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Q: What is a limitation of natural selection in shaping behavior?
A: Natural selection is slow and works over generations, but behavior can be learned & modified quickly through conditioning.
Q: Who was John B. Watson & why is he important?
A: Founder of Behaviorism
Believed all behavior is learned (not innate).
Famous for Little Albert Experiment → Proved fear can be conditioned
Q: What are the basic principles of behaviorism?
1⃣ All behavior is learned from the environment.
2⃣ Focus on observable behavior (not thoughts).
3⃣ Behavior is shaped by conditioning (Classical & Operant).
4⃣ No free will – behavior is controlled by reinforcement & punishment.
Operant Conditioning
This involves learning through rewards and punishments. A behavior is strengthened if followed by a reward (reinforcement) or weakened if followed by a punishment. For example, a dog learns to sit because it gets a treat.
Learning through consequences ⚖
Reinforcement increases behavior ✅
Punishment decreases behavior ❌
B.F. Skinner → Skinner Box 🐭🔲
Classical Conditioning
This is learning by association. It happens when two stimuli are paired together, and the organism learns to respond to a new stimulus in the same way it responds to an old one. For example, a dog learns to salivate at the sound of a bell because it has been associated with food.
Learning through association 📎🔁
Pavlov’s Dogs → Bell 🔔 + Food 🍖 → Salivation
Creates automatic responses (involuntary).
Q: Who was B.F. Skinner & what was his contribution?
A: Father of Operant Conditioning
Behavior is shaped by rewards & punishments
Skinner Box → Rats pressed levers for food 🍽
Advocated radical behaviorism → No free will, just learned behavior
Q: What is a major limitation of natural selection?
A: It is slow ⏳ and cannot help species quickly adapt to abrupt changes in the environment.
Q: Why does natural selection have limited value in responding to rapid environmental change?
A: Evolution takes time 🕰 and relies on reproduction rates.
Slow-reproducing species (e.g., humans) cannot adapt as fast as viruses 🦠.
Example: Lake Victoria fish extinction 🐟 due to Nile Perch introduction.
Q: What compensates for the slow process of natural selection?
A: Learning 🧠 → An evolved psychological mechanism that allows organisms to quickly adapt to new environments.
Q: Why is learning an evolutionary advantage?
A: It helps animals adjust their behavior without waiting for genetic changes across generations.
Example: Humans adjusting to modern environments despite instincts shaped by ancient survival needs.
Q: What did John B. Watson contribute to psychology?
A: He founded behaviorism by rejecting the study of consciousness & instinct, focusing only on observable behavior.
Q: What was Watson’s view on the study of consciousness?
A: It should be abandoned because it cannot be observed objectively
Q: What scientific approach did Watson promote in psychology?
A: Objective techniques like direct observation and experimentation (inspired by Pavlov).
Q: What was Watson’s goal for psychology?
A: To enable the prediction & control of behavior
Q: How did Watson believe psychology could change society?
A: By using scientific methods to shape behavior, reduce crime & intolerance, and promote education & social order.
Q: According to behaviorism, personality is ________.
A: Behavioral patterns.
Q: Why must knowledge come from observable sources?
A: Because non-observable knowledge is not verifiable.
Q: Where do behaviorists believe the causes of behavior are found?
A: In the environment, specifically in rewards and punishments.
Q: What is learning in behaviorism?
A: A process where environmental stimuli cause behavior changes.
Q: What was Ivan Pavlov originally studying when he discovered classical conditioning?
A: Digestion in dogs through surgical procedures.
Q: What unexpected observation led Pavlov to study conditioning?
A: Dogs salivated not just to food but also to stimuli associated with food, such as footsteps.
Q: What term did Pavlov initially use to describe conditioned responses?
A: "Psychic reflexes" or "Psikhicheskiy Refleks."
Q: Why was Pavlov initially hesitant to study conditioned reflexes?
A: He viewed psychology as unscientific and preferred physiological explanations.
Q: What scientific problem did Pavlov struggle with regarding conditioned salivation?
A: It involved "action at a distance," which challenged traditional material and efficient causation. This meant that a dog would salivate at the sound of a bell (a stimulus) even though there was no physical connection between the bell and the food.
It challenged traditional scientific ideas that everything had to be directly connected or caused by a physical action.
Q: How did Pavlov’s work contribute to psychology?
A: It laid the foundation for behaviorism by demonstrating learned associations between stimuli and responses.
Q: What are physiological (unconditional) reflexes?
A: Reflexes that occur automatically in response to direct external stimuli, such as salivating when food is in the mouth.
Q: How do physiological reflexes differ from psychic reflexes?
A: Physiological reflexes are invariant and direct, while psychic reflexes are learned, indirect, and subject to fluctuation.
Q: What did Pavlov initially call conditioned reflexes?
A: "Conditional reflexes" because they depended on experience and learning.
Q: Why did Pavlov consider psychic reflexes a challenge to material and efficient causation?
A: They did not involve direct physical contact with the stimulus, making them harder to explain with known physiological mechanisms.
Q: What was Pavlov’s main goal in studying conditioned reflexes?
A: To understand the functional relationship between different types of reflexes and their mechanisms.
Q: What is Uslovnyi Refleks?
A: Another name for classical conditioning, which begins with a reflex and forms a learned association between a stimulus and a response.
Q: What are examples of reflexes involved in classical conditioning?
A: Startle response, recoiling from pain, blinking, salivation, nausea, sneezing, vomiting.
Q: Why are reflexes considered adaptive?
A: They enhance survival by allowing quick, automatic responses to stimuli (e.g., recoiling from heat to prevent burns).
Q: Why does an animal salivate before food is in its mouth?
A: It speeds up digestion, making eating more efficient and reducing vulnerability to predators.
Q: What does classical conditioning do to reflexes?
A: It modifies them by associating a neutral stimulus with an automatic response (e.g., bell → salivation).
Q: How does classical conditioning relate to a gun firing?
A: The loud noise of a gunshot (unconditioned stimulus) triggers a startle response (unconditioned response). Over time, the hammer click (neutral stimulus) can become a conditioned stimulus, also triggering the startle response.
Q: What is an example of a conditioned stimulus in survival situations?
A: A clicking sound before a gunshot can become a conditioned stimulus, warning someone to react before the gun fires.
Q: How does classical conditioning help animals avoid poisonous plants?
A: After eating a toxic plant and getting sick, the plant’s appearance or smell becomes a conditioned stimulus, triggering nausea and avoidance in the future.
Q: How does evolved modifiability enhance survival?
A: It allows organisms to adapt their inherited responses based on individual experience, improving their ability to avoid dangers specific to their environment.
Q: What is the preparatory function of classical conditioning?
A: It helps individuals recognize and respond to threats before experiencing direct harm, increasing survival chances.
Q: How can classical conditioning contribute to allergic reactions?
A: If an allergen (e.g., a specific protein) is repeatedly paired with a neutral stimulus (e.g., the smell of fish), the neutral stimulus can eventually trigger the allergic reaction on its own.
Q: How does classical conditioning affect immune suppression?
A: If a hospital setting is repeatedly paired with chemotherapy, the hospital environment alone can trigger immunosuppression before treatment even begins.
Classical conditioning can make your body react to things it's learned to associate with a certain experience. For example, if a hospital environment is repeatedly linked with chemotherapy, just being in the hospital can cause your immune system to weaken, even before the chemo starts.
Q: What did research on chemotherapy patients reveal about classical conditioning?
A: Patients showed suppressed immune function in the hospital even before receiving chemo, suggesting the hospital environment had become a conditioned stimulus for immunosuppression.
Research with chemotherapy patients showed that their immune systems started to weaken just by being in the hospital, even if they hadn't started the treatment yet. This happened because their bodies had learned to associate the hospital with the effects of chemo, showing how classical conditioning works on immune function.
Q: Can classical conditioning influence health beyond behavior?
A: Yes, it can modify physiological responses such as allergic reactions and immune function, showing that conditioned reflexes extend beyond simple behaviors.
Q: What is a Conditioned Emotional Response (CER)?
A: An emotional reaction (e.g., fear, anxiety) that develops when a previously neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with an aversive event.
Ex:A person always hears a specific song right before something bad happens, like a car accident. Over time, just hearing that song could make the person feel anxious or fearful, even if there's no accident happening, because their brain has connected the song with the negative event.
Q: What did John Watson’s Little Albert experiment demonstrate?
A: Fear can be conditioned—Albert learned to fear a white rat after it was paired with a loud noise.
Q: What is stimulus generalization in emotional conditioning?
A: When a conditioned fear response spreads to similar stimuli (e.g., Albert feared not just the rat but also a rabbit, fur coat, and Santa mask).
Q: How does classical conditioning contribute to anxiety disorders?
A: Fear responses can generalize to multiple stimuli, creating persistent anxiety (e.g., one bad experience with a dog leads to fear of all dogs).
Q: What did Mary Cover Jones do to help Peter overcome his fear of rabbits?
A: She used extinction and counterconditioning, pairing the rabbit with positive stimuli (milk & crackers) while gradually moving it closer.
Q: What is extinction in classical conditioning?
A: The conditioned response (CR) declines when the conditioned stimulus (CS) is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus (UCS).
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
A neutral stimulus that, after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), triggers a response.
For example, a bell that is repeatedly paired with food, and later makes the dog salivate, even without food present.
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS):
A stimulus that naturally triggers a response without any prior learning. For example, food naturally makes a dog salivate
Conditioned Response (CR)
The learned response to the conditioned stimulus. In the example, the salivation triggered by the bell is the conditioned response.
Unconditioned Response (UCR)
The natural, unlearned reaction to the unconditioned stimulus. In the example, salivating when food is presented is the unconditioned response.
Conditioned
learned (CS and CR)
Unconditioned
natural (UCS and UCR)
A stimulus
is what happens to you (e.g., hearing a bell).
A response
is how you react to it (e.g., salivating when you hear the bell).
Q: What is counterconditioning?
A: A process where a feared stimulus is paired with a positive or relaxing stimulus to weaken the fear response.
Imagine a person who is afraid of dogs. In counterconditioning, the person could be gradually exposed to dogs in a calm environment, while being given a treat or engaging in something relaxing, like listening to soothing music. Over time, the positive or relaxing experience helps weaken the fear response to the dog. This process pairs the feared stimulus (the dog) with something positive, reducing the fear.
Q: Why is Mary Cover Jones considered the "mother of behavior therapy"?
A: She was the first to successfully use behavior therapy techniques to reduce fear, laying the foundation for modern anxiety treatments.
Q: How do classical conditioning principles explain panic disorder and PTSD?
A: A traumatic event (UCS) triggers a fear response (UCR). Later, any similar stimulus (CS) can trigger panic or flashbacks (CR), even without real danger.
Q: What did Staats & Staats (1958) demonstrate about emotional responses?
A: They showed that pairing nonsense syllables with positive or negative words could create conditioned emotional responses.
This shows that emotions can be triggered by things we've learned to associate with positive or negative feelings.
Q: How does classical conditioning relate to propaganda?
A: Associating certain groups or ideas with positive or negative words can shape people's attitudes and beliefs, influencing propaganda.
Propaganda is a method of spreading information or ideas to influence people's opinions, attitudes, or behaviors, often by appealing to emotions rather than logic.
Ex: when a government might use posters showing a smiling soldier with the word "Victory" to create positive feelings and support for the war effort. On the other hand, they might use a poster with an image of an enemy leader and the word "Evil" to create negative feelings toward the enemy, influencing the public to view them as a threat
Q: How can classical conditioning explain fear or hatred toward specific groups?
A: If a group is consistently paired with negative words or experiences, people may develop conditioned negative emotional responses toward them.
Q: What did Pavlov discover about pain and salivation in dogs?
A: Dogs conditioned to associate pain (shock) with food eventually salivated in response to pain and stopped reacting to it normally.
Q: How can classical conditioning explain certain sexual preferences or paraphilias?
A: If pain, humiliation, or specific stimuli are repeatedly paired with sexual pleasure, they can become conditioned triggers for arousal.
Q: What is a key limitation of classical conditioning?
A: It only applies to reflexive responses, not voluntary behaviors.
Ex:For example, you can condition a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, but you can't use classical conditioning to make the dog choose to sit or stand based on a sound. Voluntary behaviors require different forms of learning, like operant conditioning.
Q: Why does classical conditioning not explain all behavior?
A: It only examines environmental events that come before a response, not the consequences that follow it.
Flashcard 2:
Q: Why does classical conditioning not explain all behavior?
A: It only examines environmental events that come before a response, not the consequences that follow it.
Ex:For example, classical conditioning explains a dog salivating at a bell, but it doesn't explain why a person might sit down for a treat, which is better understood through operant conditioning.
Q: What type of learning explains behavior changes based on consequences?
A: Operant conditioning, which focuses on rewards and punishments.
Q: What experiment did Thorndike use to study learning in animals?
A: The puzzle box – a cat had to pull a lever to escape and get food.
Q: What did Thorndike’s experiment show about learning?
A: Learning happens through trial and error, with behavior changing over time.
Q: What was Thorndike measuring in the puzzle box experiment?
A: Time – how long it took the cat to figure out the correct behavior.
Q: What is the Law of Effect?
A: Behaviors followed by positive outcomes are more likely to be repeated, while behaviors with negative outcomes are not.
Q: How does the Law of Effect explain learning?
A: Rewarded behaviors strengthen over time, while non-rewarded behaviors fade.
