Unit Four Study Guide Psychology

Unit Four Study Guide General Notes Adaptability: capacity to learn new behaviors that help us cope with changing circumstances Learning: a relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience The three major types of learning are conditional, operant, and observational Associative learning: learning that certain events may occur together (the events may be 2 stimuli or a response & its consequences) Conditioning: the process of learning associations Behaviorism: psychological view that focuses on studying people’s behavior and some behaviorists think that psychology should disregard mental processes Classical conditioning Ivan Pavlov’s dog experiment: o Saw that dogs would salivate when they ate food, so he wanted to see if when they heard or saw something & then were given food, would they salivate too o He would ring a bell and then give them food, so after a couple of times, the dogs now would salivate to the bell because they were expecting to receive food Unconditioned stimulus (US or UCS): a stimulus that triggers a natural, automatic response Unconditioned response (UR or UCR): a response caused by the US Conditioned stimulus (CS): an originally irrelevant stimulus that after association to a US comes to trigger a conditioned response Conditioned response (CR): the learned response to a previously neutral stimulus The neutral stimulus and CS are the same exact thing while the UR and CR are similar or the same US, UR, CS, and CR in Pavlov’s experiment: o US: food o UR: salivation o NS/CS: bell o CR: salivation Acquisition: when you link two the NS and the US together Higher-order/second-order conditioning: when a new neutral stimulus can become a new conditioned stimulus (ex. First the dog salivated to a bell and after another process of classical conditioning, now they salivate to a bell AND a buzzer) Extinction: when a conditioned stimulus doesn’t cause a conditioned response anymore Spontaneous recovery: when a CR is triggered after a period of it being extinct (ex. You would get nauseous every time you heard bells and it went away for years and then on your wedding day, the bells ring and you get sick) Generalization: when something is so similar to the CS that it triggers the CR Discrimination: when something is so different to the CS that it doesn’t trigger the CR Types of classical conditioning: o Delayed conditioning: present CS and while CS is still there, present US (ring bell, give food) o Trace conditioning: present CS, short break, then present US (ring bell, short break, then give food) o Simultaneous conditioning: present CS and US at the same time (ring bell and give food at same time) o Backward conditioning: present US & then CS (give food then ring bell) John Watson applied classical conditioning to psychology with Baby Albert experiment o Baby Albert liked white rats but not loud noises, so whenever he was presented a rat, a loud noise would be played o After a few times, this caused Albert to cry every time he saw a white rat because he anticipated a loud, scary noise o This type of conditioning is called aversive conditioning Learned taste aversion (aka, the Garcia Effect): o When classical conditioning is applied to food, the person usually gets sick b/c they think that it was something they ate and then whenever they eat that food, they get nauseous or sick to their stomach Garcia & Koelling Study o Another name for taste aversion is the Garcia Effect o Studied rats & how they make associations o Some associations seemed to be adaptive Operant Conditioning Respondent behavior: actions that are automatic responses to a stimulus Operant conditioning: type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher Operant behavior: behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences The Law of Effect: o Edward Thorndike locked cats in a cage and saw if they could get out o Behaviors change because of consequences o Rewards strengthen behavior o If consequences are unpleasant, the stimulus-reward connection will weaken o The whole process is called instrumental learning B.F. Skinner o Invented operant conditioning o Took the nurture stance in nature v. nurture o Used a Skinner box (operant conditioning chamber) to prove his concepts Shaping: a procedure in which reinforcers gradually guide actions toward a desired behavior Positive= ADDING something Negative= REMOVING something Reinforcers: o Also known as a reward b/c it's anything that increases a behavior o Primary reinforcers satisfy biological needs and are in themselves rewarding (ex. Getting food when hungry or having a headache go away) o Conditioned/secondary reinforcers: stimulus that we learn to value (ex. Money, good grades) o Money is a generalized reinforcer b/c it can basically be traded for anything o Positive reinforcement: adding something pleasant o Negative reinforcement: removal of something unpleasant  Escape learning: escaping an unpleasant stimulus  Avoidance learning: avoiding an unpleasant stimulus altogether Token economy: o Every time a desired behavior is performed, a token’s given o Tokens can be traded in for a variety of prizes (reinforcers) o Used in schools, homes, prisons, & mental institutions Premack Principle: o You have to take into consideration the types of reinforcers o Ask yourself, “Is the reinforcer wanted?” or at least “Is it more preferable than targeted behavior?” Punishment is meant to decrease a behavior o Positive punishment: adding something unpleasant o Negative punishment: taking away something pleasant o Punishment works best when it’s immediately done after behavior and if it’s harsh Four drawbacks to physically punishing children: o Punished behavior is suppressed, not forgotten o Punishment teaches discrimination (doesn’t swear in house but does everywhere else) o Punishment can teach fear o Physical punishment may increase aggressiveness by modeling aggression as a way to cope with problems Continuous reinforcement: reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs Partial (intermittent) reinforcement: reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement o Partial reinforcement has 4 schedules  Fixed-ratio: reinforce behavior after a set number of responses (ex. Papa John’s giving $10 in Papa Dough after earning 75 points) (every so many)  Variable-ratio: reinforcers are provided after an unpredictable number of responses (ex. Lottery and gambling) (after unpredictable number)  Fixed-interval: reinforce the first response after a fixed time period (ex. Checking if your pizza in the oven is done) (every so often)  Variable-interval: reinforce the first response after varying time intervals and enforces persistence in the behavior over a long period of time (ex. Checking for e-mail) (unpredictably often) Although Skinner did not believe that cognition constrained behavior, research shows that cognitive processes are very important in learning & excessive rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation Cognitive map: mental representation of a pathway or location Latent learning: learning that becomes apparent only when there is some incentive to demonstrate it o Edward Tolman & Three Rat Experiment (rats needed a reason to display what they learned) Insight learning: type of learning or problem solving that happens all-of-a-sudden through understanding the relationships of various parts of a problem rather than through trial and error o Wolfgang Kholer contributed to this with his chimpanzee experiment; includes the Aha! Moment Intrinsic motivation: the desire to perform a behavior effectively and for its own sake Extrinsic motivation: the desire to behave certain ways to receive external rewards or avoid threatened punishment (ex. Getting good grades to avoid getting your phone taken away) Observational learning Observational learning: learning by observing others Modeling: process of observing and imitating a specific behavior Mirror neurons: frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so; the brain’s mirroring of another’s action may enable imitation & empathy Albert Bandura’s experiments: o He had an adult punch, kick, and throw around a large inflated Bobo doll o The child would watch the adult and when left alone, the child would imitate the adult’s actions o This proves that we learn to anticipate a behavior’s consequences in situations like those we’re observing & we are much more likely to imitate people that we perceive as successful or admirable Prosocial behavior: positive, constructive, helpful behavior (opposite of antisocial behavior) Observational learning may have antisocial effects b/c bad behaviors displayed by parents or even the media can be imitated by the children Social Learning Theory: observational learning + operant conditioning (ex. watching your brother do something, you do it, and then getting punished for it)