chapter 6 Flashcards
behaviorism
main focus is human behavior.
- behaviorists are define by their fascination of learning
- behaviorists began that organisms are not born knowing what behaviors to engage in, this isn’t entirely true since there are many animal species that engage in elaborate behavior that is genetically hardwired into them at birth such as mating
stimulus response
stimuli is often used as the word to describe features of the environment and the word response is the word to describe the result of the stimuli.
Ivan Pavlov
Russian physiologist.
- won a noble prize for some work he did on digestive processes
- accidentally made some observations that created a huge splash in academics of science and beyond.
- Pavlov did an experiment on dogs salivating, which isn’t a behavior but an unconscious mechanism
unconditioned stimulus
any stimulus that naturally generates some response in a person or animal
unconditioned response
a response on getting poked in the back with a pencil of going up behind someone and scaring them and their response is the unconditioned response.
acquisition phase
the combination of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus
extinction phase
the gradual lose of the conditioned response after the repeated conditioned stimulus like Pavlov’s bell or the sound of someone whistling before poking you in the back with a penicl
stimulus generalization
responding to a stimulus similar to be distinct from the conditioned stimulus
stimulus discrimination
the ability to distinguish between one stimulus and a similar stimulus, responding to a certain stimuli but not a similar one.
John B. Watson
father of behaviorism
did an experiment with an 11-monthold baby named albert, he filmed his efforts in making albert afraid of white rats. after finding out the albert wasn’t afraid of the rat, he showed albert the white rat multiple times striking a steel bar with a hammer, which albert didn’t like. eventually albert showed fear with just the presence of the white rat without the steel bar.
preparedness
explanation of many phobias.
conditioned taste eversion
eating a food and then getting sick after eating and then associating that food with sickness and not wanting to eat it ever again if the sickness wasn’t caused by the food.
classical conditioning
when two stimuli are repeatedly paired. a response that was at first elicited by the first stimuli, after repeating is then elicited by the first stimuli alone
operant conditioning
the learning occurs through the consequences of the learners voluntary actions.
reinforcement
when a reward is the consequence of behavior will increase in frequency
Edward Thorndike
1905
he placed hungry cats inside a puzzle box and their food on the outside of the box. the cats would try and get out of the box and then would realize that their was some sort of trick to get out of the box
the law of effect
Edward Thorndike
the association between a stimulus and a response will be strengthened when the effect of the response is positive.
B.F Skinner
- 1930s
- ranks with people like Sigmund Freud and William Wundt one of the worlds most important psychologists
- studied operant conditioning with rats and pigeons
The Skinner Box
B.F skinner placed the animal in an operant chamber called the skinner box that contained a lever that the animal could press as well as a food tray provided the reinforcing of the lever.
