Chapter 13 Flashcards
Describe neobehaviourism
Environment selects the behaviors we engage in
Functional = reinforcing
Selected behaviours → more often to be produced, non-selected fade away
Change contingencies = change behaviour
The configuration of contingencies need to be changed
E.g. Recycling
Describe Skinner’s view of punishment
More sensitive than later behaviourists around punishment
Remove punisher from environment → behaviour is selected for → Will reoccur
E.g. Prison
Punishing contingency is removed
Reinforced by violence → continue to engage in it
Problem with it: Reinforcing to punisher
Core of retributive justice
Doesn’t target issue → Modify reinforcement contingency (Draw out behaviour rather than punish it)
Other negative features: Fear is created, elicits another response that is also undesirable
Ignore bad behaviour
Describe Skinnerian principles
Nontheoretical
Descriptive behaviourism
Operationism is important
Goal: manipulate environmental events and observe effects
Describe applications of Skinner’s work today
Education → Learn material in small chunks and receive feedback on learning, go at their own pace → Programmed learning
Didn’t take off due to time consuming and expensive
Behaviour Therapy (remove reinforcers for abnormal behaviour, Skinner assumed abnormal behaviour is used)
→ Token economies (work pretty well, e.g. prisons,
Why is hull important?
The hypothetico-deductive theory of learning of Hull
Three important concepts include reinforcement,
habit strength, reaction potential
Influence on the amount of research it produced and methodology
Describe hypothetico-deductive theory
- From summarizing the research on learning, he formed postulates from which he inferred theorems that yielded testable propositions.
Used intervening variables like Tolman
Hull’s intervening variables were primarily physiological, in contrast to the cognitive variables of Tolman.
His final theory had 17 postulates and 133 theorems.
Describe Hull’s view of reinforcement
Used intervening variables as Tolman, but used them
more extensively.
Hull’s intervening variables were primarily physiological, in contrast to the cognitive variables of Tolman.
His final theory had 17 postulates and 133 theorems.
Reaction potential
- The probability that a learned response will occur. It is primarily a function of the amount of drive and habit strength but is also influenced by other intervening variables.
Describe Holt
- Supervisor of Tolman
- Emphasized The Importance Of Purpose In Behaviour.
Describe purposive behaviour
- Studied purposive and molar behavior
Studied purposive behavior in contrast to the molecular behavior that he saw Watson studying.
At Harvard, Tolman learned to study purposive aspects of behavior without sacrificing scientific objectivity.
Done by seeing purpose in the behavior itself rather than inferring purpose from the behavior.
Describe Tolman’s rats
- Rats used to avoid introspection
- Tolman saw the use of rats as experimental subjects as a way of guarding against even the possibility of indirect introspection that could occur if humans were used as experimental participants.
Describe intervening variables
Intervening variables
Variables that intervene between environmental
events and behavior.
Employing logical positivism, he tied all intervening variables to observable behavior
- He operationally defined all the theoretical terms.
- Tolman’s intervening variables were cognitive processes, which are influential in determining behavior.
- Hypotheses, expectations, beliefs, and (sometimes) a cognitive map.
Describe hypotheses, expectations and cognitive maps
- Tolman disagreed with Watson and Thorndike’s explanations of learning.
- He believed that learning occurs constantly with or without reinforcement and with or without motivation.
Describe Tolman’s view of reinforcement
- Distinction between learning and performance.
*Learning takes place constantly as the organism interacts with its environment.
Whether the organism uses what it has learned is determined by its motivational state, in other words, whether the organism performs the learned behavior is based on whether it is motivated to do so.
Performance is the translation of learning into behavior.
Describe latent learning
- Tolman and Honzik(1930) showed that learning remained latent until the organism had a reason to use it, which was an incentive.
Describe behaviourism today
- Skinner remains the most influential of all the behaviorists (mainly due to influence on behavioural therapy)
Behaviorism and neobehaviorism have lost influence today
Evidence of genetic influence on behavior
Criticism of logical positivism
Major legacy of behaviorism:
- Psychologists generally now agree that the subject matter of psychology is overt behavior
