Chapter 7- Operant Applications

Question 1

Describe the uses of operant procedures in animal care and training

Answer 1

Often used to facilitate veterinary care of captive animals, especially those that are large and potential he dangerous or sensitive to the stress of being handled. In the past, such problems were resolved with restraints, or aversive’s, or by anesthetizing the animal. Positive reinforcement is not only a more humane solution to such problems but is less risky for all concerned

Question 2

Explain how Wilkes used operant procedures to train an elephant to offer up his feet for a pedicure

Answer 2

Got the elephant to put its foot through a large hole in a gate by shaping the desired behaviour. The trainers established a clicking noise, made by a toy called the cricket, as a conditioned reinforcer. They did this by making that clicking sound and then giving the elephant a piece of carrot and then used the clicking to reinforce all the behaviours leading up to putting it’s foot through the gate. Elephant actually became far less aggressive and seemed to enjoy the training sessions

Question 3

In behavioural terms, what does self-awareness consist of? Does self-awareness allow us to behave more effectively?

Answer 3

Self-awareness consist of observing ourselves and noting forms of behavior, such as thoughts, that we cannot readily observed in others. We observe the behaviour of others and ourselves because doing so is reinforcing. If we are able to detect from our own behaviour that we are in the early stages of flu, we made speed our recovery by getting additional rest before the symptoms hit with full force

When we observe our behaviour carefully, we can better predict what we will do, just as we can predict the behaviour of a close friend. Self-awareness allows us to behave more effectively

Question 4

How did Gallup examine self-awareness in chimpanzees?

Answer 4

Exposed chimpanzees to a full-length mirror for several days and after they gradually responded to their reflections as if it were themselves, he anesthetized the animals and put red dye on their faces. when they were recovered, they made no effort to touch the died parts of their bodies when there was no mirror present, but made from 4 to 10 efforts with the mirror present. First experimental demonstration of self concept in a subhuman form

Question 5

How did Epstein and his colleagues study self-awareness in pigeons?

Answer 5

Put a blue dot on each birds breast beneath a bid which prevented the bird from seeing it directly, but could see the dot reflected in a mirror. None of the animals tried to peck the blue dor when the mirror was covered, but when it was uncovered, each of them soon began pecking at a spot on the bib corresponding to the dot on it’s breast

Question 6

How are children taught self-awareness?

Answer 6

They learn from other people. We teach a child to say such things as that itches, that tickles, or that hurts, when we observed behaviour or events that typically a company such experiences. By observing and commenting on behaviour that suggests certain experiences, we teach the child to observe those private events

We teach children to make comments on and predictions from self observations by asking them questions. Which teaches the child to observe and comment on private experiences, and when these observations are accurate, they are likely to be reinforced

Question 7

Under what conditions do we say that someone has self-control? What problem is there with explaining self-control as willpower, discipline, or strength of character?

Answer 7

To have self-control means to choose wisely between competing outcomes, and to choose to do things that are in our best long-term interests.

Using qualities such as willpower, discipline, or strength of character to describe those who have good self-control is using a circular explanation. These things are merely names we give to behaving sensibly in situations in which people often behave foolishly. The terms do not explain the behavior, they just name it

Question 8

Why do some people exhibit self-control whereas other people do not?

Answer 8

They may use certain self control techniques such as physical restraint, distancing, distraction, deprivation and satiation, informing others of your goals, and monitoring behaviour

Question 9

A self control technique which means doing something that physically prevents a behaviour from occurring

Answer 9

Physical restraint

Example: clapping a hand over your mouth to keep yourself from laughing when laughing would be inappropriate

Question 10

A self control technique where you keep your distance from situations in which that behaviour is likely to occur

Answer 10

Distancing

Not going to parties where you know people will be drinking if you are an alcoholic

Question 11

A self control technique where in a person distract themselves

Answer 11

Distraction

When you are feeling sad, you may distract yourself by watching a movie

Question 12

A self control technique we’re in a person may deprive themselves of something or indulge in something so they will not become preoccupied later

Answer 12

Deprivation and satiation

A person who does not want to gain weight by eating a lot of food at night may eat many small meals during the day so that they do not feel very hungry at night

Question 13

A self control technique in which a person makes in their intentions public

Answer 13

Informing others of your goals

Telling people about your efforts to lose weight so that they will not eat fatty or sugary foods in front of you and so that they give you praise and reassurance

Question 14

A self control technique in which a person keeps track of their behaviour

Answer 14

Monitoring behaviour

When trying to lose weight, write down what you eat every meal in a diary and how many calories each meal has so that you can keep on track

Question 15

Which self control method did Ulysses use in the odyssey?

Answer 15

He used physical restraint. Sailors who attempted to pass by the sirens were drawn onto the rocks by the siren song. Ulysses wanted to hear the sirens but he also wanted to avoid disaster, so we had himself tied to the mast, and then ordered his crew to stuff wax into their ears. In this way he prevented his men and himself from being led astray

Question 16

Describe the traditional approach to language. Describe Skinners alternative approach, as found in his book verbal behaviour

Answer 16

Traditional view: holds that words are symbols for communicating ideas. Ideas are said to be encoded in the form of words by one person and sent to another person in speech or writing. The receiver of the message then decodes the message and thereby achieves understanding. Ideas are transferred from head to head

Skinners alternative view: proposed that language is a form of behaviour and that verbal behaviour is not essentially different from any other behaviour and can be understood in terms of functional relationships between it and environmental events, particularly its consequences.

Question 17

Describe green spoons study of verbal behaviour that concerned plural nouns

Answer 17

Asked college students to say as many words as they could think of in a given period. In one condition, the experimenter said “Mmmm-hmm”after each plural noun spoken by the student, and in another condition, the experimenter said “uh-uh” after each plural noun. Control subjects heard nothing regardless of what they said. The results showed that the frequency of plural nouns varied with the consequences it produced. Reinforcement resulted in more plural nouns, compared to the control group, whereas punishment resulted in fewer plural nouns

Showed that verbal behaviour is a function of its consequences

Question 18

Describe Verplanck’s studies, two experiments, of verbal behaviour that concerned opinion behaviour

Answer 18

Engaged one person at a time in casual conversation under ordinary circumstances and for the first 10 minutes tallied the number of times the person started a sentence with the words I think that, I believe that, or the like. During the next 10 minutes, the experimenter attempted to reinforce such expressions of opinion by paraphrasing them or expressing agreement, and for the final 10 minutes, the experimenter no longer reinforced opinions. The result was that every subject showed a higher rate of opinion statements during the reinforcement. Then during periods when reinforcement was unavailable

Engaged people in conversation for 10 minutes and then introduced a new topic. For the next 10 minutes, some of the subjects received reinforcement for any statement bearing on the suggested topic while the other subjects did not. The results showed that those who did not receive reinforcement dropped the suggested topic within two or three minutes, where as those who received reinforcement talked about almost nothing else for the next 10 minutes. When reinforcement stopped, statements on the topic fell to zero

Question 19

Describe quays research in which he differentially reinforced college students recollections. What implications to these data have for psychotherapy procedures?

Answer 19

Asked college students to recall events from their early childhood, with some he said uh-huh whenever they recalled a family experience; with others he said uh-huh whenever the recollection had to do with anything but family. This expression commonly indicates mild interest, and when this expression was contingent on certain kinds of recollections, those kinds of recollections increased

Suggests that the tendency of clients to talk about family relationships may have less to do with their importance to the client then with the reactions they get from the therapist

Question 20

When people are asked to call out numbers at random, what happens? Why?

Answer 20

They inevitably produce a nonrandom series of numbers. The reason may have to do with the history of reinforcement. Various sequences of numbers are reinforced as we learn to count by ones twos threes or fives, to recite multiplication tables, to give telephone numbers, and so on

Question 21

Define a problem using behavioural terms. Under what conditions do people say that a problem has been solved by insight?

Answer 21

A problem is a situation in which reinforcement is available, but the behaviour necessary to produce it is not. Often, the necessary behaviour is not currently in organisms repertoire

When people attempt to solve problems, they often try one thing and then another until they hit on a solution. But there are said to be times when the solution appear suddenly, in full form. In these instances, problems are said to be solved by insight

Question 22

Describe Kohlers studies of problem solving

Answer 22

Gave a chimpanzee name Sultan two hollow bamboo rods the end of one which could be inserted into the end of the other to make one long rod. Outside of his cage lay bit of fruit, just far enough from the bars that it could not be reached with either short stick alone. After one hour of unproductive work, Sultan sat down in a box and examined the sticks and eventually put one inside the other And drew the banana towards him with the double stick. Cooler said he had solved the problem through insight when he had a sudden flash of understanding about the problem

Question 23

What did Pechstein and brown find when they performed experiments similar to those of Kohler and his chimpanzee. What do these results indicate about problem-solving?

Answer 23

They found no evidence of solutions emerging suddenly without benefit of reinforcement. They found it took a chimpanzee 11 trials over a period of four days to learn to put two sticks together to retrieve food. The chimpanzee gradually learned to use the combined sticks to retrieve food

If the same sort of insight could be demonstrated in animals with a particular reinforcement history, but not in animals that lack that history, this would suggest that the insight was due to previous reinforcement

Question 24

How did Epstein and his colleagues study problem-solving in pigeons? What do these data indicate about problem-solving and about insight as an explanation of problem-solving?

Answer 24

Taught pigeons to push a small box toward a green spot that was placed at various points in the chamber and then taught them to climb on a box that was already beneath a toy banana and peck The banana. They then hung the toy banana from the ceiling out of reach and placed in the box elsewhere in the chamber. After pacing, looking perplexed, stretching to where the banana and glancing back-and-forth from box to banana, the birds energetically push the box toward it climbed and pecked. The solution appeared in about a minute for each of the three birds.

This sudden insight depended on the previous reinforcement of the separate behaviours required for a solution. Birds that had been trained to climb the box and to peck the banana, but not to push the box, did not solve the problem. It would appear that achieving insight into a problem depends largely on the reinforcement of behaviour related to the problem’s solution

Question 25

In behavioural terms, what is creativity? What is the traditional explanation of creativity? What is an operant explanation of creativity?

Answer 25

Creativity is novel behavior, unlike other behaviour

Behavioural terms: to behave in original ways

Traditional explanation: in ancient Greece, people believed that the muses visited a person. A more modern version of this belief moves the muse into the person, usually lodging her in the unconscious mind

Operant explanation: looks chiefly to the history of reinforcement for an analysis of creativity.

Question 26

Describe Pryor’s work in training animals to respond creatively

Answer 26

She was an animal trainer who trained a porpoise by reinforcing novel behaviour by giving her fish. When the porpoise performed stunts that she hadn’t before, she was reinforced

Question 27

Describe Glover and Gary’s study in encouraging student creativity

Answer 27

Asked fourth and fifth graders to think of uses for various objects such as I can, brick, or pencil and they earned points by coming up with uses for a particular object. When unusual uses earned points, the number of unusual uses rose sharply. When originality earned points, some very unusual uses appeared. Originality and other measures of creativity showed a strong increased as a result of reinforcement for creative ideas

Question 28

What criticism is sometimes made of using reinforcement regarding creativity? Why do some studies show that reinforcement produces creativity, where as other study show that it discourages creativity?

Answer 28

Criticism: reinforcement or rewards actually makes people less creative
Point to studies in which people are promised a reward for performing a task, and their performance is compared to that of other people who were promised nothing. Those offered a report are generally less creative

Why? The answer probably has to do with the way rewards are used. In studies that get negative results, there is typically no contingency between creative performance and the reward. In studies that show increased creativity, reinforcers or rewards are contingent on creative behaviour.
Sometimes our society does not appreciate creativity so people perform tasks in conventional or approved ways

Question 29

In what respect does failure encourage creativity? Explain this apparent paradox

Answer 29

When a behaviour that has been repeatedly reinforced is put on extinction, there is an increase in the variability of behavior. When all tactics fails, the organism try something different. This finding implies that if you want people to be more creative, we might teach them how to solve problems in a certain way and then, when they have mastered the technique, present them with problems that cannot be solved in that way.

Question 30

Describe Skinners superstition experiment

Answer 30

Put a pigeon into a skinner box and modified the feeding mechanism so that grain became available every 15 seconds, regardless of what the bird happened to be doing at the time. Six out of eight pigeons developed superstitious behaviour such as turning counterclockwise, or raising its head toward one of the corners of the cage, or bobbing his head up-and-down. The animals appeared to have learned to perform strange rituals, even though the reinforcer came regardless of whether the birds engaged in the behaviour. Explanation: when the reinforcer arrived, the animal had to be doing something, which was reinforced by the coming of the grain

Question 31

Describe Wegner and Morrises study of superstition in children

Answer 31

Introduced preschool children to a mechanical clown named Bobo that periodically dispensed marbles from its mouth at six intervals regardless of what the children did. When they had collected enough marbles, they would be able to trade them for a toy. When left alone with Bobo, superstitious behaviour emerged. These actions were judged to be superstitious only if the behaviour emerged after adventitious reinforcement began and occurred with increasing frequency during intervals between reinforcement

Question 32

Describe Ono’s study of college students and superstitious behavior.

Answer 32

University students sat at a table with three levers which had a signal light at the back and the counter that recorded points earned. The students were told to earn as many points as they could but nothing they did had any effect on the accumulation of points. Most students develop superstitious behaviours which began after delivery of a point. Most involved pulling the lever in someway

Question 33

Describe Herrnstein ‘s theory of the origins of superstitious behavior, and explain why variations in handwriting reflect a kind of superstition.

Answer 33

Argued that superstitious behaviour can occur as a kind of byproduct of training. In many instances, a particular feature of a behaviour is essential for reinforcement, but other features are not. If the essential feature produces reinforcement, the other features are adventitiously reinforced.

If essential features of handwriting, where there is a good deal of latitude and how the letters may be formed, are performed in such a way as to gain reinforcement, other non-essential features of handwriting are adventitiously reinforced

Question 34

Describe Herrnstein ‘s study of superstition in the pigeon and its implications for human superstitious behavior. Why does a social context encourage superstitious behavior?

Answer 34

Train a pigeon to pack a disk by reinforcing each disc pack that occurred after and 11 second interval. Then began providing food every 11 seconds regardless of what the bird did. Now the ineffectual behaviour of disc packing could easily be adventitiously reinforced. Under these conditions, the rate of disc packing declined somewhat but did not die out. Apparently, The adventitious reinforcement was sufficient to maintain the behaviour

Suggests that almost any behaviour can be maintained through adventitious reinforcement if the organism can be induced to perform it at least once.

The most common human superstitions arise in social context where we are encouraged to perform these acts. Once such behaviour is performed, there is the chance that it will be adventitiously reinforced, by for example, carrying a rabbits foot and surviving a car accident

Question 35

How can we protect ourselves from superstitious inclinations? Why is this method useful?

Answer 35

We may use the scientific method which means making observations under controlled conditions.

Useful for testing hypotheses in a more informal way.

Question 36

Describe Seligman’s demonstration of learned helplessness in dogs. Who initially reported an instance of learned helplessness?

Answer 36

Strapped a dog into a harness and paired a tone with shock then put the dog into one side of a shadowbox, sounded the tone, and delivered a shock to the dogs side of the box. Dogs usually jump over the barrier and escape the shock, but the dogs who had been conditioned to fear the tone, gave up and excepted the shock passively even when the barrier was removed

Thorndike described the same phenomenon in 1898 when he found that cats repeatedly failed to escape from a box would, when put into that box, make no effort to escape

Question 37

How and why has learned helplessness been applied to the study of human depression? Cite evidence indicating that immunization training can help prevent learned helplessness

Answer 37

Learned helplessness might help us understand human depression, at least those depression is that a reactions to life events. Depression is characterized not only by sadness but by general inactivity. Depressed people, like the dogs, may refuse to take any steps to help themselves many depressed people simply enter their pain and do nothing

Immunization training: giving one group of dogs 10 escape trials in the shuttle box before exposing them to inescapable shock allowed them to perform like dogs that had never been shocked
Naïve rats that did not have shocks before hand at first jump to Bradley from compartment two compartment well being shocked, but the rate of shuttling declined sharply as testing continued. Rats that had been exposed to inescapable shock showed less inclination to shuttle, and the rate of shuttling declined further with continue testing. Rats that had been able to escape shocked by pressing a lever shuttled at a constant high rate, showing almost no decline over the course of 200 trials. After once learning to escape shocks, these rats refused to give up

Question 38

Cite evidence that indicates that delusions and hallucinations can be due to reinforcement

Answer 38

A patient who found it very difficult to engage the staff in conversation engaged in delusional behaviour to interact with the staff without the risk of hostile reactions. The delusion was reinforced
Treatment helped a patient who believed in delusions about a witch by simply reinforcing expressions of doubt about the witch

Question 39

Do operant psychologists believe that delusions and hallucinations develop exclusively through reinforcement? Explain

Answer 39

No, diseases of the brain do produce bizarre behavior, however, even when behaviour arises from an organic disease, the bizarre behaviour associated with it may be modified by its consequences

Question 40

What objection is sometimes made to an operant analysis of delusional behavior?

How did golddiamonds functional analysis of delusional behaviour answer this objection?

Answer 40

Objection: Such behaviour often occurs even when it is not reinforced

Golddiamond: describe a woman virtually paralyzed by fear of cockroaches and was given attention from her husband that had previously been denied which was apparently the reinforcer that maintained her phobic behavior. But the woman stayed in bed even when her husband was not around to provide reinforcement. Why? Golddiamond suggests that the answer is that if a person behaves bizarrely only when reinforcement for bizarre behaviour is available, people catch on. Reinforcement for bizarre behaviour is therefore often contingent not only on the occurrence of the behaviour but on the occurrence of the behaviour at times when reinforcement is unavailable

Question 41

What is self injurious behavior? What was a common treatment for self-injurious behaviour before the development of operant solutions?

Answer 41

It is self-destructive behaviour where individuals intentionally injure themselves

Used to be dealt with by putting the patient into restraints which might take the form of a straitjacket or straps that fastened the hands to the sides and sometimes patients were tied to their bed, spread Eagle, so they could not hurt themselves

Question 42

Describe lovaas and Simmons research in using punishment to reduce self-injurious behavior. Under what conditions are aversive stimuli now used to reduce such behavior?

Answer 42

Discovered that punishment could be used to suppress self-injurious behavior. Worked with a boy who hit himself, and ended this behaviour abruptly when the experimenters provided a painful but noninjurious electric shock to the boys leg when he hit himself.

Aversive’s are now generally used only when other procedures have failed

Question 43

How are many self-injurious behaviours maintained by negative reinforcement?

Answer 43

People find that they can escape from an aversive situation by behaving in a bizarre or disruptive fashion

Question 44

What did Montrose wolf notice about self-injurious behaviors?

Answer 44

Noticed that self-injurious behaviour in disturbed children seems to be precipitated by teacher requests

Question 45

Describe car and McDowell’s study of self-injurious scratching

Answer 45

The scratching of a 10-year-old boy which caused him scars and sores, nearly all occurred at home and seems to be maintained by parental attention. Experimenters had the parents systematically withhold or provide attention for scratching, and the results clearly showed that scratching depended on attention which may have been treated by having the parents simply ignore The scratching entirely, but they did not, so the had to use punishment in the form of a timeout and recommended reinforcement for not scratching. This resulted in a sharp reduction in the number of sores

Question 46

What is a functional assessment, and why are such assessments used?

Answer 46

Consists of observing the behaviour under study, usually in a natural setting, to identify naturally occurring events that might be influencing it. Hypotheses are formed, for example, about what events may be reinforcing the behavior, and these are then tested in a controlled way. This typically suggest an effective treatment

Question 47

Describe the concept of symptom substitution and explain whether it has any empirical support

Answer 47

Any problem behaviour eliminated with learning procedures will be replaced by a new problem

There is little or no scientific support for symptom substitution but the myth still persists

Question 48

In what respect does the environment select behavior? How is the selection of behaviour similar to natural selection?

Answer 48

An organism behaves in a certain way, and the environment reinforces, punishes, or ignores that behavior. Behaviour that is useful, that contributes to survival, endures; behaviour that is harmful or useless dies out. In this way, the environment shapes behaviour