PSY 538 Quiz 2

Question 1

What does Skinner mean by “A considerable advantage is gained from dealing with terms . . . in the form in which they are observed”? What is that form?

Answer 1

Verbal Responses

Question 2

What are the meanings etc. to be found

Answer 2

The meanings are found among the determiners of the response, not the properties of the response.

Question 3

What two things do “we want to know in the case of many traditional psychological terms”?

Answer 3

1. the specific stimulating conditions under which they are emitted
2. why each response is controlled by its corresponding condition

Question 4

What must we know in order to approach the operational analysis of subjective terms?

Answer 4

• we must know the characteristics of verbal responses to private stimuli

Question 5

Be able to list and describe the “four ways in which a verbal community . . . may generate verbal behavior

Answer 5

1. Public accompaniment: It is not strictly true that the stimuli which control the response must be available to the community
2. Collateral Responses: A commoner basis for the verbal reinforcement of a response to a private stimulus is provided by collateral responses to the same stimulus.
3. Some very important responses to private stimuli are descriptive of the
   speaker’s own behavior
4. Stimulus inductions: A response which is acquired and maintained in connection with public stimuli may be emitted, through induction, in response to private events

Question 6

In setting up the type of verbal operant called the tact, the verbal community characteristically reinforces a given response in the presence of a given stimulus

Answer 6

Tact

Question 7

What four ways does “the verbal community establish the contingencies of reinforcement which produce verbal responses to private stimuli

Answer 7

1. A common public accompaniment
2. Collateral response to a private stimulus
3. Common properties
4. When a response is descriptive of the speaker’s own behavior,

Question 8

Now, self-observation is also the product of discriminative contingencies, and
if a discrimination cannot be forced by the community, it may never arise

Answer 8

What is meant by Skinner saying our community teaches us to know ourself

Question 9

What does behavior generally stimulate

Answer 9

The behaver

Question 10

What are we concerned here with what behavior generally stimulates

Answer 10

We are concerned here with self-tacts—with verbal behavior controlled by other behavior of the speaker, past, present, or future. The stimuli may or may not be private.

Question 11

What are two reasons why behavior becomes covert

Answer 11

Greater ease of execution and punishment