Chapter 11 Content Flashcards
What was the IQ zoo?
- A tourist attraction in Arkansas for 35 years
- People would watch animals perform an amazing variety of tricks
Who established the IQ zoo?
Keller and Marian Breland in 1955
- Former psychologists who left the university to earn a living by applying psychological conditioning techniques to animal behaviors
How did Keller and Marian Breland apply psychological conditioning techniques to animal behavior?
Used basic conditioning techniques learned from Skinner (they both were students of Skinner in Minnesota)
Who were the 3 animals at the IQ zoo?
Priscilla the fastidious pig: switched on radio, at breakfast at a table, picked up dirty clothes and stowed them in a hamper
Bird Brain: chicken who played tic-tac-toe with people and would win or tie every game
A Hen: played a 5-note tune on a small piano and another would tap dance in costume and shoes
What are the three stages of behaviorism?
Watson’s behaviorist school of thought
Neo-behaviourism
Socio-behaviourism
When did Watsons behaviorist school of thought peak popularity?
1924
Whose work does neobehaviourism include?
Hull
Skinner
Tolman
What does Neo-behaviourism state about the core of psychology?
The core of psychology is the study of learning
What does Neo-behaviourism state about behavior?
most behavior no matter how complex, can be accounted for by the laws of conditioning
What does Neo-behaviourism state about the principle of operationism?
Psychology must adopt the principle of operationism
Whose work does Socio-behaviourism include?
Bandura
Rotter
What does Socio-behaviourism return to the consideration of?
Return to the consideration of cognitive processes while maintaining a focus on the observation of overt behavior
What is operationism?
A physical concept is the same as the set of operations or procedures by which it is determined
What is a major characteristic of Neo-behaviourism?
Operationism
What does operationism insist on discarding?
Pseudo-problems
What are pseudo-problems?
- Propositions that can not be put to experimental test
- The concept of individual or private conscious experience is also a pseudo-problem for the science of psychology
Operationism is a trend towards?
Greater objectivity in the methodology and subject matter of psychology
Who did psychologists used operationism more extensively than?
Physicists
Edward Tolman trained in the tradition of?
Titchener’s structural psychology
What does Tolman question the usefulness of?
The scientific usefulness of introspection
What did Tolman teach and conduct research on?
Taught comparative psychology and conducted research on learning in rats
Whose methods did Tolman become dissatisfied with?
became dissatisfied with Watson’s form of behaviorism and began to develop his own
What form of behaviorism did Tolman develop?
Purpose behaviorism: combing objective study of behavior with the consideration of purposiveness or goal orientation in behavior
what did purpose behaviourism deny in psychology?
denied the mentalistic concepts in psychology
What does purpose behaviourism state regarding behavior?
behavior “reeks” of purpose and is orientated toward achieving a goal or learning the means to an end
what can purposiveness be define as in purpose behaviorism?
can be defined in objective behavioral terms without introspection
Who introduced the terms intervening variables? and what does it mean?
Tolman
unobserved and inferred factors within the organism that are the actual determinants of behavior
What are the five causes of behavior?
environmental stimuli
physiological drives
heredity
previous training
age
What is the learning theory?
the repeated performance of a task = strengthens the learned relationship between environment and the persons expectation (cognitive approach)
What was Clark Leonard Hull devoted to?
The problems of the scientific method
What was Hull’s form of behaviourism as compared to Watsons?
more sophisticated and complex than Watsons
What is the spirit of mechanism?
- Describes human nature in mechanistic terms
- Regarded human behavior as automatic and capable of being reduced to the language of physics
What are the 4 useful methods that Hall considered in regards to objective methodology and quantification? SO, SCB, ETH, H-DM
- Simple observation
- Systematic controlled behavior
- Experimental testing of hypotheses
- Hypothetico-deductive method
What is the Hypothetico-deductive method?
Hull’s method for establishing hypothesis from which experimentally testable conclusions can be deducted
Definition of drives:
bases of motivation; bodily need that arose from deviation from optimal biological conditions
What principle does the learning theory focus on?
principle of reinforcement
What is the law of primary reinforcement?
when a stimulus-response relationship is followed by a reduction in a bodily need, the probability increases on subsequent occasions the same stimulus will evoke the same response
What is habit strength?
the strength of the stimulus-response connection, which is a function of the number of reinforcements
What are primary drives?
associated with innate biological need states and are vital to organisms survival
What are secondary drives?
a drive that is developed through association with or generalization from a primary drive.
Who was the most influential psychologist for decades?
Skinner
What were Skinners 3 main contributions?
- program for the behavioral control of society
- promoted behavior modification techniques
- invented an automated crib for tending infants
Difference between Hull and Skinners behaviourism?
Hull: emphasized importance behaviourism
Skinner: advocated an empirical system with no theoretical framework within which to conduct research
Why was Skinner devoted to the study of research?
concerned with describing rather than explaining behavior
What did Skinner research focus on?
Dealt only with observable behaviors
What did skinner believe about the task of scientific inquiry?
the task of scientific inquiry is to establish functional relationships between experimenter-controlled stimulus conditions and the organisms subsequent responses
What is the “empty organism” approach?
not concerned with speculating about what might be occurring inside the organism
What is operant conditioning?
a method of learning that uses rewards and punishment to modify behavior.
Behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is less likely to be repeated.
What did skinner believe operant conditioning better represents?
The typical learning situation
What is the law of acquisition?
the strength of an operant behavior = increased when it is followed by the presentation of reinforcing stimulus
strength + = repetition of stimuli
In the real world reinforcement is?
not always so consistent or continuous as in the lab
What are reinforcement schedules?
conditions involving various rates and times of reinforcement
What does the frequency of reinforcement lead to?
leads to rate of learning and rate of extinction of behaviors
What are the 4 frequencies of reinforcement?
Fixed ratio: reinforcement is presented after a number of responses
Fixed interval: reinforcement is presented at a fixed time
Variable ratio: reinforcement in presented at a random number of responses
Variable interval: reinforcement is presented at a random time
What is successive approximation?
An explanation for the development of complex behavior
- behaviors such as learning to speak will be reinforced only as they come to approximate or approach the final desired behavior
What does Skinners body of work include?
air cribes
teaching machines
pigeon-guided missiles
Who proposed a utopian society: walden two? and what is it?
Skinner
human nature is like a machine
what is behavior modification?
the use of positive reinforcement to control/modify the behavior
When is behavior modification frequently used?
used in clinical application in medical hospitals, factors, prisons, and schools to change undesirable behaviors
what is not apart of the behavior modification system?
punishment
Criticisms of Skinners behaviorism?
- extreme positivism
- opposition to theory
- reinforcement was not all-powerful as skinner claimed
Contributions of Skinners behaviorism?
- assertions about economic, social, political, and religious issues that derived from his system
- overall goal: betterment of society and lives using behaviorism
- continues to be applied in labs, clinical, organizational and other real world settings
Why was Bandura and Rotters socio-behaviorism different from skinners?
they questioned skinners total discard of mental and cognitive processes and proposed a social learning or socio-behaviorism approach
What does Bandura’s social cognitive theory reflect?
the spirit of times and the impact of psychology’s renewed interest in cognitive factors
What does Bandura’s social cognitive theory stress?
the influence on external reinforcement thought processes such as beliefs, expectations and instructions
What did Bandura’s social cognitive theory emphasize?
the importance of rewards or reinforcements in developing and modifying behaviors
What is modeling?
learning can occur by watching others and then modeling what they do or say.
what is vicarious reinforcement?
learning can occur by observing the behavior, as a function of witnessing the consequences of others the performance
When are we more likely to model behavior?
When a person of the same sex or age have solved problems of our own.
What is self-efficacy?
one’s sense of self-esteem and competence in dealing with life problems
People who have a great deal of self-efficacy believe they are?
capable of coping with diverse events in their lives
High self-efficacy =?
better grades
more career possibilities,
greater job success
higher personal goals
better physical and mental health
What term was Juliana Rotter the first to use?
social learning theory
what did rotter argue about learning?
we learn primarily through social experiences
What did rotter say regarding cognitive processes?
we perceive ourselves as conscious beings capable of influencing the experiences that affect our lives
What did rotter say internal cognitive states?
internal cognitive states determine the effects of different external states
What is locus of control?
rotter’s idea about the perceived source of reinforcement
What is internal locus of control?
the belief that reinforcement depends on one’s own behavior
What is external locus of control?
belief that reinforcement depends on outside forces
What has research shown regarding internal locus?
people with internal locus of control = physically and mentally healthier
What are the 3 fates of behaviorism?
Methodological behaviorist: invoke internal cognitive processes
Radical behaviorist: believe that psychology must study only overt behaviors and environmental stimulus
Behaviorism remains vital in contemporary research
