Stimulus Response Psychology

Question 1

What is SRP?

Answer 1

The theory that human behaviour is a response to stimuli (Behaviourism 1920-50s)

Question 2

What does SRP believe is inherited?

Answer 2

The most basic of reflexes

Question 3

What does SRP believe other behaviours are learned by?

Answer 3

Passive learning from contingencies in environment or trial and error plus reinforcements (rewards and punishments from the environment)

Question 4

What 3 laws did Edward Thorndike theorise?

Answer 4

Law of effect, exercise and readiness

Question 5

What is the law of effect?

Answer 5

Behaviours that lead to satisfying outcomes are likely to be repeated, whereas behaviours that lead to undesired outcomes are less likely to recur.

Question 6

What is the law of exercise?

Answer 6

In learning, the more frequently a stimulus and response are associated with each other, the more likely the particular response will follow the stimulus

Question 7

What is the law of readiness?

Answer 7

Learning is dependent upon the learner’s readiness to act, which facilitates the strengthening of the bond between stimulus and response

Question 8

What is instrumental conditioning?

Answer 8

We learn through trial and error, the probability of producing a particular behaviour is determined by past outcomes - the rewards and punishments that our environment has delivered

Question 9

What is Edward Tolman’s theory of latent learning?

Answer 9

Learning that occurs but does not come apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it

Question 10

What were the 3 groups of Tolman’s research?

Answer 10

1- food reward, 2- no reward and 3- no food reward for 10 days but awarded on the 11th

Question 11

What is a cognitive map?

Answer 11

Mental representation of the layout of one’s environment

Question 12

In the maze learning experiment, what happened in the standard maze?

Answer 12

A rat is put into the maze on day 1 and wanders around until they come to the food box, this is repeated every 24 hours

Question 13

What do the rats learn over the days?

Answer 13

To get to the food box quickly and reduce the number of errors they perform (entrances to dead ends)

Question 14

What is the correlation between error and food being in the box?

Answer 14

The number of errors made before reaching the food box reduces most quickly over the days if there is food in the food box and the rat is hungry

Question 15

What were the findings of the maze experiment?

Answer 15

Rats with experience of the maze learnt faster was the reward was introduced (day 11) than rats with no prior experience

Question 16

What was the conclusion about latent learning?

Answer 16

Seems that latent learning about environment is taking place without reinforcement

Question 17

What was the problem was Tolman’s research?

Answer 17

Receiving a reward every day shows less errors than the others overall, the rats who received a reward on day 11 made faster progress than the one receiving a reward every day

Question 18

What is nativism?

Answer 18

That behaviours of reinforcement etc cannot be learnt but instead are the result of innate knowledge

Question 19

What does Elizabeth Spelke claim?

Answer 19

That humans inherit core knowledge of the physical world - ‘all humans are born with basic cognitive skills that let them make sense of the world’

Question 20

What did Spelke study in the ‘violation of expectation’ paradigm?

Answer 20

Physical world understanding in infants from 3 months to 1 year.

Question 21

What scenarios did Spelke present to the infants in the ‘violation of expectation’ paradigm?

Answer 21

A possible scenario (follows the law of physics) and impossible scenario (breaks the law of physics)

Question 22

What could be concluded about infants that look longer at the impossible events?

Answer 22

This suggests that the infants have the knowledge of the law of physics

Question 23

What is the innate concepts theory?

Answer 23

Researchers argue that humans have cognitive modules specialised in the processing of events - language, object perception and morals

Question 24

What does the innate concepts theory suggest about rules?

Answer 24

They become more sophisticated with development, so there is some learning but the innate starting point is essential, however it is difficult to prove this theory.

Question 25

What does constructivism suggest?

Answer 25

Proposes that children actively construct a mode of the world (change of internal stages and shared experiences)

Question 26

What does constructivism reject?

Answer 26

Stimulus-response psychology in its view of developing people as passive and consisting of simple learning mechanism. Also rejects the nativists claim that knowledge is innate.

Question 27

What 2 mechanisms did Piaget believe in?

Answer 27

Assimilation and Accommodation

Question 28

What is assimilation?

Answer 28

The process of fitting reality into one’s current cognitive organisation

Question 29

What is accommodation?

Answer 29

Adjustments to one’s cognitive organisation resulting from demands in reality

Question 30

What happens when Piaget’s two mechanisms balance?

Answer 30

The child achieves equilibrium

Question 31

What does Piaget believe about thought?

Answer 31

It is the basis of language and culture

Question 32

What does Piaget believe drives development?

Answer 32

The internal state of the child

Question 33

What did Vygotsky believe about language?

Answer 33

That it is the basis of thought- and it is by understanding and exchange that thought arises

Question 34

What does Vygotsky believe plays an important part in shaping cognition?

Answer 34

Culture

Question 35

What is the zone of proximal development?

Answer 35

This refers to ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’

Question 36

What is the zone of proximal development in simple terms?

Answer 36

Difference between what a learner can do with help vs without help and views cognition as a collaborative process between child and their community