NBSS (behaviour) - Science of behaviour

Question 1

Behavioural medicine is the study of factors that influence how we:

Answer 1

Maintain our health (health promoting behaviours)
Prevent illness (health preventive behaviours)
Manage illness (illness self-management behaviours)

Question 2

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 2

• theory by PAVLOV
• Behaviours acquired through the process of associative learning between two stimuli

ie Jaws music recording making us sense fear in water

Question 3

what is an unconditioned stimulus

Answer 3

An environmental stimulus that prompts an innate (unconscious) response e.g. food/loud noise

Question 4

what is an unconditioned response

Answer 4

An innate response/reflex e.g. salivation/escape

Question 5

what is a conditioned stimulus

Answer 5

A stimulus that is initially presented simultaneously with the unconditioned stimulus to subsequently provoke an innate response when presented alone.

Question 6

what is a conditioned response

Answer 6

An innate response/reflex activated by a conditioned stimulus

IE remember the clip from the office

Question 7

What are the 5 key points of classical conditioning?

Answer 7

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)

Question 8

what is a conditioned stimulus also called

Answer 8

neutral stimulus

Question 9

how does extinction of conditioned response occur?

Answer 9

1. conditioned stimulus presented repeatedly without unconditioned stimulus
2. learned behaviour (whistle but no food so CR (salvation) wont happen)
3. habituation - behavioural reponsiveness to test stimulus decreases with repetition (basically repetition makes you numb/not respond)

Question 10

what is an important function of habituation?

Answer 10

enables us to ignore repetitive irrelevant stimuli so we remain responsive to sporadic stimuli of greater significance

Question 11

what are the psychological problems of classical conditioning?

Answer 11

generalisation, discrimination of phobias

Question 12

what was the experiment that showed how classical conditioning can be used to create fear/phobia?

Answer 12

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

Question 13

what can we use to treat phobias?

Answer 13

flooding and systematic desensitisation

Question 14

what is the difference between flooding and systematic desensitisation

Answer 14

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

Question 15

what is operant conditioning?

Answer 15

learning from consequences of behaviour and reinforcement - behaviour shaped by whether it results in positive/negative reinforcement

Question 16

What is operant conditioning also called?

Answer 16

instrumental conditioning

Question 17

what did Skinner do?

Answer 17

(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)

Question 18

what are the 5 factors that positive and negative reinforcement are dependent upon?

Answer 18

• 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

Question 19

what are the limitations of both operant and classical conditioning?

Answer 19

• treat person as passive
• ignore motivation
• ignore thought
• ignore cognition
• ignore other social dimensions of learning

Question 20

what does the behaviourist theory propose?

Answer 20

all learning was a result of direct experience with environment via association and reinforcement

Question 21

what is social learning?

Answer 21

• 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

Question 22

What are the ABC’s of operant conditioning?

Answer 22

A= antecendents
B = behaviour
C = consequence of behaviour

Question 23

What 4 stages does social learning include?

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

who proposed the social learning model

Answer 24

bandura(1986)

Question 25

what experiemnt did bandura use to prove social learning

Answer 25

bobo doll experiment in kids

Question 26

What are the limitations of the social/learning theory?

Answer 26

Behaviour is complex

• Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning theory can only partly account for behaviour.
• (Social) learning theories focus solely on automatic/unconscious responses to environmental cues/stimuli/antecedents
• What about conscious/reflective processes are they not important too?
• How do we form a symbolic representation of the situation? The required behaviours in that situation? And the anticipated outcomes of that behaviour.

Question 27

describe the comB framework

Answer 27

Capability -

• Psychological capacity (knowledge, skills, & confidence)
• Physical capacity

Motivation -

• Voluntary (conscious rational decision making)
• Involuntary (habits, emotions, impulse)

Opportunity -

• Factors outside the control of the individual (e.g. social environments)

Question 28

In Pavlov’s experiments, the bell (whistle) acted as:
A: An unconditioned response
B: An unconditioned stimulus
C: A conditioned stimulus
D: A conditioned response
E: Positive reinforcement

Answer 28

C

Question 29

A study found that when pregnant mothers received gift vouchers for attending smoking cessation services, they were more likely to remain abstinent from smoking. What is this an example of?
A: Compliance
B: Operant conditioning
C: Coercion
D: Classical conditioning
E: Motivational interviewing

Answer 29

B

Question 30

Research shows that giving chemotherapy patients a novel drink before each chemotherapy infusion prevents anticipatory nausea and even shortens the time that nausea is experienced during chemotherapy. Because they associate nausea with the drink and not the hospital context. What process is occurring here?

A: Operant conditioning
B: Nocebo effect
C: Classical conditioning
D: Systematic desensitisation
E: Reinforcement

Answer 30

C