Conditioning

Question 1

Behaviourist approach

Answer 1

Way of explaining behaviour in terms of what if observable and in terms of learning.

Question 2

Classical conditioning.

Answer 2

• One way in which animals learn by association. Can happen by itself or done deliberately.
• occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired with each other.
• an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and a neutral stimulus. The neutral stimulus eventually produces the same response that was first produced by the unlearned stimulus alone.

Question 3

Operant conditioning

Answer 3

• A form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by the consequences.
• Include positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement or punishment.

Question 4

Reinforcement.

Answer 4

-Consequence of behaviour that increases the likelihood of that behaviour being repeated. Can be positive or negative.

Question 5

Dog-bell-food example of classical conditioning.

Pavlov’s dog

Answer 5

-before condition:
the dog salivates at the food alone.
Food is unconditioned stimulus and the salivation is the unconditioned response.
The bell is the neutral stimulus and when rung is has no conditioned response, the dog does nothing.
-During conditioning:
The bell and the food are paired together. The bell is rung every time the dog sees the food. The dog still salivates but it is an unconditioned response still as it is to the food and not the bell.
-After conditioning:
The dog begins to salivate every time the bell is rung as it has associated it to the food. The bell becomes the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response to it is the dogs salivation.

Question 6

Process of classical condition

Answer 6

-Before conditioning = Unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned response

-Before conditioning =
Neutral stimulus and no conditioned response

-During conditioning=
Unconditioned and neutral stimulus showed at same time and unconditioned response

-After conditioning=
Conditioned stimulus and conditioned response.

Question 7

Operant conditioning:

-Positive reinforcement

Answer 7

Receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed.

-E.g praise from a teacher for answering a question correctly in class.

Question 8

Operant conditioning:

-Negative reinforcement

Answer 8

Occurs when an animal or human avoids something unpleasant.

-E.G when a student hands in an essay so they’re not told off, the avoidance of something negative is the negative reinforcement.

Question 9

Operant conditioning:

-Punishment

Answer 9

Unpleasant consequence of behaviour.

-E.g

Question 10

Effects of positive and negative reinforcement.

Answer 10

Positive and negative reinforcement increase the likelihood that behaviour will be repeated.

Punishment decreases the likelihood that behaviour will be repeated.

Question 11

Operant conditioning

-Successive approximations

Answer 11

Pattern of behaviour that gets closer and closer to what we want.

Question 12

Schedules of reinforcement

Answer 12

-How often someone is rewarded

Question 13

Intermittent reinforcement

Answer 13

Randomly rewarding behaviours

Question 14

Operant conditioning-

Edward Thorndike

Answer 14

Law of effect- If you perform an action that is followed by a reward then that behaviour will increase. Vice versa with punishment.

-Designed puzzle box

Question 15

What was skinners box?

Answer 15

-with the rats and sometimes pigeons. Every time the rat pulled the lever within the box it was rewarded with the food pellet. From then the animal would continue to perform this behaviour.

Question 16

What was the process of Pavlos dog?

Answer 16

1) before conditioning:
food > response > dog’s salivation.
Food = unconditioned stimulus
Salivation = unconditioned response

2) before conditioning:
Bell > response >no salivation
Bell = neutral stimulus
No salivation = no conditioned response

3) During conditioning:
Bell + Food > response > dogs salivation
Dogs salivation = unconditioned response as it’s still responding to the food after he bell has been paired with it

4)After conditioning 
Bell > response > dog's salivation 
Bell = conditioned stimulus 
Salivation = conditioned response 
Bell now had same response as food which means the dog has been operantly conditioned

Question 17

Evaluation: scientific credibility

Answer 17

By emphasising the importance of scientific processes such as objectivity and replication, behaviourism was influential in the development of psychology as a scientific discipline, giving it greater credibility and status.
-focused on The measurement of observable behaviour with highly controlled lab settings.

Question 18

Evaluation: real life application

Answer 18

– The principles of conditioning have been applied to a broad range of real-world behaviours and problems.
– Token economy systems: rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens that can be exchanged for privileges

Question 19

Evaluation: mechanistic view of behaviour

Answer 19

– Behaviourist perspective views animals including humans as passive and machinelike responders to the environment.
_ other approaches in psychology, such as the social learning theory and the cognitive approach, and emphasise the importance of mental events during learning.

Question 20

Evaluation: environmental determinism

Answer 20

– Behaviourist approach sees all behaviour as determined by past experiences that have been conditioned.

• this ignores any possible influence the free will may have on behaviour.
• skinner suggest that any sense of free will is simply an illusion, so everything we do is determined by our past conditioning history and not by our free will or decision-making.

Question 21

Evaluation: ethical and practical issues in animal experiments

Answer 21

– Experimental procedures such as the skinner box maintained a high degree of control over experimental subjects.
– However critics of question the ethics, the animals involved were exposed to stressful conditions which may also affected how they reacted to the experimental situation.