Psych 104 unit6b

Token economies

• Use operant conditioning to reinforce appropriate behaviours

• Identify target behaviours

• Tokens can be exchanged for things like candies

Primary reinforcers

Naturally increase a target behaviour because it fulfils biological needs (ex: attention, prause, food, sex)

Secondary reinforcers

• Become reinforcers because they are associated with primary reinforcers

• Conditioned

• Ex: sticker

ABcs of operant conditioning

Antecedents - stimuli present before elicited behaviour

Behaviour emitted

Consequences that follow behaviour

Discriminative stimulus (Sd)

• Is an antecedent

• We know when a behaviour will pay off

• Ex: slowing down when a police car is near

• Learned

Timing of rewards & punishments

Reinforcement loses power as the delay increases

Successive approximations

• We can’t reinforce behaviour that is outside behavioural repertoire

• Keep reinforcing behaviours that are in direction of desired final behaviour

Continuous reinforcement

• Reinforce behaviour every time it happens

• Aquire new behaviour faster

Partial reinforcement

• Reinforce behaviour only sometimes

• Greater resistance to extinction

• Best if we gradually shift to this from continuous after behaviour is learned

Two process theory

• Need both operant & classical conditioning to explain phobias

• Classical conditioning causes fear & operant conditioning maintains the avoidance

Instinctive drift

Tendency of animals to return to innate behaviours following repeated reinforcement

S-O-R / stimulus organism response psychology

• Organism interprets the stimulus

• Response depends on what the stimulus to the organism

Insight learnibg

• Reinforcement is not always necessary

• We can mentally represent problems

• Solutions can result from internal processing

Latent learning

• Learning that is not directly observable until there is incentive to perform

• Happens in the absence of reinforcement

Rescorla-Wagner model of classical conditioning

Learning occurs when the outcome is different than expected

Observational learning

• Learning by watching others

• Form of latent learning

Bandura observational learning of agression

Children act aggressively if they watch aggressive role models

Social learning theory

Attention, retention, motor reproduction, motivation