Instrumental and operant conditioning

Question 1

Who is Thorndike?

Answer 1

Was an America psychologist who worked primarily with animals because he thought such experimental subjects could be operationalized and thus easily studied

Question 2

Thorndike’s Mechanism - Law of Effect

Answer 2

o Law of effect
 Prove this by putting a hungry cat in a box with a puzzle in it and put a fish outside
 After a series of rewards the effort became more efficient
 Stamping in means when a behavior becomes an ingrained neural response

Question 3

Thorndike on Insight

Answer 3

Learning does not require insight rather there is evidence of a learning curve or slowly increasing efficiency of stamping in behaviors

Question 4

Thorndike’s The “OK reaction”

Answer 4

-is a new brain connection. This is a hypothetical neural mechanism that reinforces the connection between the stimulus and the response

Question 5

Thorndike’s Law of readiness

Answer 5

suggests that an organism must be ready to receive a reward for learning to occur

Question 6

Thorndike’s Law of exercise

Answer 6

-suggests that the more an action occurs, the more likely that action is going to occur in the future

Question 7

Thorndikes connectionism

Answer 7

• How does learning occur?
  o The basis for learning is the stimulus response connection that is “stamped in” to the brain
• Neural pathways are responsible for learning
  o What strengthens these neural pathways? Positive consequences promote learning
  o What weakens neural pathways? Punishments inhibit neural pathways
• Tabula rasa
  o We are born as “blank slates” and connections that made through environmental interactions is learning

Question 8

Skinners early work

Answer 8

 He was not a mechanist (or material makeup) he was interested in S-R model
 Heavily influenced by Pavlov Thorndike
-He did not believe in determinism
–Instead contingencies of reinforcement

Question 9

The Skinner Box

Answer 9

(aka operant conditioning chamber)
 This was a box for pigeons or rats with buttons for them to press.
 When a button was pressed the machine would dispense food
o Cumulative recorder was an instrument to used to record behavior graphically, this was a pencil to mark a rotating drum to see…
o Response rates (or slopes of record) refer to the ratio between two measurements with different units
o Schedules of reinforcement
 Continuous - involves rewards that are given after every response
 Intermittent – involves rewards that are given after a subset of desired responses
 Schedules of intermittent reinforcement
* Ratio involves a certain amount of responses to create reinforcement
* Interval involves a certain amount of time that must pass and then the next desired response produces reinforcement
* Fixed involves the desired number of responses or time that must pass that is consistent between one enforcement and the next
* Variable involves the desired number of responses gets varied from one reinforcement to the next
o Resistance to extinction
 In order to resist extinction the behavior modifier can place the organism in an internment schedule of reinforcement which are highly resistant to extinction

Question 10

Skinners Radical Behaviorism

Answer 10

oFocused on SR association
oNo inner mediators
Ideas about what causes behavior
The power of the environment to control behavior

Question 11

Skinners functional view

Answer 11

 Reinforcements increase the probability that any behavior will occur
 Reinforcements must be part of the environment where the behavior occurs
 R must be separate from the behavior itself
o Types of reinforcements
 Positive (presence) – give something so that the thing will reoccur
 Negative (removal) – take away something to increase probability will recur
o Punishment – giving something aversive to the organism to decrease the probability that an undesired behavior will occur

Question 12

Factory Psychology

Answer 12

o“Planning” and “doing” are separated as the first step
1.Identify the most efficient worker
2.Then the manager identifies all the behaviors that employee does
3.Then contingently reinforce all the other workers depending on their similarity to the most efficient
o Piece rate pace system
 Fixed-ratio schedule of reinforcement

Question 13

4 stages of behavioral perspective therapy

Answer 13

 Acquisition – the patient acquires positive adaptive behaviors
 Extinction – The patient extinguishes maladaptive behaviors
 Discrimination – the patient learns to distinguish between positive and negative behaviors
 Generalization – the patient applies positive behaviors to other parts of life

Question 14

Why is skinner always right?

Answer 14

Things that seem like they would disprove skinner are actually complex behavior that rely on environmental contingencies of reinforcement