Applications of Learning Principles & Self-Control (OC II)

Question 1

What did Skinner think about self-control?

Answer 1

• Self-management involves conflicting outcomes
• Many behaviours have both positive and negative outcomes
• Proposed that to manage this conflict you enact a controlling response to attempt to alter the frequency of a controlled response
• E.g. Leave money at home (controlling response) to reduceamount of money spent (controlled response)

Question 2

What are the types of controlling responses? (4)

Answer 2

1. Physical restraint
   • Manipulation of environment to prevent behaviour
   • Leaving money at home
   • Give TV to friend during examination period

2. Depriving and Satiating
• Influence whether an event can be a reinforcer
• Skip lunch before yummy dinner
• Grocery shopping on a satisfied
stomach

3. Doing something else
   • Alternatives
   • Chew gum
4. Self-reinforcement and Self-punishment
   • Good in theory…but short-circuiting the system and having the reward is tempting and self-punishment is punishing in itself!
   • Thought to work differently when applied to ourselves
   • Social consequences (e.g. tell your friends and family) can be helpful in following through
   • Individual differences can be important

Question 3

How do temporal differences influence self control?

Answer 3

Depending on whether the consequence is immediate or delayed- immediate is better

Question 4

Behaviours are often influenced by a complex set of

_______.

Answer 4

Contingencies

Question 5

What are the three theories of self-control?

Answer 5

• Mischel’s Delay of Gratification Paradigm
• The Ainslie-Rachlin Model of Self-Control
• The Small but Cumulative Effects Model

Question 6

Explain the Delayed Gratification Paradigm

Answer 6

• Experiment (Walter Mischel)
• (~4 yr old) Child in a room with two items with a clear
preference
• Informed they could have the preferred item if they wait
while the experimenter leaves and returns
• Child could sound signal for experimenter to return, after
which they receive the non-preferred item

Question 7

What did the delayed gratification paradigm show us?

Answer 7

Strategies to avoid temptation included attentional:
• Look away
• Do something else
• Easier when reward not present or thought about in more
abstract terms

• Follow-up at ~17 years old showed that those with
strategies:
• Greater ability to cope with frustration
• Academically proficient
• Got along with peers

Question 8

What did the Ainslie-Rachlin Model show?

Answer 8

• Focused on preferences between smaller sooner and
larger later rewards and shifts over time
• If I promise at 9am that I will run at 5pm …will I still want to at 4:59pm…?
• Especially if there’s an episode of a favourite TV show…

• The value of rewards is upwardly scalloped such that
reward value increases more rapidly as delays
decrease and it becomes imminent

Question 9

What does the Small but Cumulative model posit?

Answer 9

• Each single choice on self-control tasks have small but
cumulative effects on probability of obtaining the
desired long-term outcome
• SSR will always outweigh LLR!
• It is easy to undermine possible delayed negative
consequences on each individual occasion
• Relapse prevention