13- Skinner

Behaviorism

approach that emerged from laboratory studies of animals and humans

E.L. Thorndike and John Watson

early pioneers of behaviorism

Behavioral analysis

a clear departure from the highly speculative psychodynamic theories discussed in Chapters 2 through 8

Radical behaviorism

doctrine that avoids all hypothetical constructs, such as ego, traits, drives, needs, hunger, and so forth.

Determinist

As a -, he rejected the notion of volition or free will

Environmentalist

As a -, Skinner held that psychology must not explain behavior on the basis of the physiological or constitutional components of the organism but rather on the basis of environmental stimuli.

History

The - of the individual, rather than the anatomy, provides the most useful data for predicting and controlling behavior

Dark Year

exemplified a powerful identity confusion in Skinner’s life

Project Pigeon

Skinner’s - was a clever attempt to condition pigeons to make appropriate pecks on keys that would maneuver an explosive missile into an enemy target

Baby-tender

essentially an enclosed crib with a large window and a continual supply of fresh warm air.

Walden Two

was also a benchmark in Skinner’s professional career.

Edward L. Thorndike

first psychologist to systematically study the consequences of behavior

Law of effect

Thorndike observed that learning takes place mostly because of the effects that follow a response, and he called this observation the -

Satisfier

The first stated that responses to stimuli that are followed immediately by a - tend to be “stamped in”

Annoyer

the second held that responses to stimuli that are followed immediately by an - tend to be “stamped out.”

John B. Watson

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

John B. Watson

argued that the goal of psychology is the prediction and control of behavior and that goal could best be reached by limiting psychology to an objective study of habits formed through stimulus-response connections

Cosmology

This assumption clouds the issue and relegates much of psychology to that realm of philosophy known as -, or the concern with causation.

Interpretation

permits a scientist to generalize from a simple learning condition to a more complex one

Scientific behaviorism

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

Classical/ respondent conditioning

a response is drawn out of the organism by a specific, identifiable stimulus

Operant/ Skinnerian conditioning

a behavior is made more likely to recur when it is immediately reinforced

Elicited

In classical conditioning, behavior is - from the organism

Emitted

In operant conditioning, behavior is -

Emitted

responses do not previously exist inside the organism; they simply appear because of the organism’s individual history of reinforcement or the species’ evolutionary history

Classical conditioning

neutral (conditioned) stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus a number of times until it is capable of bringing about a previously unconditioned response, now called the conditioned response.

Little Albert

An early example of classical conditioning with humans was described by John Watson and Rosalie Rayner in 1920 and involved a young boy

Operant conditioning

Skinner believed that most human behaviors are learned through

Operant conditioning

organism first does something and then is reinforced by the environment. Reinforcement, in turn, increases the probability that the same behavior will occur again.

Shaping

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

Successive approximations

Through this process of reinforcing -, the ­ experimenter or the environment gradually shapes the final complex set of behaviors

Antecedent

refers to the environment or setting in which the behavior takes place.

Operant discrimination

This history of differential reinforcement results in -

Stimulus generalization

A response to a similar environment in the absence of previous reinforcement is called

Reinforcement

strengthens the behavior and rewards the person

Positive reinforcement

Any stimulus that, when added to a situation, increases the probability that a given behavior will occur is termed

Negative reinforcement

The removal of an aversive stimulus from a situation increases the probability that the preceding behavior will occur.

Negative reinforcement

removal of an aversive stimulus

Punishment

presentation of an aversive stimulus

• Suppress behavior

• Conditioning of a negative feeling

• Spread of its effects

Effects of punishment

Conditioned reinforcers (secondary reinforcers)

those environmental stimuli that are not by nature satisfying but become so because they are associated with such unlearned

Primary reinforcers

such as food, water, sex, or physical comfort

Generalized reinforcer

associated with more than one primary reinforcer

• Attention

• Approval

• Affection

• Submission of others

• Tokens (money)

Five important generalized reinforcers

Continuous schedule

organism is reinforced for every response

Continuous schedule

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

Intermittent schedule

they make more efficient use of the reinforcer but because they produce responses that are more resistant to extinction

Fixed-ratio schedule

the organism is reinforced intermittently according to the number of responses it makes

Variable-ratio schedule

it is reinforced after the nth response on the average

Variable-ratio schedule

playing slot machines is an example of -

Fixed-interval schedule

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

Variable-interval schedule

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

Extinction

the tendency of a previously acquired response to become progressively weakened upon nonreinforcement.

Operant extinction

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

intermittent schedule

behavior trained on an - is much more resistant to extinction

Natural selection

plays an important part in human personality

Selection

responsible for those cultural practices that have survived

Internal states

Skinner did not deny the existence of - such as feelings of love, anxiety, or fear

Self-awareness

believed that humans not only have consciousness but are also aware of their consciousness

Drives

are not causes of behavior but merel;y explanatory fiction

Drives

simply refer to the effects of deprivation and satiation and to the corresponding probability that the organism will respond