Chapter 13 Flashcards

Question

if we have never performed the behavior, where do we get our expectations about consequences? (observational learning)

Answer 1

from observing others. Specifically, was your model for the behavior rewarded or punished?

Answer 2

Nursery school children watched a television program in which an adult model performed four novel aggressive acts on an adult-size plastic Bobo doll (adults were either rewarded or punished) Nearly all the children in all three groups could perform the behaviors when asked. - -- However, whether they chose to perform the behavior when left alone depended on the consequences they expected. Although all the children had learned how to act aggressively, the ones who had seen the model rewarded were significantly more likely to perform the behaviors than those who had seen the model punished.

Answer 3

associations formed through classical conditioning - Little albert (mouse) classical conditioning

Answer 4

operant conditioning may take over. Imagine a 3-year-old girl who falls off a tall slide. The pain and fear she experiences are paired with the slide, and those feelings re-emerge the next time she approaches the playground. Her anxiety increases as she gets closer and closer to the slide. Quite likely, she’ll decide to turn away and try the slide some other time, thereby reducing the anxiety. What has happened in this situation is that the act of avoiding the slide has been reinforced through negative reinforcement.

Answer 5

A boy who has had many pleasant experiences with dogs is not likely to develop a fear of the animal when one untrained dog snarls at and bites him.

Answer 6

A socially anxious girl may have found the only escape from the criticism and ridicule she received at home was to avoid family contact as much as possible (negative reinforcement), a behavior she then generalized to other people A man suffering from paranoid delusions may believe he has thwarted a plan to kidnap him by staying in his house all day, thereby rewarding the behavior.

Answer 7

the old association between the feared stimulus and the fear response is replaced with a new association between the stimulus and relaxation. Work through scenarios: might be walking up a flight of stairs, followed by a scene of him standing on an 8-foot ladder. Highly anxiety-provoking scenes are placed at the end of the hierarchy, such as looking out from the top floor of a skyscraper or flying in a small airplane. -- relaxation training, they imagine the scenes while they practice relaxing

Answer 8

therapists try to rid clients of undesirable behaviors by pairing aversive images with the behavior. For example, for a client trying to quit smoking, the image of a cigarette might be paired with images of becoming nauseated and vomiting.

Answer 9

Find how often behavior occurs (ex. child throwing tantrum) Once we know how often the behavior occurs under the current system of rewards and punishments, we change the contingencies. If it’s a desired behavior, the environment is altered so the client is rewarded for it. If it’s undesired, punishment is introduced or reinforcement is reduced. (With tantrum: parents might be told to stop rewarding the action with attention and concern) (punishments might be introduced, such as not allowing the child to watch television for 24 hours after a tantrum. )

Answer 10

Offers rewards to all members of a group when the entire group meets the behavior goal. For example, to reduce the amount of swearing on the playground, an elementary teacher might reward each member of the class with a treat at the end of each day she hears no swear words during recess. Group contingency interventions have been found to especially effective with school-aged children

Answer 11

requires special equipment that provides information about somatic processes. A woman suffering from anxiety might use a machine that tells her when she is tightening and relaxing certain facial and back muscles, a reaction she is otherwise not aware of. she may learn to reduce tension on her own and thereby overcome her anxiety. In operant conditioning terms, the woman was reinforced for producing the response that lowered her muscle tension, as indicated by the machine. As with other reinforced behaviors, she soon learned to make the relaxation response.

Answer 12

A person’s expectancy that he or she can successfully perform a given behavior.

Answer 13

outcome expectation is the extent to which people believe actions will lead to a certain outcome. An efficacy expectation is the extent to which people believe they can perform the actions that will bring about the particular outcome.

Answer 14

1. enactive mastery experiences. - These are successful attempts to achieve the outcome in the past - If done something before, high efficacy expectations -history of failures can lead to low efficacy expectations 2. vicarious experiences - Seeing other people perform a behavior without adverse effects can lead us to believe that we can do it too. - “If she can do it, so can I,” 3. verbal persuasion - Telling someone who is reluctant to stand up to the boss “you can do it” might convince the person to assert his or her rights. However, this expectation will be easily crushed if the actual performance isn’t met with the expected result. 4. Physiological and affective states - Stressed and sweaty before calling a male coworker = might interpret she's too nervous to go through with it - If she's calm she might be fine to

Answer 15

guided mastery therapist arranges the situation so that the client is almost guaranteed a successful experience A client with a fear of driving might begin by driving a short distance on a secluded street This step is followed with gradually longer drives on busier streets. With each successful experience, the client strengthens the belief that he or she is capable of driving in traffic

Answer 16

No Can help overcome: -Childhood depression - PTSD -Drunk driving -Anxiety etc

Answer 17

1. Direct Observation - therapist usually can’t watch a client all day long, it is often possible to observe a representative sample of the client’s behavior - A good definition includes examples of behaviors to be counted and rules for dealing with borderline cases. (ex. almost throwing a tantrum) -Can improve accuracy by having multiple observers 2. Self-Monitoring -clients observing themselves. -often ask clients to keep records of when and where they engage in certain behaviors. - Clients are sometimes surprised by what they find. For example, people trying to watch their weight may discover that they eat more when they’re alone, when they’re watching television, or after they’ve had a drink. 3. Observation by Others - Parents and teachers can often record the frequency of a child’s problem behaviors

Answer 18

analogue behavioral observation: a therapist might stage a dance for clients suffering from acute shyness or ask a couple to enter into a discussion that recently sparked a disagreement. Occasionally behavior therapists ask clients to role-play. A therapist helping a man to be more assertive might ask the client to imagine that someone just cut in front of him in line. The client then acts out what he would do in that situation. In this case, the way the client acts in the role-playing exercise is probably similar to the way he acts when confronting real-life situations.

Answer 19

1. founded in empirical research 2. development of some useful therapeutic procedures. -Studies find these procedures to be effective in treating a number of psychological problems, especially when combined with elements from cognitive therapies 3. use of baseline data and objective criteria for determining success or failure - Other approaches often begin treatment without first determining the level of the problem; 4. behavior therapy may be the most useful approach when working with certain populations, such as children or severely emotionally disturbed patients

Answer 20

1. too narrow in its description of human personality. - Skinnerian brand of behaviorism, which rejects the usefulness of examining inner feelings and intuition 2. (for traditional behaviorism), is that human beings are more complex than the laboratory animals used in behavioral research. 3. these treatments sometimes distort the real therapy issues by reducing everything to observable behaviors - A behavior therapist might count the number of times the man engages in pleasant activities and set up a treatment program that rewards him for going to parties, talking with friends, reading good books, and so on. These activities might make the man feel better. However, critics might argue that the therapy has not addressed the real problem but has only temporarily diverted the client’s attention from the concerns that caused him to seek therapy

Chapter 13 Flashcards

(44 cards)