Test 2 Study Guide

Question 1

Behaviorism

Answer 1

believing that a stimulus-response theory of psychology can account for all of the overt behaviors that psychologists seek to explain, Skinner omitted the psychoanalytic underpinnings and simply relied on behaviorist principles. In doing so, he suggested that the term personality and personality theories are superfluous.

Question 2

Operant conditioning

Answer 2

Operant behavior is emitted or freely made by the organism. The nature of reinforcement also differs. In operant conditioning, the reinforcement follows the behavior.

Question 3

Classical conditioning

Answer 3

Pavlov (1927) took a hungry dog and presented it with food, an unconditioned stimulus that normally elicits salivation, an unconditioned, or automatic, response. Then he simultaneously paired the food with the sound of a bell, a neutral stimulus that does not normally elicit salivation. The dog salivated to the paired food and sound of the bell. After several presentations of both food and bell, Pavlov was able simply to present the sound of the bell, and the dog salivated. The sound of the bell had become a conditioned stimulus that elicited a conditioned response. In other words, Pavlov showed that by pairing an unconditioned stimulus with a neutral stimulus, he could elicit a response that previously would have been elicited only by the original stimulus.

Question 4

Observational learning

Answer 4

Bandura suggests that observational learning occurs either intentionally or accidentally. This is how children learn to play with their toys, to perform household chores, and to develop other skills such as riding a bicycle. Young children learn to speak by hearing the speech of others and extracting the embodied rules, which permits them to generate speech that goes beyond what they have heard.

Question 5

Modeling

Answer 5

Bandura (1977) has added to the techniques of behavior modification the systematic use of modeling as an aid in changing behaviors. Modeling has been used to reduce fears in children and adults, to teach domineering and hyperaggressive children to be more cooperative, to teach language skills to autistic children, to increase communication facility in asocial psychiatric patients, to lessen anxiety and improve performance in college students, and to facilitate many other behavior changes.

Question 6

Reinforcement

Answer 6

In continuous reinforcement, the desired behavior is reinforced each time that it occurs. In interval reinforcement, the organism is reinforced after a certain time period has elapsed, regardless of the response rate. In ratio reinforcement, the rate of reinforcement is determined by the number of appropriate responses that the organism emits.

Question 7

Positive reinforcement

Answer 7

occurs when a behavior is followed by a situation that increases the likelihood of that behavior occurring in the future

Question 8

Negative reinforcement

Answer 8

comes about when a behavior is followed by the termination of an unpleasant situation, increasing the likelihood of that behavior in similar situations.

Question 9

Watson

Answer 9

came to be known as the father of American behaviorism. Watson pointed out that it is almost impossible to observe mental processes directly. Therefore, he suggested that the psychologist should act as if mental processes do not exist and should concentrate on overt behavior. He recommended that psychology emphasize the study of overt rather than covert behavior. Watson’s approach to classical conditioning was very important and laid the foundation for subsequent therapeutic techniques based on conditioning, such as those discussed later in this chapter. Behaviorism was quickly adopted by many Am

Question 10

Skinner’s view of personality

Answer 10

Thus, Skinner developed a psychology that concentrates not on the person but solely on those variables and forces in the environment that influence a person and that may be directly observed. He presented behaviorism and learning theory in its purest and most extreme form. For Skinner the term personality was ultimately superfluous because overt behavior can be completely comprehended in terms of responses to factors in the environment. Believed that the laws of behavior must apply to each individual subject when it is observed under the appropriate conditions.

Question 11

Primary drives

Answer 11

those associated with physiological processes that are necessary for an organism’s survival, such as the drives of hunger, thirst, and the need for sleep. We rarely observe primary drives in a direct form because society has developed some means of reducing the drive before it becomes overwhelming. Thus, primary drives, by and large, are satisfied through secondary drives.

Question 12

Secondary drives

Answer 12

learned based on primary ones. Dollard and Miller consider them to be elaborations of the primary drives. An example of a secondary drive is being motivated to eat at one’s usual dinner hour or wanting to earn money in order to buy food.

Question 13

Primary reinforcers

Answer 13

those that reduce primary drives, such as food, water, or need for sleep.

Question 14

Secondary reinforcers

Answer 14

originally neutral, but they acquire reward value when they are associated with primary reinforcers. Money is a secondary reinforcer because you can use it to buy food. A mother’s smile or a word of praise is also a secondary rein- forcer, associated with a state of physical well-being.

Question 15

Behaviorist approach to personality

Answer 15

One can consider the person as empty and observe how changes in the environment affect the individual’s behavior.

Question 16

Reinforcement schedules

Answer 16

Skinner (1969) described three schedules of reinforcement and their effectiveness. In continuous reinforcement, the desired behavior is reinforced each time that it occurs. A continuous schedule of reinforcement is extremely effective in initially developing and strengthening a behavior. However, if the reinforcement is stopped, the response quickly disappears or undergoes extinction. In interval reinforcement, the organism is reinforced after a certain time period has elapsed, regardless of the response rate. Interval reinforcement may occur on a fixed or on a variable basis.
If the schedule is fixed, the number of responses required prior to reinforcement is stable and unchanging. If the schedule is variable, the number of appropriate operant behaviors that must occur prior to reinforcement changes from time to time. A continuous schedule of reinforcement is most effective for initially developing and strengthening a behavior. A variable ratio schedule is most effective thereafter in maintaining the behavior.

Question 17

Air crib

Answer 17

Skinner’s invention, For many years he tried to design a perpetual motion machine, but it did not work. When his second daughter was born, he invented an aircrib to simplify her care and give her unrestrained movement in a temperature-controlled space (1985).

Question 18

Object Relations Theory

Answer 18

an object is the aim of relational needs in human development, and object relations are the intrapsychic experiences of those early relationships. The objects are primarily people, such as primary caretakers and significant others. However, they may also be things, such as pacifiers, teddy bears, and blankets. From birth onward, object relations theorists suggest, individuals seek to develop human relationships and form attachments that may aid or hinder their development.

Question 19

Cyclical mothering

Answer 19

Nancy Chodorow, A process by which the mother-daughter relationship instills in the daughter maternal capacities and a desire to take on the role of mother in future relationships. Explanations of mothering rooted in biology or role socialization are insufficient. The capacity to mother does not come about as a result of a pregnant woman’s physical or instinctual makeup or through deliberate role training. The early relationship between mothers and infants establishes a basis for parenting in children of both sexes and “expectations that women will mother.”

Question 20

Stone Center at Wellesley College

Answer 20

Relational Cultural Theory (RCT)

Question 21

Focus of RCT

Answer 21

Although RCT was originally developed to understand women’s experience, it is progressively being employed to better comprehend all human experience, including that of men. As a result RCT has become a broadly applicable theory with significant implications for psychotherapy as well.

Question 22

RCT - Affiliations and Relationships

Answer 22

Miller, he asserted that women have critical strengths, as yet unrecognized by our society, that can bring a creative force to the human problems with which we are grappling. Her work undermined the male-focused paradigm of classical psychoanalysis and showed how concepts previously devalued because they have generally been associated with women (e.g., cooperation, giving, and nurturing) are in reality potential strengths. Miller pointed toward a new truth—that the initial development of all human beings begins in affiliation and relation (rather than self-enhancement)—and suggested the need to place our faith in building connections with others rather than in our own individual power, achievement, and self-sufficiency.

Question 23

RCT - Connection

Answer 23

suggests that the basic organizing feature of human growth is the feeling of connectedness to others (Miller & Stiver, 1997). The ability to make and build relationships is the source of our sense of effectiveness and worth. Women actively participate in the development of others, and they use their power to facilitate the growth and unfolding of both children and adults. Such participation in other people’s psychological growth is an integral aspect of human life, providing a new psychological model of human development “within relationships”. “Connection” has replaced “self” as the key ingredient or focus of development (Surrey, 1990; Jordan, 2009). It is connections that are the basic origins of growth and development.

Question 24

RCT - Disconnections

Answer 24

Disconnections that derail us and block our growth. Reconceiving and recognizing the important role of relationships and connections changes the whole base of current psychological theory and thinking and requires major alterations in our concepts about what fosters growth and healing and what leads to problems and pain. The major source of psychological problems is disconnection, the break that is experienced when a person cannot engage in mutually empathic and empowering relationships (Miller & Stiver, 1997). Minor disconnections occur frequently and need not be problematic. They can even lead to growth and to improved connections, particularly if people feel safe enough to discuss the disconnection with someone who can hear and respond to the experience

Question 25

Carol Gilligan

Answer 25

Gilligan’s studies of girls’ and women’s development (1977, 1982, 1990) suggest that different positive values emerge in healthy female development. Connection, responsibility, and care replace autonomy, mastery, and power.

Question 26

How is a “traditional paradigm” in psychology different from the Stone Center paradigm?

Answer 26

Relational-Cultural theory makes a paradigm shift away from a concept of separation-individuation and individualistic values to a concept of relationship- differentiation (p. 170) and relational values. The Stone Center group’s relational-cultural theory challenges traditional Western conceptions of self. Previous theories suggested that human beings primarily seek self-gratification and self- sufficiency. The Stone Center group posits that human beings primarily seek relationships with others. Relational-cultural theory inverts traditional paradigms that claim “health” is predicated on self- sufficiency and “ill health” on dependency. According to RCT, “health” reflects relational competence, and “ill health” results from disconnection from others.

Question 27

Examples of neurological basis of relationships

Answer 27

Our brains literally grow in connection, and we are hardwired to connect. Daniel Siegel (1999) has further examined and explained how the prefrontal areas of the brain develop through social interpersonal experience. Parent-child interactions shape the social brain. Without the right kind of social developmental experiences, the mind cannot develop to its fullest potential (Cozolino, 2006; Fishbane, 2007; Seligman, 2009). The discovery of mirror neurons, initially seen in monkeys in the early 1990s and then linked to human evolution (di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Gallese, & Rizzolatti, 1992), gives us a glimpse of the workings of primal empathy. Mirror neurons enable us to mimic other people’s emotions and actions. They also help us sense what other people intend so that we can shape our responses to them, they contribute to a felt sense of connection.

Question 28

What did Anna Freud bring that was “new”?

Answer 28

Anna Freud’s therapy stressed protective, supportive, and educational attitudes. She suggested how the classic features of adult psychoanalysis could be utilized with children four years old and upward, but she recognized that child analysis could not be conducted like the analysis of an adult. Classical techniques such as free association, the interpretation of dreams, and analysis of the transference had to be changed to correspond with the child’s level of maturity. She saw the need for a long preparatory period in which the analyst is established as a trusted and indispensable figure in the child’s life. She also recognized that neurotic symptoms do not necessarily have the meaning in the life of a child that they have in the life of an adult. Anna Freud used the term developmental line to refer to a series of id-ego interactions in which children decrease their dependence on external controls and increase ego mastery of themselves and their world (1965).

Question 29

Anna Freud’s Six Developmental Lines

Answer 29

From (1) dependency to emotional self-reliance, (2) sucking to rational eating, (3) wetting and soiling to bladder and bowel control, (4) irresponsibility to responsibility in body management, (5) play to work, and (6) egocentricity to companionship.

Question 30

Rotter’s Important Concepts

Answer 30

Locus of Control, the extent to which a person believes that reinforcements are controlled by his or her own behavior or by people or outside forces such as luck or fate. Rotter conducted a series of experiments designed to tell whether or not people learn tasks and perform differently when they see reinforcements as related or unrelated to their own behavior. The results of these experiments led him to develop the I-E Scale, an assessment tool that measures an individual’s perception of control (1966). Internally controlled individuals (I) assume that their own behaviors and actions are responsible for the consequences that happen to them. Externally controlled people (E) believe that control is out of their hands.

Question 31

Cattell’s definition of personality

Answer 31

“Personality is that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation” (1950). He believed that a full definition of personality must await further investigation into the types of concepts that are included in the study of behavior
Cattell believed that the exploration of traits assists us in understanding the structure and function of personality. Knowledge of underlying traits allows us to make predictions about our own behavior and that of others.

Question 32

Cattell’s Test

Answer 32

Cattell’s primary tool was factor analysis. Cattell’s sixteen source traits are the building blocks of personality. Some are indicative of an outgoing temperament; others indicate a more reserved disposition. (16 PF)

Question 33

The Big Five

Answer 33

Commonly used are Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness (OCEAN)

Question 34

Five-Factor Model (FFM)

Answer 34

A hierarchical organization of personality traits in terms of five basic dimensions. Initial support for the Big Five came from the analysis of language—specifically, vernacular terms used to describe personality.

Question 35

The Revised NEO Personality Inventor

Answer 35

NEO-PI-R, consists of thirty scales with eight items each. Participants are asked to indicate on a 5-point scale ranging from (strongly agree to strongly disagree) whether or not certain descriptions apply to them. In scoring and analyzing the inventory, six particular facets are considered within each of the five factors.

Question 36

Big Five vs. Five Factor Model

Answer 36

The Big Five, stemming from studies of language, simply provides a summary description of attributes.
Five-Factor Theory is an attempt to account for the body of research findings associated with the Five-Factor Model

Question 37

Self-Efficacy

Answer 37

People’s belief that they can successfully perform behaviors that will produce desired effects (Bandura 1977, 1997b). Efficacy beliefs work together with other social and cognitive determinants in enabling people to cope with everyday life. Self-efficacy is not to be confused with self-esteem. Self-esteem entails judgments of self-worth; self-efficacy entails judgments of personal capacity. Efficacy beliefs develop independently of per- formance and give us a basis for predicting whether one will engage in a behavior. Usually people do not try to do things they do not believe they can do.

Question 38

Intrinsic Reinforcement

Answer 38

naturally related to the behavior. Some behaviors produce a natural physiological effect; for example, relaxation exercises relieve muscle fatigue. In other instances it is not the behavior itself or the feedback that is rewarding, but how we feel about it. Playing a difficult piece of music well leads to a feeling of accomplish- ment. The self-satisfaction sustains the practice of the behavior.

Question 39

Vicarious Reinforcement

Answer 39

Occurs when we learn appropriate behavior from the suc- cesses and mistakes of others. Vicarious learning can take the form of either a reward or a punishment. A child who sees a sibling being spanked for a misdemeanor quickly learns not to do the same thing.

Question 40

Extrinsic Reinforcement

Answer 40

arbitrary or socially arranged rather than the natural outcome of the behavior. A medal for a good athletic performance and an A on a term paper are extrinsic reinforcements. Extrinsic reinforcement is clearly effective in creating behavioral change and has an important role to play in early development. Many activities that we need to learn do not become rewarding until we have become proficient in them. Without positive encouragements in the early stages, we would quickly become discouraged.

Question 41

Self Reinforcement

Answer 41

Increases performance primarily through its motivational function. One runner might be satisfied by completing a mile in five minutes; another would want to finish it in less time.

Question 42

Moral Disengagement

Answer 42

Supports destructive behavior by reducing prosocial feelings and prior self-censure and by encouraging cognitive and emotional reactions that favor aggression. Similar mechanisms are present in interpersonal aggression and delinquent conduct. Such disengagement permits individuals and a variety of industries, from the tobacco industry to gun manufacturers, to perpetuate socially destructive practices

Question 43

Self-Regulation

Answer 43

Bandura (1991) believes that human behavior, particularly in the adult, is motivated by the continual practice of self-regulation, or influencing one’s own behavior. Self- regulation occurs through self-monitoring, self-judgment, and affective self-reaction.

Question 44

Factor Analysis

Answer 44

a multivariate statistical technique for data reduction. It has many applications in psychology. In this technique, several variables are reduced to few latent variables for explaining group characteristics. Factor analysis technique is used for both explorative and confirmative studies

Question 45

Evolutionary Psychology

Answer 45

Evolutionary psychology is a way of thinking about human behavior based on data drawn from biology, anthropology, sociology, cognitive psychology, and the neuros- ciences. Darwinian principles of evolution, outlined in On the Origin of Species (1859), are used to help explain human behavior. Darwin’s theory of natural selection argues that any heritable characteristic that helps an individual survive and reproduce is more likely to be passed on than are other, less successful characteristics. Thus sexual selection favored characteristics that help people gain access to mates and led to competitive males. A preference for sweet-tasting foods, high in calories and providing necessary energy, was also adaptive behavior in an early hunting and gather- ing environment.

Question 46

Ericksons Theory

Answer 46

Erikson’s theory suggests that your ego identity develops throughout your entire life during eight specific stage

Question 47

Stage 1

Answer 47

trust versus mistrust is the key consideration of the first stage, which corresponds to Freud’s oral, sensory, and kinesthetic one (Erikson, 1963). The basic psychosocial attitude to be learned at this stage is whether you can trust the world.

Question 48

Stage 2

Answer 48

autonomy versus shame and doubt, arises during the second and third years of life and corresponds to the anal-muscular stage in Freud’s psychosexual scheme (1963). The primary emotional duality here is that of control over the body and bodily activities as opposed to a tendency for shame and doubt

Question 49

Stage 3

Answer 49

is initiative versus guilt (1963). At this period, children are active in their environment, mastering new skills and tasks. Their dominant social modality is the intrusive mode: Their bodies vigorously intrude into space and onto other people.

Question 50

Stage 4

Answer 50

), the primary emotional duality is industry versus inferiority (1963). The term industriousness might be better than industry because it implies being busy with something, learning to make something and to make it well. Children in all cultures receive some form of systematic instruction at this time to teach them skills that will be needed in their society and to help them attain a sense of mastery. New demands are placed upon children at this time. They are no longer loved simply for who they are; they are expected to master the technology of their culture in order to earn the respect of their teachers and peers.

Question 51

Stage 5

Answer 51

adolescence (twelve to eighteen) is ego identity versus role confusion. The process of forming an ego identity requires that one compare how one sees oneself with how significant others appear to expect one to be. “Ego identity, then, in its subjective aspect, is the awareness of the fact that there is a self-sameness and continuity to the ego’s synthesizing methods and a continuity of one’s meaning for others” (1963). Ego identity results in a sense of coherent individuality that enables one to resolve one’s conflicts adaptively.

Question 52

Stage 6

Answer 52

Young adulthood (eighteen to twenty-four) is marked by the emotional duality of intimacy versus isolation (1963). Intimacy refers to the ability to develop a close and meaningful relationship with another person. Erikson here applied Freud’s dictum “to love and to work” as the model orientation. Isolation entails self-absorption and an inability to develop deep, committed relationships.

Question 53

Stage 7

Answer 53

The middle years (twenty-five to sixty-four) are characterized by the conflict of generativity versus stagnation (1963). Generativity entails more than parenthood; it is the ability to be productive and creative in many areas of life, particularly those showing a concern for the welfare of ensuing generations. The adult actively participates in those elements of culture that will ensure its maintenance and enhancement.

Question 54

Stage 8

Answer 54

Maturity, the final stage of life (sixty-five to death), is marked by ego integrity versus despair (1963). Ego integrity entails the ability to reflect on one’s life with satisfaction even if all dreams are not fulfilled. Death is not feared but accepted as one among many facets of one’s existence. Despair refers to regret over missed and unfulfilled opportunities at a time when it is too late to begin again. Ego integrity represents the fruit of the seven stages that have preceded.