Chp 1 Flashcards
Behavior
An individual living organism’s activity, private or public, which may be influenced by external or internal stimulation
Response
A single instance of behavior
Stimulus events
Things you see hear small taste or feel. Behavior can be changed by stimulus events
What is the utility in predicting behavior of others?
Predictability allows adaptive behavior
Goals of behavior analysis
- Accurately predict behavior
- Discover functional variables that may be used to positively influence behavior
Functional variable
Variable that, when changed, reliably and systematically influenced behavior. FV is either biological or environmental or overlap
Assumptions of behavior analysis
- Behavior is determined
- The scientific method is a valid way to reveal the determinants of behavior
What does ‘behavior is determined’ mean?
Behavior has a cause or multiple causes
Occam’s law of parsimony
The best explanations of behavior are the simplest explanations
What do behavior analysts focus on?
Biological and environmental events as opposed to mentalistic explanations of behavior
Mentalistic explanations of behavior
People can ‘will’ their own behavior with no outside variables
Scientists are fallible and scientific enterprise is…?
Self correcting
Objective research
Unbiased scientific approach
Quantitative
Occurrence can be counted
Systematic research
Implemented exactly as it is supposed to be
Empirical research
Evidence must be observed
Falsifiable predictions
Experiments are done to prove theories wrong. If something is too precise it could be shown to be incorrect.
What’re the determinants of behavior
Nature and nurture
Environmental events
All of the things you experience through senses
Behavioral epigenetics
Examines how nurture shapes nature
Research areas of behavior
The experimental analysis of behavior
Applied behavior analysis
Behavioral service delivery
Examples of private behaviors (mentalistic)
Thoughts & feelings. “I thought about doing…”
Examples of public behaviors
Buying a car, changing clothes
2 meanings of ‘objective’
- We are susceptible to biases that cloud our evaluations
- Behavior science in tentative and always changing w new info
