Chapter 1

Question 1

radical behaviorism

Answer 1

(Skinner) is a brand of behaviorism that emphasizes the influence of the environment on overt behavior, rejects the use of internal events to explain the behavior, and feelings as behaviors that themselves need to be explained

Question 2

behavior analysis

Answer 2

the behavioral science that grew out of skinner’s philosophy of radical behaviorism. also known as the “experimental analysis of behavior”

Question 3

applied behavior analysis

Answer 3

a technology of behavior in which basic principles of behavior are applied to solving real world issues

Question 4

reciprocal determinism

Answer 4

the assumption that environmental events, observable behavior, “person variables” (including internal event) reciprocally influence each other

Question 5

social learning theory

Answer 5

(Bandura) a brand behaviorism that strongly emphasizes the importance of observational learning any cognitive variables in explaining human behavior. also known as “cognitive social learning theory” or “social-cognitive theory”

Question 6

cognitive behaviorism

Answer 6

(Tolman) a brand of behaviorism that utilizes intervening variables, usually in the form of hypothesized cognitive processes, to help explain behavior. sometimes called “purposive behaviorism”

Question 7

neobehaviorism

Answer 7

(Hull) a brand of behaviorism that utilizes intervening variables in the form of hypothesized physiological processes, to help explain behavior

Question 8

methodical behaviorism

Answer 8

(Watson) a brand of behaviorism that asserts that, for methodological reasons, psychologists should study only those behaviors that can be directly observed

Question 9

behavior

Answer 9

any activity of an organism that can be observed or somehow measured

Question 10

behaviorism

Answer 10

a natural science approach to psychology that traditionally focuses on the study of environmental influences on observable behavior

Question 11

British empiricism

Answer 11

a philosophical school of thought that maintains that almost all knowledge is a function of the experience

Question 12

cognitive map

Answer 12

the deliberate manipulation of environmental events to alter their impact on our behavior

Question 13

empiricism

Answer 13

in psychology, the assumption that behavior patterns are mostly learned rather than inherited. also known as the nurture perspective (or, rarely, as nurturism)

Question 14

evolutionary adaptation

Answer 14

an inherited trait (physical or behavioral) that has been shaped through natural selection

Question 15

functionalism

Answer 15

in approach to psychology that proposes that the mind evolved to help us adapt to the world around us and that the focus psychology should be the study of those adaptive processes

Question 16

introspection

Answer 16

the attempt to accurately describe one’s conscious thoughts, emotions, and sensory experiences

Question 17

latent learning

Answer 17

learning that occurs in the absence of any observable indication of learning and only becomes apparent at a later time

Question 18

law of contiguity

Answer 18

the law of the association in which events that occur in close proximity to each other in time or space or readily associated with each other

Question 19

law of contrast

Answer 19

a law of association in which events that are opposite from each other readily associated with each other

Question 20

law of frequency

Answer 20

a law of association in which the most frequently two items occur together, the more strongly they’re associated with each other

Question 21

learning

Answer 21

a relatively permanent change in behavior that results from some type of experience

Question 22

mind-body dualism

Answer 22

Descrates’ philosophical assumption that some human behaviors or bodily reflexes that are automatically elicited by external stimulation, while other behaviors are freely chosen

Question 23

nativism

Answer 23

the assumption that persons characteristics are largely inborn. also known as the nature perspective

Question 24

natural selection

Answer 24

the evolutionary principle according to which organisms that are better able to adapt to environmental pressures are more likely to reproduce and pass along those adaptive characteristics than those that cannot adapt

Question 25

S-R theory (or stimulus response theory)

Answer 25

the theory that learning involves the establishment of a connection between a specific stimulus (s) and a specific response (r)

Question 26

structuralism

Answer 26

an approach to psychology that assumes that it is possible to determine the structure of the mind by identifying the basic elements that compose it