Psychology of Learning - Behaviour Analytic Approach

PS352: Psychology of Learning

Module Overview

• Weeks 1-2: Neural & Biological processes.
• Weeks 3-10: Complex Behaviour.

Behaviour Analytic Approach

• A systematic approach for studying and organizing knowledge about behaviour.
• Three types of explaining things in Science:
  • Description
  • Prediction
  • Control (highest level of explanation)
• The Behavioural Approach attempts all three.

Cognitive vs. Behavioural Approach

• Early 1900s Psychology: Dominated by the study of states of consciousness, mental images, and other mental processes.
• Cognitive Approach: MIND receives INPUT, causes OUTPUT.
• Behavioural Approach: BEHAVIOURAL HISTORY of interactions with the ENVIRONMENT leads to CURRENT BEHAVIOR.

John B. Watson and the Shift in Psychology

• John B. Watson is recognized as moving the field of psychology in a new direction.
• Argued that the subject matter for psychology should be the study of observable behaviour, not states of mind or mental processes.
• Early form of behaviourism was known as stimulus-response (S-R) psychology (Watsonian behaviorism).
• Discussed one type of behaviour only: Respondent Conditioning (classical conditioning).

Intervening Variables

• B. F. Skinner: Intervening variables (e.g., abstracted concepts, mental states such as hunger, thirst, drive, need, intention, etc.) are unnecessary because they:
  • Make theories more complicated.
  • Curtail the search for the real causes of a behaviour.
• Psychologists are seduced by using single and abstracted mental states like “thirst” to explain behaviour because behaviour is caused by MANY things at once.
• This simplifies their accounts of behaviour but renders it useless.

Detailed Example: Rat Pressing Lever for Water

• A proper analysis of what makes it likely that a rat will press a lever that makes water flow through a drinking spout requires many experiments.
• Variables to consider:
  • Hours of Deprivation
  • Dry Food
  • Saline Injection
  • Rate of Lever Pressing for Water
  • Volume Consumed
  • Quinine Tolerated

The Problem with "Thirst"

• Thirst is a made-up concept invented to avoid functionally relating variables (like hours of deprivation, dry food, saline injection) to outcomes (like rate of lever pressing, volume consumed, quinine tolerated) through proper research.
• It magically explains all of the variables on the right.

Methodological Behaviorism vs. Radical Behaviorism

• Methodological behaviorism (Watson):
  • Rejected the study of events that are not operationally defined by objective assessment.
  • Denied the existence of “inner variables” or considered them to be outside the realm of a scientific account.
  • Restrictive view since it ignores major areas of importance (complex language, consciousness).
• B.F. Skinner
  • Founder of experimental analysis of behavior.
  • His philosophy of science became known as radical behaviorism.

Radical Behaviourism: Key Assumptions

• Radical behaviourism makes two critical assumptions about the nature of private events:
  • Private events such as thoughts and feelings are behaviours (they are things that we do).
  • Behavior that takes place within the skin (i.e., is private and inaccessible to others) has no special properties and is influenced by (i.e., is a function of) the same kinds of variables as publicly accessible behaviour.

Good Scientific Practices Emphasized by B. F. Skinner

• Measuring the rate or frequency of responses of interest.
• Repeated or continuous measurement of carefully defined response classes (e.g., tantrums).
• Moment-to-moment analysis of behavior.
• Within-subject experimental comparisons instead of comparing groups (e.g., observing clinical improvements).
• Visual analysis of behavioural data is preferred over statistical inference of abstracted patterns.
• Mapping functional relations between stimuli and responses is valued over theory testing.

Functional Relationship

• One of the most famous effects ever established in Psychology is the Yerkes-Dodson Curve – a nice example of a functional relationship, in this case between stress and performance.
• The relationship is not linear and is only appreciated in terms of the overall shape of the curve, rather than the differences between performances at discrete points on the stress scale.
• (e.g., comparing effect of high vs low arousal alone in a group design study would MISS the fact that arousal DOES increase AND decrease performance)

Covering

• Habituation, Sensitisation, Classical Conditioning, Reinforcement, Extinction, Inhibition, Aversive Control, Operants, Shaping, Schedules of Reinforcement, Discriminated operants Derived Relational Responding (towards end of Semester) Stimulus Equivalence and Relational Frame Theory.