10/14/08 1 Personality Psychology Psychology 370 Sheila K. Grant, Ph.D. Professor California State University, Northridge CHAPTER TEN SKINNER AND STAATS: The Challenge of Behaviorism Chapter Overview RADICAL BEHAVIORISM: SKINNER ! Part IV: The Learning Perspective ! Illustrative Biography: Tiger Woods ! Behavior as the Data for Scientific Study The Evolutionary Context of Operant Behavior The Rate of Responding ! Learning Principles Reinforcement: Increasing the Rate of Responding Punishment and Extinction: Decreasing the Rate of Responding Additional Behavioral Techniques ! Schedules of Reinforcement ! Applications of Behavioral Techniques Therapy Education ! Radical Behaviorism and Personality Theory: Some Concerns Chapter Overview PSYCHOLOGICAL BEHAVIORISM: STAATS ! Reinforcement ! Basic Behavioral Repertoires The Emotional-Motivational Repertoire The Language-Cognitive Repertoire The Sensory-Motor Repertoire ! Situations ! Psychological Adjustment ! The Nature-Nurture Question from the Perspective of Psychological Behaviorism Chapter Overview Personality Assessment from a Behavioral Perspective ! The Act-Frequency Approach to Personality Measurement ! Contributions of Behaviorism to Personality Theory and Measurement Part IV: The Learning Perspective ! Ivan Pavlov: Heuristic Accendental Discovery Classical Conditioning ! John B. Watson: Early Behaviorist ! B. F. Skinner: Radical Behaviorism ! Arthur Staats: Psychological Behaviorism10/14/08 2 Conditioning—the process of learning associations ! Classical Conditioning ! (aka Pavlovian Conditioning) ! Reflexive or respondent behavior ! Automatic response to a stimulus ! Operant Conditioning ! Responses are learned because of their consequences ! Behavior is strengthened by a reinforcer; diminished by a punishment ! Behavior is voluntary Ivan Pavlov 1849-1936 Russian physician/ neurophysiologist Studied digestive secretions of dogs Nobel Prize 1904 Discovered classical conditioning Pavlov’s Discovery of Classical Conditioning Unconditioned Stimulus (US)- a stimulus that naturally (automatically) brings about a response Unconditioned Response (UR)- a natural response that requires no training Neutral Stimulus (NS)- a stimulus that in the absence of conditioning does not elicit a response Conditioned Stimulus (CS)- a once neutral stimulus that becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus to produce a Conditioned Response Conditioned Response (CR)- the learned response to a once neutral stimulus John Watson—Founder of Behaviorism Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. -- John Watson (1924) Watson’s Classic “Little Albert” Experiments John Watson and Rosalie Rayner Little Albert (click to view)10/14/08 3 Illustrative Biography: Tiger Woods ! Development Illustrative Biography: Tiger Woods ! Description ! Adaptation & Adjustment Illustrative Biography: Tiger Woods ! Cognitive Processes ! Society ! Biological Influences http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2006/tiger-just-do-it-p1.php Preview of Skinner’s and Staats’s Theory Radical Behaviorism: Skinner B. F. Skinner • Burrhus Frederic Skinner born in 1904 in Pennsylvania • Inventor and writer as a youngster • Doctorate in Psychology from Harvard (1931) • Professorships at Minnesota, Indiana and Harvard • Died in 1990 of Leukemia10/14/08 4 Behavior as the Data for Scientific Study The Evolutionary Context of Operant Behavior The Rate of Responding The Evolutionary Context Of Operant Behavior ! behavior selected by the environment operant conditioning Mode of learning in which the frequency of responding is influenced by the consequences that are contingent upon a response ! bar-pressing in rats, reinforced by food ! smiling in a child, reinforced by parental approval Definition: Examples: The Rate of Responding ! Skinner box controls the environment ! operant response ! response Learning Principles Reinforcement: Increasing the Rate of Responding Punishment and Extinction: Decreasing the Rate of Responding Additional Behavioral Techniques Reinforcement—anything that increases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated ! Positive Reinforcement rewards or other positive consequences that follow behaviors ! A pat on the back for scoring the winning goal Negative Reinforcement removing an aversive stimulus; engaging in behavior to remove a “negative” stimulus Taking an aspirin to get rid of a headache10/14/08 5 Reinforcement: Increasing the Rate of Responding ! positive reinforcer ! base rate ! primary reinforcer ! secondary reinforcer ! negative reinforcer Punishment and Extinction: Decreasing the Rate of Responding punishment: a stimulus contingent upon a response and that has the effect of decreasing the rate of responding extinction: reduction in the rate of responding when reinforcement ends Additional Behavioral Techniques ! shaping: reinforcement of successive approximations of behavior ! chaining: one response produces or alters some of the variables that control another response ! discrimination learning: learning to respond differentially, depending on environmental stimuli ! generalization: responding to stimuli that are similar to, but not identical to, the stimuli present during training Schedules of Reinforcement ! Continuous Reinforcement ! Partial Reinforcement fixed ratio schedule (FR) variable ratio schedule (VR) fixed interval schedule (FI) variable interval schedule (VI) Applications of Behavioral Techniques ! Therapy behavior modification functional analysis token economies ! Education teaching machines (programmed
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