Unit 1

Question 1

antecedent

Answer 1

a stimulus or event that preceded the target behavior

Question 2

Applied Behavior Analysis

Answer 2

the science in which tactics derived from the principles of behavior are applied to improve socially significant behavior, and experimentation is used to identify the variables responsible for the improvement of behavior.

Question 3

automaticity

Answer 3

the modification of behavior by its consequences, irrespective of the person’s awareness.

Question 4

aversive stimulus

Answer 4

a stimulus change or condition that functions to evoke a behavior that has terminated it in the past, as a punisher when presented following behavior, and/or as a reinforce when withdrawn following behavior

Question 5

behavior

Answer 5

the activity of living organisms, or what a person does and says

Question 6

behavior change tactic

Answer 6

a technologically consistent behavior modification method that possesses sufficient generality across subjects, settings, and/or behaviors to warrant its codification and dissemination

Question 7

behaviorism

Answer 7

the philosophy or science that examines the activity of living organisms

Question 8

conditioned punisher

Answer 8

a previously neutral stimulus change that functions as a punisher because of prior pairing with one or more punishers

Question 9

conditioned reflex

Answer 9

a learned stimulus-response functional relation consisting of an antecedent stimulus and the response it elicits

Question 10

conditioned reinforcer

Answer 10

a previously neutral stimulus that has been paired a number of times with an established reinforcer and consequently functions as a reinforce itself

Question 11

conditioned stimulus

Answer 11

a formerly neutral stimulus change that elicits respondent behavior only after it has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus

Question 12

consequence

Answer 12

a stimulus change that follows a behavior of interest

Question 13

contingency

Answer 13

a relationship between a response and a consequence in which the consequence is presented if and only if the response occurs

Question 14

deprivation

Answer 14

the state of an organism with respect to how much time has elapsed since it has consumed or contacted a particular type of reinforcer

Question 15

determinism

Answer 15

the assumption that the universe is a lawful and orderly place in which phenomena occur in relation to other events and not in a willy-nilly, accidental fashion

Question 16

discriminated operant

Answer 16

an operant that occurs more frequently under some antecedent conditions than others

Question 17

discriminative stimulus

Answer 17

a stimulus in the presence of which responses of some type have been reinforced, and in the absence of which the same type of responses have occurred and have not been reinforced

Question 18

empiricism

Answer 18

the objective observation of the phenomena of interest

Question 19

environment

Answer 19

the objective observation of the phenomena of interest

Question 20

establishing operation

Answer 20

a motivating operation that increases the effectiveness of some stimulus, object, or event as a reinforcer

Question 21

experiment

Answer 21

a carefully controlled comparison of some measure of the phenomenon of interest under two or more different conditions in which only one factor at a time differs from one condition to another

Question 22

experimental analysis of behavior

Answer 22

the scientific study of behavior and the types of environmental events that are functionally related to the occurrence of behavior

Question 23

explanatory fiction

Answer 23

a hypothetical variable that often takes the form of another name for the observed phenomenon it claims to explain and contributes nothing to a functional account or understanding of the phenomenon

Question 24

extinction

Answer 24

the process by which, when a previously reinforced behavior is no longer followed by the reinforcing consequences, the frequency of the behavior decreases in the future

Question 25

functional relationship

Answer 25

a relationship between a behavior and an environmental event (or events) in which the occurrence of the behavior is controlled by the occurrence of the environmental event

Question 26

habituation

Answer 26

a decrease in responsiveness to repeated presentations of a stimulus

Question 27

higher-order conditioning

Answer 27

development of a condition reflex by pairing a neutral stimulus with a conditioned stimulus

Question 28

history of reinforcement

Answer 28

an inclusive term referring in general to all of a person’s learning experiences, and more specifically to past conditioning with respect to particular response classes or aspects of a person’s repertoire

Question 29

hypothetical construct

Answer 29

a presumed but unobserved process or entity

Question 30

mentalism

Answer 30

an approach to explaining behavior that assumes that an “inner” dimension exists that differs from a behavioral dimension, and that phenomena in this dimension either directly cause or at least mediate some forms of behavior

Question 31

methodological behaviorism

Answer 31

a philosophical position that views behavioral events that cannot by publicly observed as outside the realm of science

Question 32

motivating operation

Answer 32

an antecedent stimulus or event that alters the value of a reinforcer and alters the probability of the behavior that produces that reinforcer

Question 33

negative reinforcement

Answer 33

a type of reinforcement in which the occurrence of the behavior is followed by the removal of avoidance of an aversive stimulus

Question 34

ontogeny

Answer 34

the history of the development of an individual during its lifetime