Chap 14 Flashcards
Learning, as defined by behaviourists. define.
the change of behavior as a function of experience
Learning-based approaches to personality come in two varieties…
- behaviorism
- social learning
Earlier on we looked at which were more important determinants of behavior—persons or situations.
Behaviorists would definitely vote for…
The situation.
social learning theories were eventually relabelled what?
cognitive social learning theory
What perspective of personality believes the following:
Personality does not include traits,
unconscious conflicts, psychodynamic processes, conscious experiences, or anything else that cannot be directly observed.
Behaviorist.
functional analysis: define.
In behaviorism, a description of how a behavior is a function of the environment of the person or animal that performs it.
What is the ‘environment’, according to behaviorists?
the rewards and punishments in the physical and social world.
Behaviorism traditionally identifies three types of learning: list them.
1) habituation,
2) classical (or respondent) conditioning
3) operant conditioning.
Habitation: Define.
an innate response to a stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged presentations of that stimulus.
Movies display levels of mayhem and gore that, at one time, would have been considered unthinkable.
What effect does being exposed to such images, again and again, have on people?
it might make them “comfortably numb.”
Repeated exposure to
violent video games can make an individual’s personality more
AGGRESSIVE and LESS EMPATHETIC
People who win millions of dollars in a
lottery have a pretty exciting day, but, over the long run, end up…?
What is this an example of? Explain.
a) about as happy as they were before.
b) Habitation. They become used to their millionaire status.
Are people good at affective forecasting?
Is this based on it being good or bad forecasting?
people tend to overestimate the emotional impact of future events, both good and bad.
ex. Winning that big promotion won’t make you as happy as you expect, over time, but flunking that test won’t make you as miserable as you anticipate either
Define: Classical Conditioning
Example.
a) The kind of learning in which an unconditioned response (such as salivating) that is naturally elicited by one stimulus (such as food) becomes elicited also by a new, conditioned stimulus (such as a bell).
b) Pavlov Dogs, as described above.
Define: Learned Helplessness
Example?
a) A belief that nothing one does matters, derived from an experience of random or unpredictable reward and punishment, and theorized to be a basis of depression.
b) Dog being shocked on both sides of a cage, jumping does not effect the shock. Eventually, when one side stops being shocked, the dog is helpless and does not attempt to jump to the safe side.
respondent conditioning is also known as what?
Classical Conditioning, as described by skinner.
Operant Conditioning: define.
Example?
a) Skinner’s term for the process of learning in which an organism’s behavior is shaped by the effect of the behavior on the environment.
b) Edward Thorndike was putting hungry cats in a device he called the “puzzle box”.
The cats could escape only by doing some specific, simple act, such as pulling on a wire or pressing a bar. The box would then spring open, allowing the cat to jump out and find a bit of food nearby. Then Thorndike would put the cat back in the box, to try again.
The cats escaped more and more quickly.
