Week 1: Introduction Flashcards
Applied Behaviour Analysis
A technology of behaviour in which basic principles of behaviour are applied to solving real-world problems
Behaviour
Any activity of an organism that can be observed or measured
Behaviour Analysis
Behavioural science
From Skinner’s radical behaviourism
(experimental analysis of behaviour)
Behaviourism
A natural science approach to psychology
Environmental influences on observable behaviour
Watson - high value in nonhuman animals.
British Empiricism
Philosophy that almost all knowledge is a function of experience.
John Locke.
Conscious mind uses finite set of basic elements and association to create complex thought patterns.
Cognitive Behaviourism
Intervening variables, usually hypothesized cognitive processes (expectations or hypotheses), to explain behaviour.
“Purposive behaviourism.”
Cognitive Map
The mental representation of one’s spatial surroundings
Countercontrol
The deliberate manipulation of environmental events to alter their impact on our behaviour
Empiricism
In psychology, the assumption that behaviour patterns are mostly learned rather than inherited (nurture)
Evolutionary Adaptation
An inherited trait that has been shaped through natural selection. Ex: flexion response, ability to learn.
Functionalism
The mind evolved to help us adapt to the world around us. Should focus on those adaptive processes (learning).
William James.
Used introspection and saw similarities between human and nonhuman animals.
Introspection
The attempt to accurately describe one’s conscious thoughts, emotions and sensory experiences
Latent Learning
Learning that occurs in the absence of any observable indication of learning and only becomes apparent at a later time
Law of Contiguity
A law of association in which events that occur in close proximity to each other in time or space are readily associated with each other
Law of Contrast
A law of association in which events that are opposite from each other are readily associated with each other
Law of Frequency
A law of association in which the more frequently two items occur together the more strongly they are associated with each other
Law of Similarity
A law of association in which events that are similar to each other are readily associated with each other
Learning
A relatively permanent change in behaviour that results from some type of experience
Methodological Behaviourism
Watson.
Psychology should study only behaviours that can be directly observed.
S-R Theory.
Mind-Body Dualism
Descartes’ philosophical assumption that some human behaviours are bodily reflexes that are automatically elicited by external stimulation while other behaviours are freely chosen.
Nativism
The assumption that a person’s characteristics are largely inborn (Nature)
Natural Selection
The evolutionary principle according to which organisms that are better able to adapt to environmental pressures are more likely to reproduce and pass along those adaptive characteristics that those that cannot adapt
Neobehaviourism
Utilizes intervening variables, in the form of hypothesized physiological processes to help explain behaviour.
Inferences about events can be operationalized.
S-R Theory.
Radical Behaviourism
Emphasizes the influence of the environment on overt behaviour, rejects the use of internal events to explain behaviour and views thoughts and feelings as behaviours that themselves need to be explained
