Chapter 1

Question 1

Criteria to judge the usefulness of explanations

Answer 1

1. Inclusive - Does the explanation account for a substantial quantity of behaviour?
2. Verifiable - Is the explanation testable?
3. Predictive Utility - Does the explanation provide reliable answers about what people are likely to do under certain circumstances?
4. Parsimonious - Is it the simplest explanation?

Question 2

Biophysical/Biochemical Explanations

Answer 2

Search for explanations for human behaviour within the physical structure of the body

• Genetic and Hereditary Effects e.g. Dominant vs. recessive
• Brain Damage
• Biochemical Explanations e.g. Excess or deficiency of certain chemicals

Question 3

Developmental Explanations

Answer 3

Theories that attempt to explain behaviour
based on fixed, innate developmental sequences.
1. Psychoanalytic Theory (Freud)
- Progression through crucial stages: Aberrant behaviour if person fixates on a particular stage
2. Stage Theory of Cognitive Development (Piaget)
- Assimilation: The tendency to adapt the environment to enhance personal functioning.
- Accommodation: The tendency to change behaviour to adapt to the environment.
- Equilibration: The process of maintaining a balance between assimilation and accommodation.

Question 4

Freud’s Components of Personality

Answer 4

1. Id - The part of the human personality that seeks gratification of desires without any reference to any external controls. Acts according to pleasure principle.
2. Ego - Acts according to reality principle – aiming to satisfy id but in ways that is better for the id in the long term. Includes processes like memory, judgement, reasoning, language, and thought.
3. Superego - Internalisation of cultural rules, as a function of parental training. Includes conscience, morals, ethics, and aspirations.

Question 5

Cognitive explanations - Gestalt Psychology

Answer 5

People perceive the pattern not the elements

Question 6

Cognitive explanations - Bruner

Answer 6

• Discovery learning
• Learning based on pattern rearrangement, insight and intuitive leaps; teachers simply arrange environment to facilitate discovery.
• Motivation innate and intrinsic

Question 7

Cognitive explanations - Constructivism

Answer 7

• Learners construct their own meaning, beliefs about the natural world
• Through experience these meanings become refined and more closely resemble commonly held and scientific views
• Derived from Vygotsky
• One of the dominant views in educational thinking

Question 8

Cogve expns: Information processing

Answer 8

• Information received through the senses is “processed” by various brain functions.
• Some systems store the information while others control behaviour
• Some processes are automatic and occur without awareness while others are conscious and require effort
• Likened to computers

Question 9

Principles to explain the development of both typical and atypical human behaviour.

Answer 9

Positive Reinforcement
Negative Reinforcement
Punishment
Extinction
Antecedent Control
Other Learning Principles

Question 10

Theoretical explanations

Answer 10

1. Biophysical/chemical
2. Developmental
3. Cognitive
4. Behavioural

Question 11

Respondent Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)

Answer 11

Classical or Respondent Conditioning – the process of pairing stimuli so that an unconditioned stimulus elicits a response (reflexive behaviors)

Question 12

Associationism (Edward Thorndike)

Answer 12

• Associations between situations and responses in animals
• Law of Effect
  Response closely followed by pleasant outcome ↑ likelihood of subsequent response. Negative outcome ↓ response
• Law of Exercise
  Frequency of reinforcement affects strength of response

Question 13

Thorndike & The Law of Effect

Answer 13

Thorndike (1898) pioneered the study of instrumental conditioning. Hungry cats put in puzzle box and rewarded with food upon escape. Found that, over successive trials, time to escape decreased, & range of behaviours emitted decreased.

Question 14

Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner)

Answer 14

• Voluntary behaviours
  > Shift from eliciting behaviours to
  conditioning through reinforcement
  > Distinction between elicited (involuntary) and occasioned (voluntary)
• Behaviour referred to as an “operant” – it operated on the environment and its function was to produce a response
• The response (consequence) shaped the probability of reoccurrence
• Started two fields:
  > Experimental analysis of behaviour
  > Applied behaviour analysis

Question 15

Definition of ABA

Answer 15

“Applied behaviour analysis is the science in which procedures derived from the principles of behaviour are systematically applied to improve socially significant behaviour to a meaningful degree and to demonstrate experimentally that the procedures employed were responsible for the improvement in behaviour.” (p. 14

Question 16

7 Characteristics of Research to Qualify as Applied Behavior Analysis

Answer 16

Identified by Baer, Wolf, & Risley (1968)

1. Applied – behavior selected for change must be socially important
2. Behavioral – behavior must be observable and measurable
3. Analytic – intervention must demonstrate control over the behavior
4. Technological – written in such a way that it is easily replicated
5. Effective – demonstrate a meaningful change in the desired behavior
6. Conceptually Systematic – use appropriate terminology and behavioral concepts
7. Generality – must demonstrate maintenance and generalization of the behavior