Stimulus Response Psychology Flashcards
What is SRP?
The theory that human behaviour is a response to stimuli (Behaviourism 1920-50s)
What does SRP believe is inherited?
The most basic of reflexes
What does SRP believe other behaviours are learned by?
Passive learning from contingencies in environment or trial and error plus reinforcements (rewards and punishments from the environment)
What 3 laws did Edward Thorndike theorise?
Law of effect, exercise and readiness
What is the law of effect?
Behaviours that lead to satisfying outcomes are likely to be repeated, whereas behaviours that lead to undesired outcomes are less likely to recur.
What is the law of exercise?
In learning, the more frequently a stimulus and response are associated with each other, the more likely the particular response will follow the stimulus
What is the law of readiness?
Learning is dependent upon the learner’s readiness to act, which facilitates the strengthening of the bond between stimulus and response
What is instrumental conditioning?
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
What is Edward Tolman’s theory of latent learning?
Learning that occurs but does not come apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it
What were the 3 groups of Tolman’s research?
1- food reward, 2- no reward and 3- no food reward for 10 days but awarded on the 11th
What is a cognitive map?
Mental representation of the layout of one’s environment
In the maze learning experiment, what happened in the standard maze?
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
What do the rats learn over the days?
To get to the food box quickly and reduce the number of errors they perform (entrances to dead ends)
What is the correlation between error and food being in the box?
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
What were the findings of the maze experiment?
Rats with experience of the maze learnt faster was the reward was introduced (day 11) than rats with no prior experience
What was the conclusion about latent learning?
Seems that latent learning about environment is taking place without reinforcement
What was the problem was Tolman’s research?
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
What is nativism?
That behaviours of reinforcement etc cannot be learnt but instead are the result of innate knowledge
What does Elizabeth Spelke claim?
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’
What did Spelke study in the ‘violation of expectation’ paradigm?
Physical world understanding in infants from 3 months to 1 year.
What scenarios did Spelke present to the infants in the ‘violation of expectation’ paradigm?
A possible scenario (follows the law of physics) and impossible scenario (breaks the law of physics)
What could be concluded about infants that look longer at the impossible events?
This suggests that the infants have the knowledge of the law of physics
What is the innate concepts theory?
Researchers argue that humans have cognitive modules specialised in the processing of events - language, object perception and morals
What does the innate concepts theory suggest about rules?
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.
What does constructivism suggest?
Proposes that children actively construct a mode of the world (change of internal stages and shared experiences)
What does constructivism reject?
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.
What 2 mechanisms did Piaget believe in?
Assimilation and Accommodation
What is assimilation?
The process of fitting reality into one’s current cognitive organisation
What is accommodation?
Adjustments to one’s cognitive organisation resulting from demands in reality
What happens when Piaget’s two mechanisms balance?
The child achieves equilibrium
What does Piaget believe about thought?
It is the basis of language and culture
What does Piaget believe drives development?
The internal state of the child
What did Vygotsky believe about language?
That it is the basis of thought- and it is by understanding and exchange that thought arises
What does Vygotsky believe plays an important part in shaping cognition?
Culture
What is the zone of proximal development?
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’
What is the zone of proximal development in simple terms?
Difference between what a learner can do with help vs without help and views cognition as a collaborative process between child and their community
