AP Psychology Social Learning and Biological Factors ID Terms (From elisabeth_ls_06 on Quizlet)

phobia

a persistent and irrational fear of a specific situation, object, or activity (e.g., heights, dogs, water, blood, driving, flying), which is consequently either strenuously avoided or endured with marked distress.

Little Albert

a boy used by John B. Watson (1899-1935) to demonstrate classical (or Pavlovian) fear conditioning in humans.

Mary Cover Jones

an American developmental psychologist and a pioneer of behavior therapy, despite the field being heavily dominated by males throughout much of the 20th century. Joseph Wolpe dubbed her "the mother of behavior therapy" due to her famous study of Peter and development of desensitization.

behavior therapy

a form of psychotherapy that applies the principles of learning, operant conditioning, and classical conditioning to eliminate symptoms and modify ineffective or maladaptive patterns of behavior.

desensitization

a reduction in emotional or physical reactivity to stimuli that is achieved by such means as deconditioning techniques

Joseph Wolpe

most well known for his reciprocal inhibition techniques, particularly systematic desensitization, which revolutionized behavioral therapy

reciprocal inhibition

a technique in behavior therapy that aims to replace an undesired response (e.g., anxiety) with a desired one by counterconditioning

systematic desensitization

a form of behavior therapy in which counterconditioning is used to reduce anxiety associated with a particular stimulus. It involves the following stages: (a) The client is trained in deep-muscle relaxation; (b) various anxiety-provoking situations related to a particular problem, such as fear of death or a specific phobia, are listed in order from weakest to strongest; and (c) each of these situations is presented in imagination or in reality, beginning with the weakest, while the client practices muscle relaxation. Since the muscle relaxation is incompatible with the anxiety, the client gradually responds less to the anxiety-provoking situations.

anxiety hierarchy

a series of graduated anxiety-arousing stimuli centering on a specific source of anxiety in a specific individual. It is used in the treatment of phobias by systematic desensitization

biofeedback

information about bodily processes and systems provided by an organism's receptors to enable it to maintain a physiologically desirable internal environment and make adjustments as necessary.

taste aversion

the association of the taste of a food or fluid with an aversive stimulus (usually gastrointestinal discomfort or illness), leading to a very rapid and long-lasting aversion to, or at the least a decreased preference for, that particular taste

John Garcia

best known for discovering exceptions to the process of learning by classical conditioning, such as taste aversion. This did not go over well with psychologists at the time who believed that the rules of classical conditioning were absolute

latent learning

learning that is acquired without conscious effort, awareness, intention, or reinforcement and is not manifested as a change in performance until a specific need for it arises

Edward Tolman

best-known for cognitive behaviorism, his research on cognitive maps, and the theory of latent learning

cognitive map

a mental understanding of an environment, formed through trial and error as well as observation; a mental map

Robert Rescorla

American psychologist who experimentally demonstrated the involvement of cognitive processes in classical conditioning

contingency theory

any of various models predicting that leadership performance depends on the interaction of the personal characteristics of the leader and the nature of the group situation

signal relations

signals that initiate that learning will take place

instinctive drift

the tendency of learned, reinforced behavior to gradually return to a more innate behavior.

abstract learning

acquiring knowledge of general or intangible material, such as the meanings of concepts and propositions and the logical and systematic relations between them.

Gestalt psychology

a psychological approach that focuses on the dynamic organization of experience into patterns or configurations

insight learning

a cognitive form of learning involving the mental rearrangement or restructuring of the elements in a problem to achieve a sudden understanding of the problem and arrive at a solution.

Premack principle

the concept that a more-preferred activity can be used to reinforce a less-preferred activity.

expectancies

an attitude or mental set that determines the way in which a person approaches a situation

learned helplessness

a phenomenon in which repeated exposure to uncontrollable stressors results in individuals failing to use any control options that may later become available

problem-focused coping

a stress-management strategy in which a person directly confronts a stressor in an attempt to decrease or eliminate it.

emotion-focused coping

a stress-management strategy in which a person focuses on regulating his or her negative emotional reactions to a stressor. Rather than taking actions to change the stressor itself, the individual tries to control feelings

fixed mindset

the idea that we have a set amount of an ability that cannot change

growth mindset

the idea that our abilities are malleable qualities that we can cultivate and grow

locus of control

a construct that is used to categorize people's basic motivational orientations and perceptions of how much control they have over the conditions of their lives

self-control

the ability to be in command of one's behavior (overt, covert, emotional, or physical) and to restrain or inhibit one's impulses

Albert Bandura

an influential social cognitive psychologist who is perhaps best known for his social learning theory, the concept of self-efficacy, and his famous Bobo doll experiments

social learning theory

the general view that learning is largely or wholly due to modeling, imitation, and other social interactions. More specifically, behavior is assumed to be developed and regulated by external stimulus events, such as the influence of other individuals, and by external reinforcement, such as praise, blame, and reward

observational learning

the acquisition of information, skills, or behavior through watching the performance of others, either directly or via such media as films and videos

modeling

a technique used in cognitive behavior therapy and behavior therapy in which learning occurs through observation and imitation alone, without comment or reinforcement by the therapist

vicarious learning

learning the consequences of an action by watching others being rewarded or punished for performing the action

vicarious reinforcement

process where the observer sees the model rewarded, making the observer more likely to imitate the model's behavior

reciprocal determinism

Bandura's idea that though our environment affects us, we also affect our environment

The Bobo Doll Experiments

an inflatable plastic clown. In his studies of observational learning, Albert Bandura demonstrated that children who had watched a videotape of an adult being violent with a Bobo doll were more likely to behave aggressively toward the doll than were children who had watched an adult being nonviolent toward it.

social cognitive theory

describes the influence of individual experiences, the actions of others, and environmental factors on individual health behaviors

attention

a state in which cognitive resources are focused on certain aspects of the environment rather than on others and the central nervous system is in a state of readiness to respond to stimuli

retention

persistence of learned behavior or experience during a period when it is not being performed or practiced, as indicated by the ability to recall, recognize, reproduce, or relearn it.

reproduction

the process of replicating information from memory

Motivation

in conditioning, the variables, collectively, that alter the effectiveness of reinforcers.

self-efficacy

an individual's subjective perception of his or her capability to perform in a given setting or to attain desired results

acquisition

the attainment by an individual of new behavior, information, or skills or the process by which this occurs.

performance

any activity or collection of responses that leads to a result or has an effect on the environment

mirror neurons

a type of cell in the brains of certain animals (including humans) that responds in the same way to a given action (e.g., grasping an object) whether the animal performs the action itself or sees another animal (not necessarily of the same species) perform the action