A Science of Behavior: Perspective, History, and Assumptions (ch.1)

Learning

Learning

Acquistion (new behaviors), maintance (continued), & change (increase/decrease acquired behavior) of an organism's behavior

"Learned" Examples

• playing an instrument

• playing sports

• cooking

"Non-learning" Examples

Innate tendencies:

• knee jerk

• eye blink

• breathing

• nausea

Selection by consequences (3 types)

1. the selection over generations for genes related to survival & reproduction (natural/Darinian selection)

2. the selection for behavior within the lifetime of an individual organism (selection by operant conditioning)

3. the selection for behavior patterns (practices, traditions) of groups of human behings that endure beyond the lifetime of a single individual (cultural selection)

Immediate Causation

• Isolates a chain of events that directly result in some effect

• refers to the physiology, biochem, & genetics

• ex. chemical reactions are explained by molecular reactions

Remote Causation

• pointing to remote events that made it likely

• refers to evoluntionary, biology, & geology

• ex. show how a characteristic improved the reproductive sucess of organisms in a given ecological environment

Operant Conditioning

Learn to behave in such a way as to obtain rewards to increase a behavior and punishments to decrease a behavior. (created by BF Skinner)

Respondent/Classical Conditioning

A learning process focused more on involuntary behaviors, using associations with neutral stimuli to evoke a specific involuntary response. (created by Ivan Pavlov)

Ivan Pavlov

Russian psychologist best known for his discovery of respondent/classical conditioning. Trained a hungry dog to salivate at the sound of a buzzer.

John B. Watson

American psychologist who founded classical behaviorism & known for the Little Albert experiement that demostrated that a child could be conditioned to fear a previosly neutral stimulus.

Edward Thorndike

American psychologist famous for his theory, the law of effect or trial-and-error learning. It regards the effects of reward & punishment on learning. Reward = more effective. Punishment = repetition of undesired behavior.

Trial-and-Error Learning / The Law of Effect

The effects of reward & punishment on learning: Reward = more effective Punishment = repetition of undesired behavior (created by Thorndike)

BF Skinner

American psychologist who developed the theory of behaviorism, that behavior is determined by its consequences such as reinforcements or punishments. Proposed that Pavlov/Waston's respondent & operant conditioning regulated behavior, and Skinner's idea directed attention to environmental events & responses.

Radical Behaviorism (BF Skinner)

Skinner argued that a person's behavior and the environmental factors that influence it are much more crucial to the fundamental understanding of a person's psychological state.

Basic Research

Theory-driven, hypothesis-testing science driven by a quest for fundamental understanding. (ex. A study looking at how alcohol consumption impacts the brain)

Translational Research

The process of taking a discovery from the laboratory into the clinic, where it can ultimately help people. (ex. drug development)

Applied Research

Used to find solutions that may improve health, solve scientific problems or develop new technology. (ex. A study on how to improve illiteracy in teenagers)

Covert/Private Behavior

Behavior that cannot be observed such as mental processes like thinking, reasoning, dreaming, retrieving memories.

Assumptions of Behavior Analysis

People assume feelings/thoughts explain why they act as they do but behavior analysis do NOT consider these events as causes of behavior.

Primary journals associated with the field of Behavior Analysis

Behavior analysts study overt behavior instead of feelings because reports of feelings are highly unreliable.

List of Assumptions of Behavior Analysis

• Naturalistic: everything is measurable and within the bounds of science

• Materialistic: nothing exists beyond matter

• Determinism: there is a cause for all things

• Selectionism: all behaviors are the result of a process of natural selection

• Empiricism: we can only measure and study phenomena with which we can make contact

• Parsimony: the simplest explanation is usually correct