and lead to personality. Watson’s personality take from Pavlov.
Personality is simply learning responses to stimuli.
What are the two learnings Skinner proposed?
Respondent learning and operant conditioning.
What is reinforcer? What’s a positive and what’s a negative reinforcer?
Reinforcer: increases the likelihood of future behavior
Positive: behavior has a positive outcome
Negative: behavior stops a negative situation
What is the difference between classical and operant conditioning?
Classical is learning through association while operant is learning through consequences. One is reflexive and automatic while the other is voluntary and purposeful.
What are the critiques on behaviourism?
Focus on animal research
What about human agency, people’s will, motivation and purpose? people are not a blank slate…
Ignores social processes that may be involved in learning, such as the presence of other people.
How is social learning different than behaviorism?
Focuses on humans
Included social aspects of learning
Allowed for internal motivation
Believed humans could choose their environment
What is vicarious reinforcement?
Secondhand reinforcement, learning through seeing someone else being punished or rewarded.
What does high self-efficacy bring?
More likely to do behavior
Engage in behavior for longer
Prepare more for behavior
What is the similarity between behaviorism and social learning?
They both acknowledge the role of the environment and learning in shaping behavior.
What are the contributions of learning approaches to personality psychology?
Establishing psychologic as an empirical, objective science
Recognition that people’s behavior depends on the environment and the situation
A method of behavior change, reinforcement, to treat phobias, addictions and disorders.
What is the model from attachment theory from infancy to adulthood as seen by Hazan & Shaver?
Early experiences with primary caregivers -> internal working models -> dispositional differences in attachment orientation (attachment styles) -> relationship behaviour in adulthood
