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Behaviorism

It is called as animal driven theory, emerge from laboratory studies of animals and humans.

Edward L. Thorndike

first psychologist to systematically study the consequences of behavior; worked originally with animals and then later with humans

law of effect

learning takes place mostly because of the effects that follow a response

John B. Watson

studied both animals and humans; convinced that the concepts of consciousness and introspection must play no role in the scientific study of human behavior.

scientific behaviorism

allows for an interpretation of behavior but not an explanation of its causes

Classical Conditioning

the behavior is elicited. A response is drawn out of the organism by a specific, identifiable stimulus

Little Albert Experiment

Demonstrated classical conditioning by conditioning Little Albert to fear a white rat

Operant Conditioning

a behavior is made more likely to recur when it is immediately reinforced; the organism first does something and then it is reinforced by the environment

● behavior is emitted

Shaping

a procedure in which the experimenter or environment first rewards gross approximations of the behavior, then closer approximations, and finally the behavior itself

Antecedent

the environment/setting in which the behavior takes place

Operant Discrimination

history of being reinforced by reacting to some elements in our environment but not to others.

Stimulus Generalization

a response to a similar environment in the absence of previous reinforcement

Reinforcement

increases the probability of behavior

Positive Reinforcement

adding stimulus to increase likelihood of behavior

Negative Reinforcement

removing, reducing, or avoiding aversive stimulus from a situation to increase the probability of preceding behavior

Punishment

different from negative reinforcement and does not strengthen nor weaken a response

Positive Punishment

Presentation of aversive stimulus

Negative Punishment

removal of a positive stimulus

Primary reinforcer

unlearned reinforcers; ex. food, water, sex, physical comfort

Conditioned reinforcer

secondary reinforcers; environmental stimuli that in itself are not satisfying but becomes so because it is associated with primary reinforcers

Generalized reinforcer

stimulus that can be associated with more than one primary reinforcer

Continuous schedule

● the organism is reinforced for every response

● this type of schedule increases the frequency of a response but is an inefficient use of the reinforcer

Intermittent schedule

makes more efficient use of reinforcers

● produce responses that are more resistant to extinction

Fixed-ratio schedule

reinforced intermittently according to the number of responses it makes

Variable-ratio schedule

organism is reinforced after the nth response on the average

Fixed-interval schedule

organism is reinforced for the first response following a designated period of time

Operant Extinction

takes place when an experimenter systematically withholds reinforcement of a previously learned response until the probability of that response diminishes to zero

Natural Selection

behaviors that throughout history were beneficial to the species tended to survive

Cultural Evolution

it’s not that humans make a cooperative decision to do what is best for the society, but that those societies whose members behaved cooperatively tended to survive

Inner states

can be studied just as any other behavior, but their observation is limited

Self-awareness

humans not only have consciousness but are aware of their consciousness

Drives

● not the cause of behavior but merely explanatory fictions

● refers to the effects of deprivation and satiation and to the corresponding probability that the organism will respond

emotions

accounted for by the contingencies of survival and the contingencies of reinforcement

Purpose and intention

physically felt stimuli within the organism and not mentalistic events responsible for behavior

Social control

Individuals act to form social groups because such behavior tends to be reinforcing.

Self-control

just as people can alter the variables in another person’s environment, so they can manipulate the variables within their own environment

Acquisition

Initial stage of learning where a response is first established.

Extinction

The decrease or disappearance of a CR when CS is no longer paired with UCS.

Variable-interval schedule

organism is reinforced after the lapse of random or varied periods of time