C6 P4 Flashcards
What is operant conditioning?
Learning to associate a behavior with a consequence within a given environment or in response to an environmental cue
What four tenets did both classical and operant conditioning follow?
-Psychology should limit itself to studying things that are observable and quantifiable.
-Research findings from work with animals could be applied directly to humans.
-Psychologists should avoid speculating about internal states which occur within the “black box.”
-Most human behavior is the result of learning history from interactions with the environment.
What is the law of effect?
Behaviors that bring about positive emotional states in a given situation are likely to be repeated in that situation while those that bring about negative emotional states within a given situation will occur less frequently in that situation
Who is Edward Lee Thorndike?
Proposed the law of effect and used puzzle boxes with animals in them. Professor at Columbia
What is a puzzle box?
Boxes created by Thorndike from which an animal could learn to escape if the animal performed a series of actions
In the puzzle box studies, what were 3 key findings?
1) Animals would stop doing things that failed to produce desired effects
2) Behaviors that helped animals were preformed more frequently
3) Learning punishment and reward occurred faster in the animal was given food after producing the desired behavior
What made B.F skinner different from other behavioral psychologist?
He wanted to know what was in the black box
Define reinforcer.
Anything that increases the probability of a behavior in the future
Define punishment.
Anything that decreases the probability of a specific behavior in the future
Define positive reinforcer.
The addition of something to the environment that increases the frequency of the behavior that occurred directly prior to the addition
Define negative reinforcer.
Occurs when removing something from the present environment increases the frequency of the behavior occurring directly before the stimulus is removed
Define positive punishment.
A stimulus or change added to the environment that directly decreases the frequency of the behavior occurring directly before the addition
Define negative punishment.
when the removal of something already present from the environment directly decreases the frequency of the behavior occurring just before the removal
What is the four-step approach for determining if something is a positive or negative reinforcer or punishment?
1) Think like a behaviorist
2) Identify the target behavior
3) Reinforcement vs punishment
4) Positive vs negative
What are the key questions to ask yourself for these goals?
1) Think like a behaviorist
2) Identify the target behavior
3) Reinforcement vs punishment
4) Positive vs negative
1) What can be directly observed?
2) What is the behavior we are monitoring to see if it increases or decreases
3) Does the target behavior increase or decrease frequency
4) Was something added to the environment or taken away
