Exam 02 Essays Flashcards
(2 cards)
Arthur tends to choose foods high in sugars and fats and avoids healthy choices like fruit. His mother and father decide to prepare healthy foods for dinner but they tell Arthur if he eats everything on his plate then he can have dessert. Arthur eats everything when dessert is cake or ice cream but not if dessert is fruit. After many months Arthur has not changed his preferences, only eats healthy food if there is no other choice and also remains overweight. Explain this result using Operant Conditioning theory. Explain how Arthur’s parents could have made use of Social Learning theory.
Arthur’s parents used Operant Conditioning to incentivize him into eating his healthy dinner.
That is, using a reinforcement to incentivize a task.
By using dessert as a positive reinforcement, Arthur will want to finish his dinner.
However, when the positive reinforcement is fruit, Arthur will not.
This means that Arthur’s primary reinforcement, the fatty and sugary dessert, takes precedence over being rewarded with fruit.
The specific behavior reinforced is that Arthur will always eat everything on his plate, even when full, encouraging overeating.
If Arthur’s parents made use of the Social Learning theory, Arthur could learn to like eating fruit as a dessert if his parents role model liking it as well.
Arthur’s parents need to eat healthy, stop when full, encourage portion sizes, and role model fruit as being good to promote healthy eating habits.
Melissa is 2 months old. For her crib her parents have chosen a mobile with objects that are designed in high-contrast black and white. Melissa’s grandfather says: “That’s not very pretty, how about a mobile with some blue bears and pink bunnies?” Apply your knowledge of infant visual development to explain why Grandpa’s idea is not the best for Melissa at this age and at what age his suggestion would be more appropriate.
Melissa’s grandfather’s idea is well intended but not helpful.
The visual acuity, that is, the sharpness and ability to focus onto objects of Melissa (being 2 months old) is not very good in comparison to an adult.
In addition, neither is Melissa’s color vision as her brain and eyes are still developing. Melissa is most likely to see the contrast between black-and-white or red-and-green much better than the slightly different blue-pink color scheme.
Contrast sensitivity, or the interest in light/dark contrast, will have more prominence in getting Melissa’s attention.
Additionally, the black and white mobile will help with experience expectancy that allows Melissa to see the outlines of the objects
Finally, the black and white mobile will also help Melissa’s feature detectors—cells which respond to lines and angles.
Melissa should have 20/20 vision by the time that she is 12m old, being able to accurately see the differences in the blue and pink colors.
