Ch.1 Flashcards
What is learning at the behavior level?
The acquisition, maintenance, and change of an organism’s behavior as a result of lifetime events.
What does behavior encompass?
Everything an organism does, including private and covert actions like thinking and feeling.
What are traditional causes of human behavior?
Societies and cultures have always been concerned with the acquisition and control of behavior.
What do social norms dictate about behavior?
Appropriate behavior means one considers socially acceptable, while deviations get rejected.
What are internal causes of behavior?
Metaphysical entities (the soul) and hypothetical structures of the mind.
What are traditional causes of behavior?
Influences such as the moon, tides, arrangement of the stars, and whims of the gods.
Why are traditional accounts of behavior not scientific?
They cannot be observed or measured.
What does behavior theory state?
Behavior is due to a complex interaction between genetic influence and behavioral experience.
What is Experimental Analysis of Behavior (EAB)?
A natural-science approach to understanding the origin and control of behavior.
What are the primary objectives of behavior analysis?
- Discover principles and laws that govern behavior. 2. Extend these principles across species. 3. Develop an applied technology for the management of behavior.
What is Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)?
A field of study that focuses on the application of the principles, methods, and procedures of the science of behavior to solve practical problems.
What is an example of a teaching strategy in ABA?
Correct Answer: Next problem; Incorrect Answer: Instruction on how to solve the problem, followed by several practice problems of the same type with feedback from the teacher.
What was the question in the Experimental Analysis of Behavior example?
Why do seagulls congregate around crowded, but not empty, beaches?
What was the plausible answer for the seagulls’ behavior?
People feed the birds.
What is the dependent variable in the seagull experiment?
Number of seagulls each day.
What are the two types of learning described in behavior analysis?
Respondent (Classical or Pavlovian Learning) and Operant (Consequential learning).
What occurs during respondent conditioning?
A neutral stimulus (NS) is repeatedly followed by an unconditioned stimulus (US).
What is a respondent?
Behavior elicited (caused) by an environmental event (stimulus).
What is the definition of a neutral stimulus (NS)?
A stimulus that does not produce a particular response.
What is an unconditioned stimulus (US)?
A stimulus that produces the unconditioned response.
What is a conditioned stimulus (CS)?
A stimulus that elicits the conditioned response.
What is a conditioned response (CR)?
The response that is elicited by the conditioned stimulus.
What happens in an example of respondent conditioning?
A lab coat (NS) is paired with a shot (US), leading to crying (UR), and eventually the lab coat (CS) elicits crying (CR).
What is operant conditioning?
Involves a change in the rate of an operant response as a function of its consequences.
What is the three-term contingency in operant conditioning?
SD (Discriminative stimulus) → Response → Consequence.
What does operant conditioning influence?
The future likelihood of a response based on the consequences that follow it.
What does B.F. Skinner suggest about behavior?
Behavior is selected at three levels: species, behavior, and culture.
What is immediate causation?
A mechanism whereby isolated and discrete events directly bring forth an effect.
What is remote causation?
A series of distant events that bring forth an effect, often explained by evolutionary history.
What is functional analysis?
An analysis of behavior in terms of the consequences it produces.
What is the role of natural selection in learning?
It prepares organisms for constant elements or challenges of their environment.
What is the focus of behavior analysts?
The interplay between behavior and environment.
Who was Ivan Petrovich Pavlov?
A scientist known for his work on the conditioned reflex and recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1904.
What did John Broadus Watson propose?
Psychology should be science based on observable behavior, excluding thoughts and feelings.
What is the Law of Effect?
Gradually, non-successful impulses will be stamped out while successful impulses will be stamped in.
Who is B.F. Skinner?
A prominent figure in modern behavior analysis, known for distinguishing between respondent and operant learning.
What did Skinner say about private events?
He emphasized that behavior should be explained by analyzing variables in the environment rather than internal states.
What is the significance of the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior?
It was established in 1958 and is a key publication in the field of behavior analysis.
What is the contemporary view on feelings in behavior analysis?
Feelings are seen as by-products of environmental events that regulate behavior.
Why are reports of feelings considered unreliable?
They are influenced by how individuals learn to talk about their feelings.
What are feelings?
Feelings are real, but they are by-products of the environmental events that regulate behavior.
What does behavior analysis require regarding feelings?
Behavior analysis requires that the researcher trace feelings back to the interaction between behavior and environment.
Why are reports of feelings largely inaccessible to the scientific community?
Reports of feelings are highly unreliable because we learn to talk about our feelings as others have trained us to do so.
What determines the reliability of reports of feelings?
Reports of feelings are only as good as the training of correspondence between public conditions and private events.
What does the history of human thought consist of?
The history of human thought is what people have said and done.
What are symbols in the context of behavior?
Symbols are the products of written and spoken verbal behavior, representing concepts and relationships in the environment.
What is the nature of thinking according to behavior analysis?
Thinking has the dimensions of behavior, not a fancied inner process which finds expression in behavior.
How is the term ‘think’ used in our culture?
The term ‘think’ has a variety of meanings, such as reporting a low probability action or indicating weak control of behavior by a stimulus.
What is an example of thinking as a low probability action?
EX: ‘I am thinking of buying a new car.’
What is an example of weak control of behavior by a stimulus?
EX: When shown an unfamiliar object, you may say, ‘I think it’s a computer chip,’ contrasted with ‘I know it’s a computer chip.’
What is the function of thinking as private behavior?
The function of thinking is to increase the effectiveness of practical action.
How can people act at the covert level?
People can act at the covert level without committing themselves publicly.
What is thinking considered in behavior analysis?
Thinking is operant behavior.
