NBSS (behaviour) - Science of behaviour Flashcards
Behavioural medicine is the study of factors that influence how we:
Maintain our health (health promoting behaviours)
Prevent illness (health preventive behaviours)
Manage illness (illness self-management behaviours)
What is classical conditioning?
- theory by PAVLOV
- Behaviours acquired through the process of associative learning between two stimuli
ie Jaws music recording making us sense fear in water
what is an unconditioned stimulus
An environmental stimulus that prompts an innate (unconscious) response e.g. food/loud noise
what is an unconditioned response
An innate response/reflex e.g. salivation/escape
what is a conditioned stimulus
A stimulus that is initially presented simultaneously with the unconditioned stimulus to subsequently provoke an innate response when presented alone.
what is a conditioned response
An innate response/reflex activated by a conditioned stimulus
IE remember the clip from the office
What are the 5 key points of classical conditioning?
Timing is important
- The neutral stimulus must be presented very shortly before the unconditioned stimulus. It won’t work afterwards.
Extinction of the conditioned response
- Occurs when the conditioned stimulus (e.g. bell) is repeatedly presented but without the unconditioned stimulus (e.g. food)
- Learned behaviour (the conditioned response) ceases to occur
- Habituation
Spontaneous recovery
- The conditioned response (salivation in response to the conditioned stimulus) may spontaneously reoccur after a period of habituation
- Learned behaviour (conditioned response) spontaneously reoccurs
Generalisation
- Conditioned response transfers to stimuli that are similar yet distinct from the original conditioned stimuli (e.g. bells of different pitches)
Discrimination
- Conditioned response will not transfer to stimuli that are distinct from original conditioned stimuli (e.g. buzzer vs bell)
what is a conditioned stimulus also called
neutral stimulus
how does extinction of conditioned response occur?
- conditioned stimulus presented repeatedly without unconditioned stimulus
- learned behaviour (whistle but no food so CR (salvation) wont happen)
- habituation - behavioural reponsiveness to test stimulus decreases with repetition (basically repetition makes you numb/not respond)
what is an important function of habituation?
enables us to ignore repetitive irrelevant stimuli so we remain responsive to sporadic stimuli of greater significance
what are the psychological problems of classical conditioning?
generalisation, discrimination of phobias
what was the experiment that showed how classical conditioning can be used to create fear/phobia?
little Albert experiment (1920) by John Watson - rat phobia: loud bang noises (conditioned stimulus) to frighten Albert → assocation he became frightened → geenralised fears to other small furry animals, nut disrimination when seeing other fur coats = lost effect
what can we use to treat phobias?
flooding and systematic desensitisation
what is the difference between flooding and systematic desensitisation
flooding = exposing someone to feared stimulus for long enough that their anxiety reduces and fear association is extinguished. it is EXTREME
systematic = relaxation and gradual exposure to stronger version of feared object/situation - e.g: needle phobia → look at needle, hold needle and watch someone else get an injection. IT IS GRADUAL
what is operant conditioning?
learning from consequences of behaviour and reinforcement - behaviour shaped by whether it results in positive/negative reinforcement
What is operant conditioning also called?
instrumental conditioning
what did Skinner do?
(1948) studied operant conditioning by conducting experiments using animals raising ethical concerns
- positive reinforcement: placing hungry rat in box with leaver on side, movement = lever knocks accidentally but food pellet drops into container next to leaver when this happens → rats learned to go to leaver straight away because they new they would get food if they pressed leaver = repeating behaviour
- negative reinforcement: rat on electrical grid with current running through until rat press leaver = current stops → removing something unpleasant by increasing behaviour (pressing lever)
what are the 5 factors that positive and negative reinforcement are dependent upon?
- difference of reinforcements : across individuals (food or praise)
- time duration between behaviour and reinforcement : behaviour stronger if reinforcement occurs immediately
- delayed gratification
- size of reinforcement : gain/loss deemed significant = behaviour strengthened (cost benefit analysis)
- pattern of reinforcement : inconsistent reinforcement patterns are more challenging to change - more unpredictable environment = more deeply entrenched behaviours become
what are the limitations of both operant and classical conditioning?
- treat person as passive
- ignore motivation
- ignore thought
- ignore cognition
- ignore other social dimensions of learning
what does the behaviourist theory propose?
all learning was a result of direct experience with environment via association and reinforcement
what is social learning?
- Social learning: behaviours are acquired by observing significant others carrying them out.
- E.g. someone may become phobic by learning the phobic response from a significant other
What are the ABC’s of operant conditioning?
A= antecendents
B = behaviour
C = consequence of behaviour
What 4 stages does social learning include?
- Attention - pay attention to the behaviour observed
- Retention - internalise what they have seen
- Reproduction - reproduce the behaviour
- Motivation - need to be motivated to reenact this behaviour usually by reinforcement
who proposed the social learning model
bandura(1986)
