Week 1

Question 1

Define behavioural psychology

Answer 1

Describes the relationship between the environment and behaviour

Question 2

What does bmi tell us about

Answer 2

At a population level BMI can tell us things about a population at large
- BMI of North America has increased dramatically in the last 50 years

Question 3

Short summary about recent obesity in Brazil and the causes

Answer 3

Within one generation, they went from being malnourished to obese
- lower socio- economic status
- rural living (more driving, harder to access, leisure activities)
- living an area of high crime
- desk jobs
- food insecurity

Question 4

Changes at the population level

Answer 4

• it is not a failure of will- power
• it is not explained at the level of personality
• changes to the environment change behaviour

Question 5

Ultra processed food and non-
Communicable diseases

Answer 5

As ultra processed food increases in a culture, we see increased rates of obesity in the culture

Question 6

Social media and its impact on us

Answer 6

• spending more time on social media than we intended
• evidence that time on social media correlates with depression, anxiety, and loneliness.
• difficult to put our phones down

Question 7

Operant learning

Answer 7

Operant behaviour is behaviour that acts on the environment to produce a consequence, and as a result is strengthened by the consequence

Question 8

What are the key component of the behavioural approach

Answer 8

• Behaviour is learned
• Behaviours happen because they have been reinforced in the past
• behaviour is everything we see and do

Question 9

What are the basic principles of behaviour (4 term contingency)

Answer 9

1) Antecedents: motivating operations and discriminative stimuli (SP)
2) behaviour
3) Consequences: reinforcement, punishment

Question 10

What happens when we understand the function of a behaviour

Answer 10

When we understand the function of a behaviour, we can start to change the environment to alter behaviour

Question 11

The ethics of behaviour change

Answer 11

• most people are very comfortable embracing behavioural psychology when it comes to changing their own behaviours
  and

Question 12

Overt behaviours

Answer 12

Behaviours we can observe and measure

Question 13

Private events

Answer 13

• ## behaviour analysts believe that private events are governed by the same processes that govern overt behaviour

Question 14

Common reasons for referral include:

Answer 14

Aggression
Verbal assault
Swearing

Question 15

What do behavioural analysts believe about most behaviours

Answer 15

That the function of most behaviours are determined by environmental events that happen close to the behaviour in time or place