Biological Foundations
This field, highlighted throughout Part 1 of the book, explores how environmental consequences can stably affect gene expression without changing the underlying DNA sequence.
What is epigenetics?
Behaviors followed by satisfying consequences are more likely to recur.
What is the Law of Effect?
Reinforcing closer approximations to a behavior is called this.
What is shaping?
Dr. Schneider argues that this global crisis is ultimately a behavioral problem that requires changes in policy and community-level contingencies.
What is climate change?
True or False: Immediate consequences typically outweigh delayed ones.
What is True?
This concept argues that behavior is not simply a matter of free will.
What is determinism?
Dr. Schneider uses this modern example of switching between a baseball game and a nature documentary to explain the proportional distribution of behavior.
What is the matching law?
This schedule produces the highest rate of responding.
What is variable ratio (VR)?
Zoo activities like hiding food or tug-of-war are examples of this.
What is enrichment?
True or False: Reinforcement requires awareness of contingencies.
What is False?
According to Schneider, behavior results from the interaction between these two factors.
What are genes and environment?
A decrease in response after repeated exposure to a stimulus.
What is habituation?
This schedule leads to pauses after reinforcement.
What is fixed ratio (FR)?
These animals were successfully trained using consequences to detect landmines, eventually becoming "licensed" in their field due to their efficiency and light weight.
What are gambian pouched rats?
True or False: Behavior persists without consequences once learned.
What is False?
This term refers to development across the lifespan.
What is ontogeny?
This effect occurs when treatment works due to prior learning, not the treatment itself.
What is the placebo effect?
This "dark side" anecdote features a contingency in which a dog that outwitted its owner's aversive control by using a blanket to set off spring-loaded traps on a couch.
What is an example of negative reinforcement?
This factor most strongly boosts student self-esteem, according to Schneider.
What are achievement and real successes?
The “golden ratio” for healthy relationships is this.
What is 5:1 (positive to negative)?
When rats learn a maze through consequences, this gene becomes activated.
What is the cfos gene?
This type of selection refers to the behaviors an individual organism acquires during its own lifetime through its interactions with the environment.
What is ontogenic selection?
The reduced value of delayed rewards is known as this.
What is delayed discounting?
In a famous anecdote from the author’s life, she shared a peanut butter and jelly lunch in a Harvard office with this founding father of behavior analysis.
Who is B.F. Skinner?
This principle states consequences depend more on interpretation than objective value.
What is perceived meaning of consequences?