Ch. 6 AP Psych Studyguide – Flashcards

A behaviorist is a person who insists that psychologists should study only events that are measurable and observable. An intervening variable is something that we cannoy directly observe but links a variety of procedures to a variety of possible responses. Examples of intervening variable is hunger, thirst, fear, and anger.

Structuralism is the study of people's thoughts, ideas, and sensations by asking people to describe them. This is diferent from behaviorism because behavirorists attest that it is useless to ask people to report their own private experiences because you cannot confirm the event's accuracy.

Stimulus-response psychology is the attempt to explain behavior in terms of how each stimulus triggers a response. Stimulus-response slightly contradicts that of today's behaviorists because they believe that behavior is a product of not only the current stimuli but also the individual's history of stimuli and responses to their outcomes, plus the internal state of the organisms.

Behaviorists make several assumptions to select behaviors. They assume that we live in a universe of cause and effect and they accept the idea of determinism. They believe that since our behavior is part of the universe, it too must have causes that we can study scientifically. They also make assumptions on the ineffectiveness of mental explanations, and the power of the environment to select behaviors. Behaviorists insist that statements referring to motivations, emotions, and mental states explain nothing.

Pavlov discovered that teasing a dog with the sight of food produced salivation that was as predictable and automatic as any reflex. He called this term conditional reflex. A conditioned reflex is a reflex that begins to be enacted after getting conditioned to the unconditional stimulus.

Pavlov used the classical conditioning procedure to investigate the conditioned reflex. Classical conditioning is the process by which an organism learns a new association between two paired stimuli that previousl would have caused no effect—hence the once neutral stimulus.

The unconditioned stimulus (USC) is a stimulus that consistently and automatically elicits a particular response while the unconditioned response (UCR) is a response to the unconditioned stimulus. A conditioned stimulus (CS) is the proceeding conditions that the response depends on. The conditioned response (CR) is the response that follows the conditioned stimulus. EX: The unconditioned stimulus is my mom asking me how my day was. The conditioned response is "fine." The conditioned stimulus is my mom opening the door to my room every day when she first comes home. The Conditioned response is me saying fine. The Neutral stimulus is my mom. I became conditioned to automatically say fine every time my mom comes home from work and opens my door because I am conditioned to answer "fine" to the question she asks every day.

Acquisition is the process that establishes or strengthens a conditioned response. Extinction is to extinguish a classically conditioned response; it is possible to achieve this by presenting the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus. Extinction does erase the original CS-UCS connection but it can be recovered through acquisition or spontaneous recovery

Spontaneous recovery is the rapid return of an extinguished response after a delay that is caused by presenting the unconditioned stimulus again.

Stimulus generalization is the extension of a conditioned response by involving a similar stimulus to the original stimuli. Stimuli discrimination is when one responds differently between two stimuli because the two stimulus predict different outcomes. As the subject of the water gun experiment in class, I was baited by Mr.Gray into flinching when he provided me with similar stimuli to the word "can" which when said would result in my getting squirted. Stimulus generalization would've been if I flinched when Mr.Gray say fan or tan.

Drug tolerance is when users of a certain drug experience weaker effects after using the drug numerous times. This is a "classic" example of classical conditioning. This relates to classical conditioning because one can feel the need to get high by seeing something that relates to that feeing they get by using drugs. Therefore, they make a new connection between two previously unpaired stimuli. For example, the unconditioned stimulus(UCS) is smoking a cigarette. The conditioned response (CR) is getting the high. The neutral stimulus is a cigarette butt in an ashtray. The conditioned stimulus (CS) is the cigarette butt in the ashtray and the conditioned response(CR) is feeling the need to smoke to get high again.

The delay between the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus can make or break whether classical conditioning takes effect. For example if the unconditioned stimulus is presented in a timely manner, the subject may eventually become conditioned. However, if there is an extended delay in the presentation of the unconditioned stimulus, one might not be conditioned to elicit a particular response, or if they're already used to eliciting a certain response it may go extinct.

Classical conditioning provides a signaling mechanism because it trains, or signals, your body to respond to different stimuli. Your body establishes a response to a new stimulus and will condition itself to elicit this same response every time this stimulus is presented.

Contingency refers to predictability in the presentation of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus. If the delay between the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus is large, the subject will be unlikely to be create the new association. If there is less contingency between the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus, it will be harder to condition the subject to elicit the conditioned response. (The new association between previously unpaired stimuli)

horndike's cats learned the escape from the cage through non-cognitive processes, rather processes that had to do with operating on its environment. It was not a process of mental operation but rather acting on the environment and adapted to it. The Cats needed to escape the puzzle box and the opening of the door served as positive reinforcement to the cats; every time they performed the correct action the door was opened.

A learning curve is the graph of the changes in behavior that occur over the course of learning. Thorndike explained the gradual learning of cats by the learning curve; this showed the response time was slow and irregular. He observed that the cat, at no moment, fully understood what triggered the door opening.

Reinforcement is an event that increases the probability of the most recent response. An example of reinforcement would be giving someone a chocolate every time they left you alone. By giving that person a chocolate they will be reinforced to leave you alone by the chocolate. The law of effect states that if a repeated response is followed by positive effects, then a behavior will be likely to continue. It relates to reinforcement because if the reinforcement is followed by positive effects, then the behavior will most likely continue in order to continue providing positive effects.

Operant conditioning is when a subject operates on the environment to produce an outcome. Operant conditioning requires the use of reinforcement or punishment, compared to classical conditioning which involved a neutral stimulus that turns into a conditioned stimulus. Operant conditioning is comparable to trial and error while classical conditioning is the formation of a new association between two unpaired stimuli.

Extinction can occur in operant conditioning when you use a positive or negative punishment to end the response. For example getting an F from my teacher on my test would be positive punishment because it will encourage me to study harder to avoid getting another F on the test. An example of negative punishment would be if my parents took away my phone for getting the bad grade which would also encourage me to work harder to avoid getting the bad grade and losing my phone again.

Generalization is when someone elicits the same response, from a similar, but new stimulus. Discrimination is when one yields a response to one stimulus but not to the other. In operant conditioning one person might see someone wearing a similar style to someone they know, and they believe it's that person so they go up and say hi but it's not that person. Discrimination would be if someone was able to recognize that that person wore a similar style to the person they know, but they were able to discriminate between them, and avoid saying hi to someone unknown.

Belongingness is the concept that certain stimuli or responses "belong" together more than others do. Belongingness is significant in operant conditioning because people have the tendency to make associations with stimuli that they group as similar. The person will began to epect a certain stimulus with a certain response, and will believe that they belong together; in this way belongingness becomes a critical aspect of operant conditioning.

Shaping is establishing a new response by reinforcing successive approximations to it. To so use shaping to teach a dog to shake hands, you would need to only provide reinforcements when it shakes hands. First you would provide reinforcements for sitting down and raising its paw. Eventually, the dog would associate the givin of reinforcements only when it sits and raises his paw. This would shape the dog to shake hands.

Positive reinforcement is the presentation of an event that strengthens or increases the likelihood of a behavior; negative reinforcement increases the frequencies of a behavior by taking something away to bring about the desired result. Positive and negative refer to something being given or presented in the case of positive and something being taken away or removed for a negative reinforcement/punishment.

Punishment is effective for a short time period. It will only stop that behavior momentarily. For example, spanking your child after bad behavior will cause the child to stop. However, if spanking is repeatedly used, the child will become used to the punishment and expect it for all bad behaviors. Punishment does not have desirable long-term effects that people may think it does. Problems that occur from prolonged punishment are aggressive and antisocial behavior.

Reinforcers can be compliments, rewards, or anything that satisfies or brings pleasure. The Premack Principle states that the opportunity to engage in frequent behavior will reinforce any less frequent behavior. This supports the idea that a reinforcer for one individual may not be effective for another. Different reinforcements work better for different people. Additionally, the Premack principle shows that once the subject/organism gets used to a frequent behavior, unnecessary behaviors will become less frequent. This is similar to the law of effect.

The disequilibrium principle states that each of us has a normal, or equilibrium state in which we spend a certain amount of time on various activities. If you have had a limited opportunity to engage in one of your behaviors, you are in disequilibrium, and an opportunity to increase that behavior, to get back to equilibrium, will be reinforcing. This relates to the premack principle because if we do not have enough opportunity to engage in each of the behaviors, we cannot follow the premack principle, because without the engagement of frequent behavior, the less frequent behavior will not be reinforced.

Schedules of reinforcement are to control the presence, or delivery of reinforcement.

The four schedules of intermittent reinforcement are fixed ratio, fixed interval, variable ratio, and variable interval. A fixed ratio schedule provides reinforcement only after a certain number of correct responses have been made. A fixed-ratio schedule could be getting your expected semester grade after excelling on numerous tests throughout the year. This reinforcement would compel one to strive to attain the same success the proceeding semester. A fixed interval schedule provides reinforcement for the first response made after a specific time interval. An example would be checking your email for an email you've been expecting from a client. They said they would send it at 3:30 sharp, so when you check your inbox your actions are reinforced with the email you were expecting. A variable ratio-schedule is when reinforcement occurs after a variable number of correct responses. An example of a variable-ratio schedule is applying early decision to a college, being deferred, reconsidered, and accepted the second time around. A variable interval schedule is when reinforcement is available after a variable amount of time has elapsed. Text messaging is based on a variable interval schedule, where reinforcement is available after a variable amount of time. The other person could respond at any time making it variable.

Operant conditioning can be applied to animal training by inducing an animal to perform a certain trick. The trainer shapes the animal to perform complex behaviors. Animals can be trained using positive reinforcement. Operant conditioning is also present in persuasion, providing slight reinforcement and working up towards a goal is the best way to persuade. By giving people positive reinforcement you can persuade them into doing what you wish. Another way to influence people is through behavior modification, in which a psychologist tries to remove the reinforcers that sustain some unwanted behavior and provide suitable reinforcers for a more acceptable behavior. An example of behavior modification would be removing the unwanted behavior of running in the halls. The fix would be a teacher talking to the students citing an example of how a student got hurt really bad as a result of an accident that occurred from running in the halls.

Conditioned taste aversion is when someone associates eating something with getting sick. This person will be unlikely to eat that food again because they believe it was cause them the same illness. The difference between classical conditioning and conditioned taste aversion is that the taste aversion can develop even when there is a long delay between neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus.

Birds learn to sing through imitation. It is comparable to learning a language where the singing gradually improves like speech skills would improve. The birds initially listen only, and then in the spring it starts to sing and corrects the mistakes through trial and error. The bird knows how the song is supposed to sound from the sounds it has previously heard, and continues to practice until the song is sung correctly. This is not classical conditioning because the bird is not making a new connection between two previously unpaired stimuli. This is considered operant conditioning because the subject operates on the environment to produce an outcome, the behavior of this subject is important in producing the outcome. Operant conditioning also has to do with reinforcement after each response, the reinforcement is the bird knowing that the song is incorrect so it continues to try to imitate it.

The critical period is known as the sensitive period which is early in the life of a bird during the first year in which he learns most readily. During this period the bird learns the quickest, therefore any knowledge of how to sing the song correctly is learned and stored, even though it is not possible at this moment to imitate. The bird during this period may hear his father sing the song correctly, and by hearing it, he knows the way it should be sung. This will assist the bird later in life when he is trying to imitate the song; he will know when the song is sung with mistakes.

Social-learning means that we learn about many behaviors before we try them. Also much learning, especially in humans, results from observing the behaviors of other and from imagining the consequences of our own behavior. Roles of modeling and imitation and learning refer to learning achieved from watching others doing something and attempting to replicate it yourself. When you try to learn how to do a new task—you've seen someone do it before—you will have an advantage because you have seen it from someone who is already skilled at the task. Imitation has to do with trial and error and finally imitating the behavior correctly. We imitate others in order to learn the behaviors we desire.

Vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment means substituting someone else's experience for your own. It has to do with learning something by imagining you being "in someone else's" shoes. Vicarious punishment is generally less effective. People do not believe the dangers of the negative things that could happen to them until they actually happen. Examples include cancer from smoking, or obesity from overeating. Vicarious reinforcement/punishment is different from regular reinforcement and punishment because the results of actions are being imagined by the person. We learn by imagining ourselves in that situation. During regular reinforcement and punishment we have already committed the action.

Self-efficacy is the perception of being able to perform a task successfully. When someone believes they can imitate a person with a relatively strong possibility of success, it is called self-efficacy. Often people lack self-efficacy and sell themselves short from what they could truly accomplish if they contained self-efficacy. In regards to social learning, an example of someone similar to yourself achieving high goals may increase your own belief that you can too attain the same level of merit.