Part 1 - Intro/Basic Concepts Flashcards
What are the three key parts of science?
Description, prediction, and control
What is ABA?
ABA is a scientific approach for discovering environmental variables that reliably influence socially significant behavior and for developing a technology of behavior change that takes practical advantage of these discoveries.
What is a functional relation?
A functional relation is when a specific change in one event can reliably be produced by specific manipulations of another event and that the change in the dependent variable was unlikely to be the result of other extraneous factors.
What is determinism?
Determinism is the assumption that universe is a lawful and orderly place in which all phenomena occur as the result of other events. Events are related systematically to other factors. Scientists first assume lawfulness then proceed to look for lawful relations.
What is empiricism?
Empiricism is the practice of objective observation of the phenomena of interest.
What is an experiment?
An experiment is a carefully conducted comparison of some measure of the phenomena of interest under two or more different conditions in which only one factor at a time differs from one condition to another.
What is replication?
Replication is the repeating of experiments.
What is parsimony?
Parsimony is the requirement that all simple, logical explanations for the phenomenon under investigation be ruled out, experimentally or conceptually, before more complex or abstract explanations are considered
What is philosophic doubt?
Philosophic doubt requires scientists to continually question the truthfulness of what’s regarded as fact.
What are the three branches of behavior analysis?
Behaviorism (philosophy of the science of behavior)
Experimental analysis of behavior (basic research)
Applied behavior analysis (developing technology for improving behavior)
What was Watson’s deal?
Behavior should be the subject matter of psychology. Stimulus-response (S-R) psychology.
What was Skinner’s deal?
Respondent versus operant behaviors.
What is a reflex?
A reflex is a functional unit of antecedent stimulus and response elicited.
What are hypothetical constructs?
Hypothetical constructs are presumed but unobserved entities that can’t be manipulated in an experiment.
What is the three-term contingency?
Stimulus – response – stimulus
What is the experimental analysis of behavior?
Investigation of operant behavior
What is behaviorism?
Behaviorism is the philosophy of the science of human behavior.
What is mentalism?
Mentalism is an approach to the study of behavior which assumes a mental or “inner” dimension exists that differs from a behavioral dimension.
What is an explanatory fiction?
An explanatory fiction is a fictitious variable that often is simply another name for the observed behavior that contributes nothing to an understanding of the variables responsible for developing or maintaining the behavior.
What is methodological behaviorism?
Only public events are considered.
What is radical behaviorism?
Radical behaviorism includes all private and public human behavior.
What happened in 1968?
JABA began publication and “Some Current Dimensions of ABA” was published.
What are the defining characteristics of ABA?
ABATCEG - applied, behavioral, analytic, technological, conceptually systematic, effective, generality
What are the meanings of the defining characteristics of ABA?
applied - commitment to affecting improvements in behavior that enhance and improve people’s lives
behavioral - specific behavior of importance must be selected, it must be measurable, we must know whose behavior changes
analytic - demonstration of functional relation between the manipulated events and a reliable change in some measurable dimension of the targeted behavior
technological - operative procedures sufficiently identified and described
conceptually systematic - procedures based on principles
effective - behavior improved to a practical degree
generality - lasts over time, appears in new environments, and/or spreads to non-treated behaviors
What are the other ABA characteristics?
Accountable, public, doable, empowering, optimistic
What is a response?
An action of an organism’s effector
What is a response class?
A group of responses with the same function
What is a stimulus?
An energy change affecting an organism through receptor cells
What is a stimulus class?
Stimuli sharing sets of common elements on one or more dimensions
What is respondent behavior?
Behavior elicited by antecedent stimuli
What is higher-order conditioning?
Pairing neutral stimuli with conditioned stimuli
What does ontogeny refer to?
The lifetime of an individual
What does phylogeny refer to?
The evolutionary history of a species
What is automaticity of reinforcement?
Behavior is modified by consequences regardless of intent or awareness
What are the principles of behavior?
Basic behavior-environment relations demonstrated repeatedly. For example, reinforcement, punishment, extinction
What is a behavior change tactic?
Research-based, technologically consistent method for changing behavior based on one or more principles of behavior. For example, backward chaining, DRO, shaping, response cost, time out
What is a discriminated operant?
Behavior that occurs more frequently in some antecedent conditions. Behavior under antecedent control.
What are three sources for the complexity of behavior?
Complexity of the human repertoire, complexity of controlling variables, and individual differences
What is contingency adduction?
Behavior that was initially selected and shaped under one set of conditions is recruited by a different set of contingencies and takes on a new function in a person’s repertoire
What is joint control?
Two discriminative stimuli combine to evoke a common response class
