personality FINAL

chapters 5,6,9,11

behaviorists view of the self

not as an internal, conscious entity or personality, but as a collection of learned behaviors, habits, and responses shaped by environmental conditioning, reinforcements, and punishments

determinism

The belief that people’s behavior is caused in a lawful scientific manner; determinism opposes a belief in free will.

• natural world events—including the behavior of persons—are causally determined.

behaviorism view on personality science

• that behavior must be explained in terms of the causal influence of the environment on the person

• controlled lab expirments through observation, measurement and systemic relations, even animals

situational specificity

The emphasis on behavior as varying according to the situation, as opposed to the emphasis by trait theorists on consistency in behavior across situations.

behaviorism

An approach within psychology, developed by Watson, that restricts investigation to overt, observable behavior.

classical conditioning

• stimulus that is initially neural eventually elicits a strong response due to association that DOES produce a response

generalization

In conditioning, the association of a response with stimuli similar to the stimulus to which the response was originally conditioned or attached.

discrimination

In conditioning, the differential response to stimuli depending on whether they have been associated with pleasure, pain, or neutral events.

• if an animal recognizes differences among stimuli

• resilts in increased specificty of response

extinction

In conditioning, the progressive weakening of the association between a stimulus and a response:

• in classical conditioning because the conditioned stimulus is no longer followed by the unconditioned stimulus

• in operant conditioning because the response is no longer followed by reinforcement.

conditioned emotional reaction

• Watson and Rayner’s term for the development of an emotional reaction to a previously neutral stimulus, as in Little Albert’s fear of rats.

systematic desentisization

A technique in behavior therapy in which a competing response (relaxation) is conditioned to stimuli that previously aroused anxiety.

• many steps eg. claustrophobia