PSY 339 Exam 2 Sample Questions

Shaping is the reinforcement of successive

Approximations of a desired behavior

Parker is using shaping to train their dog to lie down in his bed when the doorbell rings. Parker is having some trouble. Which of the following pieces of advice might help Parker train their dog?

Reinforce behavior immediately

Mil wants to teach his child, Sophie, to make her bed. First, he teaches her to put pillowcases on the pillows and place them on the made bed. Once she has mastered that, he teaches her to put the blanket on the bed before putting the pillows on. Next, he teaches her to put the sheets on the bed before the blanket and the pillows. Mil has just taught Sophie to make the bed using

Backward chaining

The classic experiments on insightful problem solving were donw with chimpanzees by ________.

Wolfang Kohler

Some studies show that offering rewards reduces creativity. Reearch by Robert Eisenberger and others suggests that this is because in these studies, ________.

The rewards were not contingent on creative behavior

Superstitious behavior is behavior that occurs repeatedly despite the fact that it ______

Does not produce the reinforcers that maintain it

Skinner suggested that superstitious behavior arouse from _____.

Coincidental reinforcement

Studies of learned helplessness use a(n) ______-

Escape procedure

The opposite of learned helplessness is ______.

Learned industriousness

Probably the best way of increaisng the creativity of stories in an English class is to ________

Praise particularly original stories

Two pigeons are learning to peck a disc. One pigeon is on an FR 10 schedule, and the other is on a VI 10'“ schedule. The pigeons show different patterns and rates of learning. These differences in patterns and rates are called

Schedule effects

The schedule that is NOT an intermittent schedule is _____

FR 1

The schedule that is likely to produce a cumulative record with scallop-design is the ________

FI schedule

The greater the number of reinforcements before extinction, the _______

Greater the number of responses during extinction

Gradually reducing the frequency of reinforcement is called

Stretching the ratio

A chain schedule is most like a __________ schedule

Tandem

Studies of choice involve ________

Concurrent schedules

The explanation of the PRE that puts the greatest emphasis on internal cues is the _______

Frustration hypothesis

According to the matching law, given two behaviors, B1, and B2, each on its own reinforcement schedule, r1 and r2, respectively, the relative frequency of each behavior _______

Equals the relative frequency of reinforcement available

Anika has been offered two jobs. One will pay her $20 per hour, and one will pay her $10 per hour. Anika decides to take the job that offers her $20 per hour instead of the one that offers $10 per hour. Which of the following best accounts for her choice?

The matching law

Negative punishment is also sometimes called __________training

Penalty

Pranav’s boss has been yelling at him for everything he does lately. Now, when Pranav comes to work, he just sits at his desk and scrolls through the Internet. Pranav’s behavior represents the problem with punishment known as ________.

Behavior suppression

Of the following procedures, the one that reinforces behavior that cannot be performed at the same time as the unwanted behavior is ______

DRI

Generally speaking, the more intense a punisher, the _______

More it suppresses behavior

Differential reinforcement is best used in combination with _____

Extinction

The word positive in positive punishment refers to the fact that _____

Something is added

The two-process theory of punishment assumes that punishment involves _______

Pavlovian and operant learning

When someone avoids punishment by cheating and lying, they are attempting to _______

Escape from punishment

Martina is trying to get her brother, Alvaro, to stop chewing his nails. Whenever she catches him chewing his nails, she says, “Alvaro, stop!” However, Martina is not very observant and only notices his nail chewing about half the time he does it. Alvaro does not stop chewing his nails, most likely because of a problem with ________.

The contingency between nail chewing and punishment

Research has shown that undesired behavior is often _________

An inappropriate way of obtaining appropriate reinforcers

Problem behavior in children can usually be dealt with effectively through

Differential reinforcement

Skinner’s teaching machines presented the student with some information, then asked a question. The reinforcer for answering correctly was

The opportunity to move on to the next frame

Jack lives on the streets of New York City. One cold January night, he takes up a position outside a fancy restaurant and starts shouting, “The president has ordered an equestrian invasion of Long Island.” The restaurant owner calls the police, and they take Jack to a hospital, where he spends a quiet night in a warm room and gets a hot meal. You investigate Jack’s medical history and find that he _______.

Has been hospitalized for bizarre behavior in the winter more than in other seasons

Leo gets into fights on a regular basis, always with formidable opponents. He has often been injured in these fights and knows that he runs the risk of sustaining serious brain damage or other permanent injuries, yet he continues to fight. Leo is a very successful professional boxer. This example illustrates that bizarre behavior ______.

Is less puzzling when the reinforcers maintaining it are known

The idea that any problem behavior that is eliminated through learning-based treatment will be replaced by a new problem behavior is known as _______.

Symptom substitution

Davi suffered a stroke and lost the use of their left arm. Their doctor may have suggested ________ as a treatment

CIMT

Isadora would like to reduce accidents among her employees. Which of the following strategies would likely prove most effective in helping her meet this goal?

A bonus for completing all the safety checks every day for a week

Using the principles learned in this chapter, one way that you could enrich the quality of life of your dog is to_______

Have them work for some of their food

The authors of your textbook suggest that the worst orphanages illustrate the importance of operant learning to normal child development

True

Most teachers reprimand students more often than they praise them

True

Who was the one who accidentally discovered the idea of shaping?

B.F. Skinner

Which of the following intermittent schedules are not contingent on behavior?

Time

Which of the following describes the scenario of waiting for Halloween to come around?

Fixed time

What was learned in the creativity exercise done in lecture?

Reinforcement increases the number of creative responses

In a controlled environment, a rat presses a lever in exchange for food. At first, the rat presses the lever steadily, but then realizes that the food comes once every 2 minutes at around the same time the rat presses the lever next. In the context of schedules of reinforcement, which of the following would be the most accurate label for this schedule?

FI-2’

Teaching your dog a series of tricks is best described by which behavioral psychology concept?

Reinforcement of successive approximation of behavior

What is an example of superstitious behavior?

Having an exam ritual and doing well on the test the next day

Trick-or-treating is an example of which schedule of reinforcement?

Variable interval

On a graph that plots total responses over time, which graph will show a “scalloping effect” in relation to schedules of reinforcement?

Fixed interval

What is the difference between multiple schedules of reinforcement and mixed schedules of reinforcement?

Each schedule in multiple schedules has its own discriminative stimulus, which helps demonstrate stimulus control via the discriminative stimuli. Mixed schedules have no signal that indicates which schedule is currently in effect, which encourages consistency in behavior

Which theory explains the partial reinforcement effect the best?

Reponse Unit Hypothesis

Sally’s mom takes away her phone for 3 days every time she has a bad exam grade. However, she ends up stealing it back early every time, and her grades never improve. Is taking away the phone a good punishment?

No, because the behavior of getting bad test scores does not decrease

Which three things must occur for successful learning of a punishment?

Be a consequence of a specific behavior, the behavior must decrease in strength, and the consequence must cause the decrease in strength

In the context of learning, what is the most effective strategy to get a rat to stop a certain behavior?

Reinforcement of a different behavior

What are the ABCs of Behavior Analysis?

Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence