Conditioning Flashcards
What is Skinner’s box about?
A rat was placed into Skinner(experimenter’s) box.
There was a lever in the box and when the rat pulled the lever a food pellet was released. This is POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT. As it is ADDING a positive outcome.
Sometimes the floor would be electrocuted and the rat would have to pull the lever to stop the electrical current running through the floor. This is NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT as NEGATIVE is being taken away.
What is Thorndike’s Law of Effect?
If something has a PLEASANT OUTCOME it increases the probability that someone will choose that outcome again.
If something has an UNPLEASANT OUTCOME it is less likely that someone will choose that outcome again.
What happened in Little Albert’s study?
A boy named Albert was shown animals in the laboratory. He seemed to like a white lab rat.
Every time Albert reached for the rat a metal bar was hit with a hammer behind him. This kept happening until Albert stopped reaching for the rat and he became distressed and upset.
Albert has been CLASSICALLY CONDITIONED to have a fear of the rat as he ASSOCIATES the loud horrible noise with the rat.
Albert then became scared of anything that resembled the rat such as a white fluffy beard and even Santa. This is known as GENERALISATION. Albert has generalised his fear of white rats to anything that resembles the rat.
Name an ethical issue with flooding.
It is very traumatising for the patient and they will probably be disturbed and very scared when they are surrounded by their phobia.
Name a benefit to using systematic desensitisation to treat phobias.
The patient has the right to withdraw and systematic desensitisation is often very effective at treating phobias and curing the patient.
Define spontaneous recovery.
Spontaneous recovery is when you SUDDENLY get back and recover your phobia that was treated or that diminished over time.
Describe how a token economy system can be used to improve behavior in a prison.
If prisoners behave well then they can get points or credits that they can swap for prizes which will encourage them to behave better.
The primary reinforcer is the reward and the secondary reinforcer is the points they receive and can then trade in to claim their prizes.
What is the Primary Reinforcer?
It is the final outcome to what the person wants and the main reason why their behavior is changes.
What is the Secondary Reinforcer?
It is the thing that gets people on the way to their final reward such as the points they receive before they can trade them in for prizes.
What is the word for the substance that is applied to something during aversion therapy?
An emetic
Define Extinction
When a conditioned response disappears and is not produced again. Although it can come back again suddenly through spontaneous recovery. Then the conditioned response will be produced again by the person.
Define Extinction
When a conditioned response disappears and is no longer produced. This may happen but then later the phobia is recovered through spontaneous recovery.
Define Generalisation
When someone may become scared of something such as red clothes. They then may associate red footballs with their phobia and this is known as generalisation and they generalise their fear towards other objects and people.
An example of this is Little Hans who was originally scared of white rats then he generalised that to white beards and also Santa Claus he became scared of him as well.
What is the main way of encouraging behaviour in Operant Conditioning?
It is the use of rewards to encourage behaviour such as rewarding someone with money after they do well in a test is positive reinforcement.
Taking away someone’s money because they do badly in a test is known as negative reinforcement.
Skinners box shows both sets of reinforcement when the rat pulls the lever and gets food. The unpleasant stimulus is later removed when the rat pulls the lever and then the electrocuted floor stops being shocked and the rat is ok.
What is a benefit of using Flooding to treat phobias?
It is often very effective and cheap to use to treat phobias however it does carry many ethical issues such as no right to withdraw and being very traumatising for the patient.
