Ch. 1 - Intro

Question 1

What is behaviour according to Skinner?

Answer 1

Anything a person or other animal does that can be measured.

Question 2

What are three examples of overt behaviour?

Answer 2

Actions, absence of actions, and physiological reactions.

Question 3

What is an example of a covert behaviour?

Answer 3

Thoughts and feelings.

Question 4

What did Skinner acknowledge about thoughts and feelings?

Answer 4

That people were accurate when it came to self-reporting their emotions.

Question 5

According to the text, what are three characteristics that define behaviour?

Answer 5

Behaviour involves a person’s actions (what people do or say); it is described with action verbs; behaviour is not a static characteristic of the person.

Question 6

What is an example of the distinction between emotions and behaviour?

Answer 6

Being angry is not a behaviour, but screaming at her mother and slamming the door is a description of a behaviour that is labelled as anger.

Question 7

What are the four dimensions of behaviour that can be measured?

Answer 7

Frequency, duration, intensity, and latency.

Question 8

According to the text, what are two characteristics of behaviour?

Answer 8

Behaviours have an impact on the environment, both physical and social; and behaviour is lawful.

Question 9

What is meant by lawful behaviour?

Answer 9

The behaviour’s occurrence is systematically influenced by environmental events.

Question 10

What is an overt behaviour?

Answer 10

An overt behaviour is an action that can be observed and recorded by a person other than the one engaging in the behaviour

Question 11

What is a covert behaviour?

Answer 11

A behaviour that is not directly observable by others.

Question 12

What is learning?

Answer 12

An enduring change in the mechanisms of behaviour involving specific stimuli and/or responses that results from prior experience with those or similar stimuli and responses.

Question 13

What are the two aspects of behaviour modification?

Answer 13

Analyzing and modifying.

Question 14

What does analyzing in behaviour modification involve?

Answer 14

Identifying the functional relationship between environmental events and a particular behaviour to understand the reasons for behaviour or to determine why a person behaved as he or she did.

Question 15

What does modifying in behaviour modification involve?

Answer 15

Developing and implementing procedures to help people change their behaviour.

Question 16

Who develops behaviour modification procedures? How are they used?

Answer 16

Behaviour modification procedures are developed by professionals and used to change social significant behaviours, with the goal of improving some of a person’s life.

Question 17

What is the behaviour modification term for the behaviour that is being modified?

Answer 17

The target behaviour.

Question 18

What is a behavioural deficit?

Answer 18

A desirable target behaviour that the person wants to increase in frequency, duration, or intensity (ex. exercising, studying).

Question 19

What is a behavioural excess?

Answer 19

An undesirable target behaviour the person wants to decrease in frequency, duration, or intensity (ex. smoking).

Question 20

What does behaviour modification emphasize?

Answer 20

Current environmental events that are functionally related to behaviour.

Question 21

What does behaviour modification de-emphasize?

Answer 21

Past events as causes of behaviour.

Question 22

What often confuses people when it comes to learning?

Answer 22

People confuse learning with changes in performance.

Question 23

Other than learning, what can changes in performance be attributed to?

Answer 23

Bodily state, the environment, fatigue, and maturation.

Question 24

Why do organisms learn?

Answer 24

It’s about adaptive significance. The environmental changes outpace evolution, so organisms must adapt within their lives.

Question 25

What is classical (Pavlovian) conditioning?

Answer 25

Where relations between events become predictive. Unlearned behaviours are associated with previously neutral stimuli.

Question 26

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 26

Behaviour is controlled by the consequences. Involves positive/negative punishments and reinforcements.

Question 27

What key idea was studied by Ivan Pavlov?

Answer 27

Nervism.

Question 28

What is nervism?

Answer 28

All key physiological functions are controlled by the nervous system.

Question 29

What did Ivan Pavlov study behaviour for?

Answer 29

To understand the nervous system.

Question 30

What is Edward Thorndike credited with?

Answer 30

The Law of Effect.

Question 31

What does the Law of Effect state?

Answer 31

Something that leads to a pleasant circumstance is more likely to reoccur in the future, something that leads to an unpleasant circumstance is less likely in the future.

Question 32

What experimental process is Thorndike associated with?

Answer 32

Cats pushing a lever to get out of a box.

Question 33

Who started the field of behaviourism?

Answer 33

John B. Watson

Question 34

Which psychologist is responsible for the Little Albert experiment?

Answer 34

John Watson, he was kind of an asshat.

Question 35

What shift in psychology did Watson begin?

Answer 35

From introspection and speculation to scientific methods and a study of behaviour.

Question 36

Who is credited with distinguishing operant conditioning?

Answer 36

B.F. Skinner

Question 37

What are the three basic steps to changing behaviour?

Answer 37

Measure a baseline, add an intervention, and measure the treatment effect over time.

Question 38

What is Occam’s Razor?

Answer 38

The simplest explanation is usually best.

Question 39

What is the central idea of the natural science approach?

Answer 39

All natural phenomena have causes, and causes always precede effects.

Question 40

What are the 5 reasons for why animals are used in research?

Answer 40

Controlled subjects and a lab setting; neurobiological bases of learning; no language; no demand bias; and to study animals.

Question 41

What are the 3 Rs of animal experiment ethics?

Answer 41

Replace, reduce, and refine.