Five Schools of Behaviourism Flashcards
1
Q
Define behaviour.
A
Any activity of an organism that can be observed or measured.
2
Q
Define learning.
A
A relatively permanent change in behaviour that results from some experience.
3
Q
What is a relatively permanent change in behaviour that results from some experience?
A
Learning.
4
Q
What is any activity of an organism that can be observed or measured?
A
Behaviour.
5
Q
Learning can be: (2)
A
Immediate or delayed.
6
Q
Give two other names for classical conditioning.
A
Pavlovian conditioning or respondent conditioning.
7
Q
Explain classical conditioning at its most basic level.
A
The process by which certain inborn behaviours come to be produced in new situations.
8
Q
What kind of behaviours are typically involved in classical conditioning? (2)
A
Reflexive or involuntary.
9
Q
Explain operant conditioning.
A
The strengthening or weakening of a behaviour as a result of its consequences.
10
Q
What kind of behaviours are typically involved in operant conditioning? (2)
A
Goal-directed or voluntary.
11
Q
How does observational learning work?
A
The act of observing someone else’s behaviour facilitates the development of a similar pattern in yourself.
12
Q
Give a type of behaviour patten that is inherited and not learned.
A
Fixed action patterns.
13
Q
Aristotle is responsible for: (2)
A
Empiricism and the Laws of Association.
14
Q
What did Plato, Aristotle’s teacher, believe about learning?
A
That it was inborn, and learning was a process of inner reflection to uncover existing knowledge.
15
Q
In what way did Aristotle disagree with Plato?
A
He thought that knowledge was not inborn, but acquired through experience.
16
Q
What is Aristotle’s disagreement with Plato an example of?
A
The debate between nature and nurture.
17
Q
Give another name for the nature side of the debate.
A
Nativism.
18
Q
Give another name for the nurture side of the debate.
A
Empiricism.
19
Q
What does the nativist perspective argue?
A
A person’s abilities and tendencies are inborn.
20
Q
What does the empiricist perspective argue?
A
A person’s abilities and tendencies are learned.
21
Q
Name Aristotle’s four laws of association.
A
The law of similarity, the law of contrast, the law of contiguity, and the law of frequency.
22
Q
Explain the law of similarity.
A
Events that are similar to each other are readily associated with each other.
23
Q
Explain the law of contrast.
A
Events that are opposite from each other are associated.
24
Q
Explain the law of contiguity.
A
Events that occur in close proximity to each other in time or space are associated.
25
Explain the law of frequency.
The more frequently two items occur together, the more strongly they are associated.
26
Which of Aristotle's laws of association was added later?
The law of frequency.
27
What is Descartes famous for?
Mind-body dualism.
28
Explain mind-body dualism.
Some human behaviours are reflexes and some are freely chosen and controlled by the mind.
29
What did Descartes believe about the behaviour of animals?
That it was entirely reflexive.
30
What did Descartes believe only humans possessed?
A self-directing mind.
31
How did Descartes' theories aid the scientific investigation of learning and behaviour? (2)
Suggesting that the study of animal behaviour may provide insights into human behaviour, and, due to the mechanical nature of reflexes, they could be studied
32
What did the British empiricists maintain?
That all knowledge is a function of experience.
33
Who proposed that a newborn's mind was a blank slate?
John Locke.
34
Name a famous British empiricist.
John Locke.
35
What did John Locke believe about a newborn's mind?
That it was a blank slate upon which environmental experiences are written.
36
What does tabula rasa mean?
Blank slate.
37
What did the British empiricists believe the mind was made up of?
A finite set of basic elements that were combined through the principles of association into complex sensations and thought patterns.
38
Who was the first to propose a scientific method to investigate the structure of the mind?
William Wundt.
39
Give two people who are responsible for the development of structuralism.
Edward Titchener and William Wundt.
40
What does structuralism propose?
That it is possible to identify the structure of the mind by identifying the basic elements that compose it.
41
Describe introspection and which approach it is associated with.
Structuralism, and involves a subject attempting to describe their conscious thoughts, emotions and sensory experiences.
42
Structuralism's emphasis on ___ ___ helped establish psychology as a scientific discipline.
Systematic observation.
43
Who founded functionalism?
William James.
44
What does functionalism assume?
The mind evolved to help us adapt to the world around us.
45
Functionalism thought the the focus of study should be on what?
Adaptive processes.
46
Define natural selection.
The concept that individuals or species that are capable of adapting to environmental pressures are more likely to reproduce and pass along their adaptive characteristics.
47
Give the three main components to natural selection.
Traits vary within and between species, many traits are heritable, and organisms must compete for limited resources.
48
A trait that evolves as a result of natural selection is referred to as an:
Evolutionary adaptation.
49
From an evolutionary perspective, why do we have the ability to learn?
It confers significant survival advantages.
50
How did Watson aim to make psychology a purely objective science?
It would be based solely on the study of directly observable behaviour and the environmental events that surround it.
51
Give Watson's definition of behaviourism.
A natural science approach to psychology that focuses on the study of environmental influences on observable behaviour.
52
What kind of background did Watson have?
Functionalist.
53
What law does behaviourism adhere to?
The law of parsimony.
54
Explain parsimony.
The simplest explanation is preferable to a complex one.
55
What kind of behaviourism did Watson found?
Methodological behaviourism.
56
According to methodological behaviourism, what kind of behaviours should be studied?
Behaviours that can be directly observed.
57
Watson believed that all behaviour was essentially:
Reflexive.
58
According to methodological behaviourism, how does learning occur?
The development of a simple connection between and environmental event and a specific behaviour.
59
Watson's theory of learning is seen as a type of:
S-R theory.
60
According to Watson, how does complex behaviour occur?
Long chains of S-R connections.
61
What did Watson believe we inherit?
A few fundamental reflexes and the emotions love, rage and fear.
62
The most critical factor in determining expert performance is not innate ability but:
Deliberate practice.
63
Expert performers in almost all fields require a minimum of _ years of intensive training before achieving a high level of performance.
10.
64
What is deliberate practice?
Practice that is not enjoyable and does not involve repetition, but intense concentration and effort.
65
Name Hull's approach to behaviourism.
Hull's neobehaviourism.
66
How was Hull's approach different from Watson's?
He thought it would be useful for psychologists to infer the existence of internal events that might mediate environment and behaviour.
67
What kind of mediating events did Hull integrate into his theory?
Physiological reactions, or intervening variables.
68
Define Hull's neobehaviourism.
A brand of behaviourism that utilises intervening variables, in the form of hypothesised physiological processes, to help explain behaviour.
69
Why is Hull's theory a pure S-R theory?
It assumes that learning consists of the establishment of connections between specific stimuli and specific responses.
70
Hull believed that it might be useful to incorporate internal events into one's theorising so long as they can be ___ by defining them in such a way as they can be measured.
Operationalised.
71
Who was Hull's most famous critic?
Tolman.
72
Name Tolman's school of behaviourism.
Cognitive Behaviourism.
73
Why is Hull's S-R theory of learning categorised as a molecular theory?
It views behaviour as consisting as a long chain of specific responses connected to specific stimuli.
74
What is Tolman's molar approach to learning similar to?
The gestalt approach to perception.
75
Define Tolman's cognitive behaviourism.
Utilising intervening variables, usually in the form of hypothesised cognitive processes, to help explain behaviour.
76
What is Tolman's most famous intervening variable?
The cognitive map.
77
What is the cognitive map?
A mental representation of spatial surroundings.
78
Define latent learning.
Learning occurs despite the absence of any observable indication of learning and only becomes apparent under a different set of conditions.
79
What did Tolman have in common with Hull and Watson? (2)
He believed that introspective reports of thoughts and feelings are so unreliable as to be of little scientific value, and he placed a lot of value in animal research.
80
Name Bandura's approach to behaviourism.
Social learning theory.
81
How is Bandura similar to Tolman? (3)
He focuses on broad behaviour patterns, gives internal events a primary role in the learning process, and emphasises the distinction between learning and performance.
82
How does Bandura differ from Tolman?
The internal events are viewed as actual events occurring within us that strongly influence our behaviour.
83
According to Bandura, what do internal events include?
Self-referent thoughts about our abilities and accomplishments.
84
What, unlike the other behaviourists, does Bandura not dismiss?
Introspectively observed subjective experience in explaining behaviour.
85
Define social learning theory.
A cognitive-behavioural approach that strongly emphasises the importance of observational learning and cognitive variables in explaining human behaviour.
86
Explain reciprocal determinism.
Environmental events, observable behaviour, and person variables are seen as having a reciprocal influence on each other.
87
What are person variables?
Thoughts and feelings.
88
What has social learning theory stimulated? (2)
Research into observational learning, and the development of CBT.
89
Name Skinner's approach to behaviourism.
Radical behaviourism.
90
Give the five schools of behaviourism.
Watson's methodological behaviourism, Hull's neobehaviourism, Tolman's cognitive behaviourism, Bandura's social learning theory, and Skinner's radical behaviourism.
91
Explain radical behaviourism. (3)
Emphasises the influence of the environment on observable behaviour, rejects the use of internal events to explain behaviour, and views thoughts and feelings as behaviours that need to be explained.
92
How is radical behaviourism unlike methodological behaviourism?
Radical behaviourism doesn't completely reject the inclusion of internal events but rejects the use of these events as explanations for behaviour.
93
How did Skinner view internal events?
Covert or private behaviours that are subject to the same laws of leaning as overt behaviours.
94
Why did Skinner not want to include internal events are explanations for behaviour? (2)
The unreliability of verbal reports of internal events, and the way children are taught to label their internal events by caretakers.
95
Explain Skinner's countercontrol.
The deliberate manipulation of the environment to alter or impact behaviour.
96
Which behaviours did Skinner believe could be automatically elicited by the stimuli that preceded them?
Reflexive behaviours.
97
What is the name of the science that resulted from radical behaviourism? (2)
The experimental analysis of behaviour, or behaviour analysis.
98
What is applied behaviour analysis?
A technology of behaviour in which basic principles of behaviour are applied to solving real-world issues
99
Give another name for applied behaviour analysis.
Behaviour modification or behaviour therapy.
