Chapter 10 Behaviourism and the learning approaches to personality

Question 1

Determinism

Answer 1

• The belief that people’s behaviour is caused in a lawful scientific manner.
• Determinism opposes a belief in free will.

Question 2

ABA research design

Answer 2

• A Skinnerian variant of the experimental method consisting of exposing one subject to three experimental phases:
• (A) a baseline period
• (B) introduction of reinforcers to change the frequency of specific behaviours
• (A) withdrawal of reinforcement and observation of whether the behaviours return to their earlier frequency (baseline period).

Question 3

ABC assessment

Answer 3

In behavioural assessment, an emphasis on the identification of:

• antecedent (A) events
• the consequences (C) of behaviour
• and (B) a functional analysis of behaviour involving identification of the environmental conditions that regulate specific behaviours.

Question 4

Behavioral assessment

Answer 4

The emphasis in assessment on specific behaviours that are tied to defined situational characteristics (e.g. ABC approach).

Question 5

Behaviorism

Answer 5

An approach within psychology, developed by Watson, that restricts investigation to overt, observable behaviour.

Question 6

Classical conditioning

Answer 6

A process, emphasized by Pavlov, in which a previously neutral stimulus becomes capable of eliciting a response because of its association with a stimulus that automatically produces the same or a similar response.

Question 7

Conditioned emotional reaction

Answer 7

Watson and Rayner’s term for the development of an emotional reaction to a previously neutral stimulus, as in Little Albert’s fear of rats.

Question 8

Counterconditioning

Answer 8

The learning (or conditioning) of a new response that is incompatible with an existing response to a stimulus.

Question 9

Discrimination

Answer 9

In conditioning, the differential response to stimuli depending on whether they have been associated with pleasure, pain or neutral events.

Question 10

Extinction

Answer 10

In conditioning, the progressive weakening of the association between a stimulus and a response: in classical conditioning because the conditioned stimulus is no longer followed by the unconditional stimulus, and in operant conditioning because the response is no longer followed by reinforcement.

Question 11

Operant conditioning

Answer 11

Skinner’s term for the process through which the characteristics of a response are determined by its consequences.

Question 12

Operants

Answer 12

In Skinner’s theory, behaviours that appear (are emitted) without being specifically associated with any prior (eliciting) stimuli and are studied in relation to the reinforcing events that follow them.

Question 13

Punishments

Answer 13

An aversive stimulus that follows a response.

Question 14

Reinforcer

Answer 14

An event (stimulus) that follows a response and increases the probability of its occurrence.

Question 15

Sample approach

Answer 15

Mischel’s description of assessment approaches in which there is an interest in the behaviour itself and its relation to environmental conditions, in contrast to sign approaches that infer personality from test behaviour.

Question 16

Schedule of reinforcement

Answer 16

In Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, the rate and interval of reinforcement responses (e.g., response ratio schedule and time intervals).

Question 17

Shaping

Answer 17

In Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, the process through which organisms learn complex behaviour through a step-by-step process in which behaviour increasingly approximates a full, target response.

Question 18

Sign approach

Answer 18

Mischel’s description of assessment approaches that infer personality from test behaviour, in contrast to sample approaches to assessment.

Question 19

Situational specificity

Answer 19

The emphasis on behaviour as varying according to the situation, as opposed to the emphasis by trait theorists on consistency in behaviour across situations.

Question 20

Successive approximations

Answer 20

In Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, the development of complex behaviours through the reinforcement of behaviours that increasingly resemble the final form of behaviour to be produced.

Question 21

Systematic desensitization

Answer 21

A technique in behaviour therapy in which a competing response (relaxation) is conditioned to stimuli that previously aroused anxiety.

Question 22

Target behaviors or target responses

Answer 22

In behavioural assessment, the identification of specific behaviours to be observed and measured in relation to changes in environmental events.

Question 23

Token economy

Answer 23

Following Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, an environment in which individuals are rewarded with tokens for desirable behaviours.

Question 24

Variable (schedules of reinforcement)

Answer 24

Schedules of reinforcement in which the relation of behaviours to reinforcers changes unpredictably.

Question 25

Fixed (schedules of reinforcement)

Answer 25

Schedules of reinforcement in which the relation of behaviours to reinforcers remains constant.

Question 26

Functional analysis

Answer 26

In behavioural approaches, particularly Skinnerian, the identification of the environmental stimuli that control behaviour.

Question 27

Generalization

Answer 27

In conditioning, the association of a response with stimuli similar to the stimulus to which the response was originally conditioned or attached.

Question 28

Generalized reinforcers

Answer 28

In Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, a reinforcer that provides access to many other reinforcers (e.g., a money).

Question 29

Maladaptive response

Answer 29

In the Skinnerian view of psychopathology, the learning of a response that is maladaptive or not considered acceptable by people in the environment.

Question 30

What approach to personality did behaviourism promote?

Answer 30

The school of thought known as behaviourism promoted a learning approach to personality.

Question 31

Define the learning approach to personality.

Answer 31

The learning approach suggests that the patterns of social behaviour that we see as indications of an individual’s personality are learned through environmental experience.

Question 32

Who provided the first foundation for a behavioural approach to the study of persons?

Answer 32

Pavlov’s work on classical conditioning, combined with Watson’s extension of this work to humans in the case of Little Albert, provided the first foundation for a behavioural approach to the study of persons.

Question 33

Who provided the second foundation for a behavioural approach to the study of persons?

Answer 33

BF Skinner provided a second foundation through his work on operant conditioning. Skinner and his colleagues developed a highly systematic database showing how reinforcements determine the behaviour of animals in Skinner boxes.

Question 34

What was one key explanation Skinner made?

Answer 34

Skinner explained how principles of learning were relevant to questions of profound importance, including the question of whether people have free will.

Question 35

When did behaviourism dominate psychology?

Answer 35

Behaviourism dominated psychology in the mid-20th century, but then its influence waned.

Question 36

What contributed to the downfall of behaviourism?

Answer 36

Behaviorism failed to provide convincing research-based explanations for uniquely human phenomena, such as people’s inherent tendency to assign subjective meaning to events. The growth of cognitive psychology, caused the downfall of behaviourism.

Question 37

Did behaviourists merely conduct laboratory research with animals?

Answer 37

No. They developed many useful applications of the principles of learning.

Question 38

What are some of the useful applications of the principles of learning that the behaviourists developed?

Answer 38

Clinical applications in which the goal of the clinician is to provide new environmental experiences through which the client can learn new, more adaptive forms of behaviour. Systematic desensitization and token economy programs are two examples of the application of behavioural principles.

Question 39

What are the basic points of emphasis of learning approaches to personality?

Answer 39

-Empirical research is the cornerstone of theory and practice
-Personality theory and applied practice should be based on principles of learning.
-Behavior is responsive to reinforcement variables in the environment and is more situation specific than suggested by other personality theories (e.g., trait,
psychoanalytic)
-The medical symptom–disease view of psychopathology is rejected, and emphasis
instead is placed on basic principles of learning and behavior change.

Question 40

Who was the founder of the approach to psychology known as behaviorism?

Answer 40

John B. Watson (1878–1958)