Operant Applications Flashcards
In what respect does the environment select behaviour?
The environment reinforces, punishes or ignores the behaviour that an organism performs.
How is selection of behaviour similar to natural selection?
This is a similar process to that of natural selection which shapes the genes of organisms over time.
Describe the uses of operant procedures in animal care and training.
Operant procedures can be used to make animals more compliant to human interaction without using harmful stimuli such as aversives, drugs, or restraints.
Explain how Wilkes used operant procedures to train an elephant to offer up his feet for a pedicure.
He shaped the behaviour by having the aggressive elephant approach the set up and giving the elephant a carrot, until eventually the elephant was comfortable with having his feet handled.
Define self-awareness.
Self-awareness is being observant of one’s own behaviour (similarly to how one may be observant of the behaviour of others).
Does self-awareness allow us to behave more effectively?
Self-awareness allows us to behave more effectively because we are able to monitor experiences in their early stages and avoid harmful, or foster fruitful, outcomes.
E.g., noticing the early stages of illness and taking the measures needed to avoid becoming more sick
How did Gallup examine self-awareness in chimpanzees?
Gallup was the first to provide experimental evidence for self-awareness/-concept in animals (other than humans). He exposed chimps to a full-length mirror for days and over time they were able to recognize themselves in the mirror and perform tasks on the self such as grooming behaviour, and inspect painted marks on the body when present.
How did Epstein et al. study self-awareness in pigeons?
Epstein conducted a study with pigeons that found the birds to peck at spots not he self that had been highlighted on their reflection with a mirror.
How are children taught self-awareness?
Children learn self-awareness from other people. We teach them to say things like “that tickles,” or “that itches,” when observing behaviour or events that accompany that experience, to teach the child to observe those private events themselves. People also ask children self-reflecting questions to encourage predictions and comments on self-observation. We then reinforce this behaviour when the observations are accurate.
Under what conditions do we say that someone has self-control?
Someone is exhibiting self-control when they choose to act in their own best interests (particularly in terms of longterm outcomes)
What problem is there with explaining self-control as willpower, discipline, or strength of character?
The problem with explaining self-control as willpower/discipline is that it’s a circular explanation, in that someone has willpower because they are patient, but they are patient because they have willpower. These labels describe behaving sensibly ins situations in which most people would behave foolishly - These terms don’t explain the behaviour, just name it.
Why do some people exhibit self-control whereas other people do not?
The use of self-control techniques impacts the ability to exhibit self-control. These techniques are learned. It is not a matter of willpower, but of instruction. The tendency to make wise choices varies with the reinforcers available for different behaviours and with the delay in delivery of reinforcers.
Define, describe, provide, and recognize original examples of the following self-control techniques:
a) physical restraint,
b) distancing
c) distraction,
d) deprivation and satiation
e) informing others of your goals
f) monitoring behaviour.
a) physical restraint - doing something that physically prevents a behaviour from occurring
b) distancing - distance the self from situations in which the behaviour is likely to occur
c) distraction - distract the self from the situation in order to avoid responding in an undesirable way
d) deprivation/satiation - indulge a small amount before hand to avoid being overdoing it later.
e) informing others of your goals - telling others of your plans so that they can help you change either by helping you make smart choices, or reinforcing your accomplishments. This strategy is changing our environment in ways that make the desirable behaviour more likely to occur because it changes others’ behaviour in a way that positively affects one’s own.
f) monitoring behaviour - keeping a tally of how often the behaviour occurs so as to monitor its frequency and facilitate change.
Which self-control technique did Ullysses use in the Odyssey?
Ulysses used physical restraint. He wanted to hear the sirens but also wanted to avoid the disaster of being drawn onto the rocks by their song, so tied himself to the mast of the ship.
Describe the traditional approach to language.
Words are symbols for communicating ideas, in that ideas are encoded into words by one person and “sent” to another person to be decoded. Ideas are, thus, transferred from head to head.
Describe Skinner’s approach to language.
To understand the nature of words, we must first recognize that words are from of behaviour, and that verbal behaviour is not different from other behaviours. Verbal behaviour should be understood in terms of functional relationships between it and environmental events, particularly its consequences. We must understand the effects of verbal behaviour on the environment (especially the social environment). The behaviour of other people shapes and maintains verbal behaviour. Infants learn to speak because speaking produces reinforcers more reliably than other forms of behaviour.
Describe Greenspoon’s study of verbal behaviour that concerned plural nouns.
College students were asked to say as many words as they could think of in a given period. When students in the experimental group said plural nouns, they received reinforcement from the experimenter, resulting in more plural nouns in their word strings when compared to the control group. This shows that verbal behaviour is a function of its consequences.
Describe Verplanck’s two experiments of verbal behaviour that concerned opinion behaviour.
1) The researcher would carry out a casual 30 minute conversation with a participant. For the first 10 minutes no reinforcement was provided, for the next 10 minutes reinforcement was provided when the participant used an “I” statement, and the last 10 minutes had no reinforcement. Every participant showed a higher rate of “I” statements during times of reinforcement than when reinforcement was absent.
2) The researcher would talk to the participant for 10 minutes and then change subjects. For the next 10 minutes, some of the participants received reinforcement for any statement related to the suggested topic while others didn’t. The results showed that those who didn’t receive reinforcement dropped the suggested topic quickly, while those who received reinforcement talked about almost nothing else for the entire period. When reinforcement stopped, discussion on the topic fell to zero.
Describe Quay’s research in which he differentially reinforced college students’ recollections. What implications does this data have for psychotherapy procedures?
Researchers asked participants to recall events from early childhood. When the researcher responded “uh-huh” to those recollections, the number of those kinds of recollections increased, suggesting that the tendency for people to talk about family in therapy may have less to do with the importance of the topic to the client, but with reinforcing reactions given by the therapist.
When people are asked to call out numbers at random, what happens?
Skinner noticed that eventually they produce a nonrandom series of numbers, potentially due to reinforcement. Various sequences are reinforced as we learn to count by 1s, 2s, 3s, or 5s, recite multiplication tables, give telephone numbers, etc.
