Behaviourism

Question 1

1. Stimulus-response

Answer 1

a. Certain words, smells, colours, etc. (the stimulus) can be used to gain a certain response.

Question 2

2. Operant conditioning

Answer 2

Using reinforcement to ‘train’ someone or something.

Question 3

3. Positive reinforcement

Answer 3

a. Rewarding the behaviours, you want to see more of.

Question 4

4. Negative reinforcement

Answer 4

a. Ignoring the behaviours, you want to see less of.

Question 5

Specific Skinner’s relevance/beliefs. (4)

Answer 5

1. Believed that language was just another form of learned behaviour.
2. Suggested that children learn through positive and negative reinforcement.
3. Called children’s brains a ‘blank slate’, ready for them to learn language through interaction.
   a. (‘tabula rasa’)

Question 6

Example of Skinner’s Process

Answer 6

1. Child points at water; Father says “water”
2. Child says “wa-wa”; Father says “well done – water” and smiles
3. Child says “wa-wa”; Father doesn’t say well done and instead says “water” again
4. Child says “wa-da”; Father says “well done” – it’s closer to “water”
5. And so on until the child says “water” in the mature form.

Question 7

If learning language is a behaviour that is taught through reinforcement, then how do you explain the following? (6)

Answer 7

1. Parents who are apathetic and don’t interact with their children.
2. Use of iPads, games, etc. that teach some language but don’t modify it.
3. Children’s creativity and ‘risk’ with language
4. The studies such as ‘Wugs’
5. Virtuous errors and Childrens creation of language
6. Negative reinforcement does not always work. Often children find meaning and truth more important than grammatical correctness, whereas parents focus on correct use of grammar.
   a. Child: I putted the plates on the table.
   Mother: You mean, I put the plates on the table.
   Child: No, I putted them on all by myself.

Question 8

Why is Skinner’s experiment/research so dodgy to draw conclusions from. (3)

Answer 8

His research/experiment to come to this conclusion was based off of the behavior of non-human animals.
A) I probably don’t have to explain why not basing this off of humans is dodgy.
B) somebody could say that general straight forward behavior and language are absolutely not the same thing as it’s far more complex.

Question 9

Behaviourism in data (3)

Answer 9

1. “That’s disgusting” -> “Dat digussing”
2. There is evidence of imitation.
3. But does the child understand what ‘disgusting’ is?
4. Are children really ‘learning’ language if only imitating without understanding of semantics?

Question 10

Who found that children at the holophrastic stage whose mothers often corrected them on word choice and pronunciation actually advanced more slowly than those with mothers who were generally accepting?

Answer 10

Katherine Nelson.

Question 11

What did Katherine Nelson find out and what does this suggest about Skinner’s theory of reinforcement? (2)

Answer 11

Found that children at the holophrastic stage whose mothers often corrected them on word choice and pronunciation actually advanced more slowly than those with mothers who were generally accepting.
This suggests Skinner’s theory of negative reinforcement does not work.

Question 12

criticism of negative conditioning evidence

Answer 12

brown, cazden, bellugi find that in the earlier stages of childrens lifes people dont atcually correct thier grammar that much.