individual differences Flashcards
(39 cards)
what are individual differences
- how people differ because of different environmental influences and experiences
why do people differ according to learning theories
environmental influences - patterns of reward
different behavior being observed - leading to different patterns of behavior
how does classical conditioning explain individual differences
- experiences lead to different associations between a neutral stimulus and a unconditioned stimulus leading to the unconditioned response which changes after learning so the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned response becomes the conditioned response
how does operant conditioning explain individual difference s
- predicts that patterns of reward shape differences
how does social learning theory explain individual differences
- individuals are exposed to different role models modelling different behaviors
- different experiences or each individual explains individual differences in behavior
how must a role model act
powerful and relevant in the eyes of the observer
how can a role model act relevant to somebody ?
high status
if they share similar characteristics to the observer
how to people learn stereotypical gender roles
- gender role and identity is a set of behaviours that are learned from the environment
- giving individual differences because people have different learning experiences
why is someone more likely to copy a role model who is the same gender as them
- they are more similar to them
- they will be reinforced/punished by the behaviour they imitate and its likely the child will be reinforced for acting the gender appropriate way, and punished for gender inappropriate behaviour
- they will have observed consequences of other people’s behaviour and will be motivated to avoid/copy it depending on whether it was reinforced or punished
what study did Fagot carry out ?
- she observed children around 2yrs old playing at home with their parents
- she recorded the reinforcements and punishments the parents provided
what did Fagot discover
- boys and girls were reinforced/punished for different behaviours
what did Fagot see boys being reinforced/ punished for ?
playing with gender appropriate toys, e.g bricks and punished for playing with dolls
what did Fagot observe girls being reinforced/punished for ?
- reinforced for staying close to the parent
- punished for rough and tumble play
what can Fagot conclude
boys and girls are reinforced for gender appropriate behaviour and punished for gender inappropriate behaviour
- supports idea that individual differences arise from how gender role behaviour is learnt from the childs environment
give example of classical conditioning which supports that we learn differently, not always at the same speed
Pavlov found that not all dogs responded to stimuli he presented the same way
Classical conditioning is sensitive to individual differences as some animals (and people) may only need ‘one trial’ learning but others need pairing of UCS with NS several times before learning occurs
give evidence of how operant conditioning supports if we respond to reinforcements and punishments in the same way ?
Vaughan et al - trained calves to urinate in specific locations following a system of reward, caused some calves to make this link more quickly than others
which individual differences does operant conditioning suggest could affect our learning speed ?
age
ability
temperament
motivation
how does the social learning theory explain why some children are more likely to imitate behaviour than others ?
- Bandura acknowledged that children would have different temperaments, and prior experiences which were extraneous variables that weren’t controlled
- self esteem and self efficacy plays a role in modelling
self efficacy
how an individual feels about their capability to succeed at a task. According to SLT an individual will only copy a behaviour if they believe they are capable of doing so
- why some are more likely to imitate than others
developmental psychology
study of how behaviour changes as a person grows up
generally focuses on children’s development
how does operant conditioning suggest we learn language
from our environment and consequences of our actions
how can a child learn language through positive reinforcement
- reward infant vocalisations e.g babbling
- this increases frequency of vocalisation
- reinforcement when babies start to associate words with meanings
give an example of how a baby is reinforced to help them associate words with meanings
if they babble milk and a mother gives them milk as reward, makes them more likely to make the link
after initial vocalisation reinforcements, how do parents get babies to continue to develop their language using operant conditioning
- parents pay less attention to vocalising
- motivates baby to vary babbling
- if they produce more recognisable speech sounds, parents respond excitedly = rewarding child
- once this becomes normalised, parents ignore again until the shaping process results in sentences, being able to speak