chapter 1 Flashcards
A meta-theory defines
What psychology should study
The methods and standards of evaluation in the field
The kinds of theories that are acceptable in the field
Psychology is not unified by a single meta-theory
There are many different research and clinical
“cultures” in the field
Behaviorism
a philosophy (or a meta-theory) adopted by many researchers and clinicians.
Characteristics of theories
Seek to explain observable data
Theories can involve unobservable entities, forces,
or processes to explain observations.
The best theories are more precise and predict more
data (theories are “better” if they predict more)
Parsimony: If two theories predict data equally well,
the simpler theory is usually preferred.
The cognitive perspective
utilizes intervening variables,
usually in the form of hypothesized cognitive structures or processes (theoretical entities), to help explain behavior.
These variables come between an environmental event and a behavior
these unobserved theoretical entities are the direct
causes of behavior
Beliefs Sensory, short-term, long-term memory systems Cognitive schemas Expectations Semantic Networks Plans Goals/Desires A whole system of hypothesized “Cognitive Architecture”
Problems with cognitive theories
Introspection is often unreliable
Unparsimomious (think of all those mental entities)
Just where & what are those “minds” anyway?
Unobserved germs were still thought to exist in space.
But where are minds?
Reasoning from mental entities is often circular
Behaviorism in Psychology
Behaviorism in psychology is associated with John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner. The approach of B.F Skinner is the guiding meta-theory for behaviorists today. This approach is called Radical Behaviorism. Some call themselves Contextual Behaviorists.
Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism
Emphasizes the influence of the environment on
behavior, rejects the use of internal events to explain
behavior, and views thoughts and feelings as behaviors
(responses) that themselves need to be explained.
Basically, the environment simultaneously influences
overt behavior and private events.
These private events are not causal: they are just a
response like overt behavior—but only one person can
observe them.
Skinner distinguished public vs private responses by
appealing to exteroceptive vs interoceptive nervous
systems
Public vs Private
Exteroceptive Nervous System: nervous system with
sensory receptors for picking up energy from the external
world (public events).
An external stimulus can trigger the exteroceptive system of many
people.
We can all see and hear things in the external environment.
Interoceptive Nervous System: nervous system with
sensory receptors connected to muscles, joints, internal
organs – i.e., detecting energy from sources underneath
our skin.
Only I can experience my headache or stomach growling.
Does your philosophy (meta-theory) matter?
Yes, it can influence how you do research and how
you work in clinical practice.
An example: Understanding and treating depression
from two different meta-theories
Seligman’s Learned Helplessness Theory:
Depression is caused by being in a punishing (aversive)
environment in which you learn that nothing you do can change
things for the better.
Theory based on Seligman’s escape-learning research with dogs
if dogs are first given inescapable shocks for a while, in
which nothing they do leads to relief, they will stop doing anything,
curl up and whimper.
Even when new conditions arise in which escape from the shock is
easily available, these dogs will not even try to find a means of
escape.
They have learned to be helpless.
Peter Lewinsohn’s Behavioral Theory
Depressed people have low levels of positive
experiences (rewards, reinforcements) from their
environments.
Initial event (trauma, loss, defeat) disrupts their usual
behavior, making them less successful in receiving
reinforcements.
They stay isolated and confined, often in an
impoverished (unpleasant) environment
After depressed, people avoid them (they become
aversive to others, e.g., smell bad, sigh and complain)
Behavioral Activation Therapy
Targets patient apathy and inertia: Get them moving.
Assign activities (in small steps) to help them clean
up their act and eventually get out into the world
where “good things” might follow.
Assign homework for accomplishing simple activities
that are easily accomplished and are rewarding (e.g.
brushing teeth, bathing, making bed, taking out
garbage, washing dishes, etc.)
Therapists uses reinforcement (e.g., praise) to help
get them going and to increase their activities over
time.
What are some behavioral explanations for
why CBT might work?
1. The cognitive therapist, if kind and supportive, might
be a source of reinforcement for Mary (reinforcing her
returning to therapy)
Perhaps if they played cards together and had fun, instead of
challenging her beliefs, Mary might still improve.
Her beliefs (private events) change due to her new positive social
environment: her experiences are more positive, so her thoughts
are more positive.
2. Mary is now getting out of the house to go to therapy.
Perhaps she will have some pleasant experiences before
or after therapy.
3. As Mary stops talking so negatively and cleans up a
bit, she is less likely to drive other people (potential
reinforcers) away.
Cognitive Treatment
Assessment : What’s going on in your mind?
Treatment: Change what’s going on in your mind.
Therapist Role:
Reality check
Debater
Mind changer.
Behavioral Treatment
Assessment: What’s going on in your life (people & events)?
Treatment: Change what’s going on in your life.
Therapist Role:
New part of your social environment (potential reinforcer)
Housekeeper: help make the environment more rewarding
Trainer: Teach new skills for getting reinforcement and avoiding bad
outcomes
Behavior Analysis
Two Branches
Experimental Analysis of Behavior
Focus on discovering basic principles of behavior and learning
Research done in a laboratory environment with both humans
and nonhumans
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)
Helping improve lives by identifying significant behavior and its
controlling environmental variables
Research done in “real world” environments with humans
SAFMEDS
SAFMEDS trains for fluency of responding
Fluency = accuracy + speed
SAY ALL FAST
MINUTE EACH DAY
SHUFFLE
Go through a stack of cards as fast as you can, giving
the answer out loud.
Do as many as you can in 1 minute (put missed cards
in a separate stack; review them later).
Shuffle the cards and do it again (see clip).
Seems to be effective for vocabulary; don’t know about
complex relations among ideas.
Learning
Learning is a change in the behavior of an organism due to experience.
Behavior is anything that an organism does that can be measured.
(Some definitions use “a relatively lasting change in the behavior . . .”)
“due to experience”?
Roughly, we mean exposure to environmental events.
Exposure to the textbook and lectures could lead to a relatively permanent change in your behavior: What you do, what you think, how you feel. You will have learned about learning.
Exposure to electric shocks while eating a favorite food could lead to a relatively permanent change in a rat’s behavior when it smells that food. It has learned to fear and avoid the food.
Exposure to praise and smiles after a child has cleaned her room could lead to a relatively permanent change in the child’s housekeeping tendencies. The child has learned to be tidy
Stimulus & Response (S-R terminology)
A stimulus is any well-defined, physical event that can potentially influence behavior.
Examples:
food, stop signs, human touch, sound of a bell, odors Stimuli can originate inside the body: ruptured spleen A response is behavior that is predictably associated with a stimulus.
Examples:
salivation, putting on the brakes, feeling happy, answering the phone, opening a bottle of perfume, crying & feeling pain
Change: Environmental and Behavioral
Organisms live in specific environments and must adapt to those environments to thrive.
Problem: Environments change.
Slow Changes (beyond the life of individual organisms):
Continental drift, ice ages, global warming (?), deforestation, depopulation
Changes during a lifetime
Natural disasters, weather, predators, illness
Solutions: Organisms must change.
Change
Species Change: Evolution by Natural Selection Gradual change in the distribution of physical and behavioral characteristics in populations of organisms.
Individual Change: Learning
Natural Selection
Natural selection is NOT a theory of the origins of nature or the origins of life.
It is a theory of changes in characteristics of a species (called adaptations), and potentially of the origins of new species (called speciation).
Natural Selection 2
Natural selectionis an evolutionary process through which adaptive traits are passed on to ongoing generations because these traits help animalssurvive and reproduce.
Evolution: Try Things, Keep What Works
Natural selection follows the process:
Try things (genetic variations)
Keep what works (selection of adaptive traits)
Through natural selection, a number of broad classes of behaviors can be found in different species of organisms
Reflexes
A reflex is an automatic relationship between a specific event and a simple response to that event.
Often protect organisms from injury.
Example: Withdrawal reflex
Also: *startle response *eyeblinks *tears *sneezing *vomiting
Phenomena Assoc/w Reflexes
Sensitization: Eliciting a reflex often leads to an initial increase in the probability or intensity of a response to the same (or closely related) stimuli.
Loud noises can elicit the startle response (jump).
We are more likely to startle again immediately afterword to even weaker noises.
Sensitization is most likely to occur with very intense stimuli (potential danger).
Phenomena Assoc/w Reflexes
2
Habituation: Repeatedly evoking a reflexive response over time will often weaken or decrease the probability of a response to the same stimulus.
More likely to occur with mild to moderate intensity stimuli (not perceived as dangerous), Evgeny Sokolov: the orienting response (OR) in dogs New Stimulus looking toward stim., ears lift, wave of neural and physiological activity (HR, breathing, etc)
With time, OR fades; appears that organism no longer aware of stimulus.
Modal (Fixed) Action Patterns
MAPS
A series of interrelated actions found in most members of a species, usually triggered by specific stimuli (called “releasers,” or “releasing stimuli”)
Usually involves the whole organism (unlike reflexes, which often involve specific muscles or glands).
Are more complex than reflexes, extended over a longer period of time.
They are stereotypical, but more variable than reflexes.
Although the behaviors are innate, they can be somewhat modified through experience (getting better at the task).
Example MAP
Examples: Spider web spinning Bird nest building Egg rolling in birds to retrieve eggs that have fallen out of a nest. Courtship & mating dances
General Behavior Traits
Broad behavioral tendencies that occur across many situations (not specific releasers).
Often highly heritable:
Activity Levels
Sociability (tendency to approach and interact with others— highly variable in young children)
Emotionality (e.g., fearfulness)
Basically, temperament and personality by another name.
Domesticated & wild fox breeds differ in temperament
Learning
Reflexes, MAPS, and General Traits are often adaptive. They have likely evolved over centuries and perhaps help organisms coping with their average expectable environments.
But there are still day-to-day surprises, changes within an individual’s lifetime.
The capacity for flexible change in a lifetime is probably an evolved capacity as well.
Learning is Evolved Modifiability.
Behavioral Repertoire
a catalogue of behaviors (including reflexes, MAPS, and complex learned behaviors) that are characteristic of a species or individual.
Operational Definitions
To study specific behaviors (and their changes), we must define the behaviors.
In behavior analysis (and science in general), we define variables in terms of how they are measured—i.e., by the operations that are used to measure a behavior.
e.g.: When has a person learned to hit a golf ball?
Ball is off the tee?
Does a 30 yard “worm burner” count?
At least 50 yards off ground and in the fairway?
Topography
the shape or form of a behavior. When the shape of a behavior resembles the shape of a model or goal, learning has occurred.
(For typing, compare documents with format of a standardized test document)
Intensity
the strength of a behavior.
Sometimes the goal is to increase or to decrease intensity
(e.g., learning to kiss).
Speed
the time it takes to perform a task or reach a goal. (Typing? Perhaps the time it takes to complete a document without errors)
Duration
The length of time that an individual repeatedly or continuously performs a certain behavior.
This measure is appropriate when the aim is to either increase or decrease how long a behavior occurs.
Example:
How many hours a student studies
Latency
The length of time required for a behavior to begin.
Examples:
How soon a dog begins salivating after it hears a tone How soon a child begins to make his or her bed after being told to do so.
Rates of Behavior [the importance of “per”]
A frequencyis a simple count of how many times a behavior is observed to occur.
Simple frequencies are often less informative than rates
How many parking tickets have you had?
5
5 in 10 years?
5 this week?
Rate is a frequency standardized (often by time)
Miles per hour
Responses per minute
Errors per page
Research Designs in Learning Non-Experimental Research
Descriptive or Correlational Researcher does not manipulate any variables, simply records behaviors to see if they are related (e.g., measure study habits and grades—see if they are related).
Can’t infer causality with much certainty.
Research Designs in Learning Experimental Research
Researcher manipulates an environmental variable.
Measures the effect of the manipulation on behavior. Aimed at establishing cause and effect.
Experimental Research: Terminology
Independent Variable The variable that the researcher manipulates.
The hypothesized cause of behavior change (from a behavioral perspective, generally an environmental stimulus) Dependent Variable
The outcome variable (behavior) that is expected to change as a result of the manipulation.
IV DV
Between-Subjects Experiments
Involves at least two groups of subjects.
Subjects randomly assigned to groups to make them equal on a variety of extraneous variables.
One group (Experimental Group) gets exposed to a manipulated variable (e.g., new teaching method; rewards for correct responses; electric shock for wrong responses).
The other group (Control Group) is not exposed to the manipulation.
Compare the groups on the DV. Did exposure to the manipulation lead to differences in behavior between the groups?
Between-Subjects Experiments
group membership
•Group membership should be determined by a random processto help ensure that the two groups are roughly equalon observed and unobserved variables at the beginning of the experiment.
Characteristics of Between-Subjects Designs
Data in each group are averaged; you are comparing average change or differences between the two groups.
Individual variations around the average treated as statistical “noise.”
Large samples and complex statistics are often needed to detect an effect of the manipulation.
Within-Subjects Designs
No separate groups of subjects: each subject will serve as “his or her own control.”
Each subject is assessed before the manipulation (baseline measures), then the IV is applied to all subjects, and each subject is measured again.
Determine whether there was change in behavior from baseline to the next measurement period.
Within-subjects designs can involve large groups (but fewer are needed on statistical grounds).
Data can be averaged and tested statistically—the average change of the subjects.
But within-Ss designs can also be applied to individuals.
