Description
What is Behaviorism?
A View on psychology that is focused on observable behaviors and not unobservable mental processes.
What is the definition of learning?
For us scholars of psychology, we can define learning as the process of acquiring, through experience, new and relatively enduring information behaviors. Whether through association, observable, or just plain thinking, learning is what allows us to adapt to our environments and to survive.
What is associative learning?
Associative learning is when a subject links certain events, behaviors, or stimuli together is the process of conditioning. This may be the most elemental, basic form of learning a brain can do.
What is operant conditioning?
If classical conditioning is all about forming associations between stimuli, operant conditioning involves associating our own behavior with consequences. The basic premise here is that behaviors increase when followed by a reinforcement, or reward, but they decrease when followed by a punishment.
What is classical conditioning?
Classical conditioning is an adaptive form of learning that helps an animal survive by changing its behavior to better suit its environment. Classical conditioning shows how a process like learning can actually be studied through direct observation of behavior, in real time, without all those messy feelings and emotions.
What is punishment?
Punishment decreases a behavior either positively, by say, giving a speeding ticket, or negatively, by taking away a driver’s license.
what is a primary reinforcer?
Primary reinforcers are reinforcers that make innate biological sense.
Describe the Little Albert experiment?
Watson conditioned a young child, dubbed “Little Albert” to fear a white rat. He accomplished this by pairing the rate with a loud, scary noise, over and over and then demonstrated that the child’s terror could branch out and be generalized to include other furry, white objects.
What is a reinforcement schedule?
An example of a reinforcement schedule is those boxed rats getting continuous reinforcement when they get a treat every single time they hit the lever, so they picked it up pretty quickly.
What is a Conditioned reinforcer
A paycheck is a conditioned reinforcer - we want money because we need food and shelter, which are still the primary dirvers.
Explain Skinner’s Box?
Skinner’s Box is an operant chamber that has a confirmed space containing a level or button that an animal could touch and get some kind of reward, typically food, along with a device that keeps track of its responses. The box provided an observable state to demonstrate Skinner’s concept of reinforcement, which is anything that increases the behavior that follows. In other words, you can push the lever, get a snack, and then you want to keep pushing the lever.
What is extinction?
If one day the rat chow doesn’t come, that connection quickly dwindles, and the rat stops hitting the lever. This is a process called extinction.