Learning: the change of behavior as a function of experience
Stimuli that occur close together in time will come to elicit the same response; for example, air puffs and a bell ringing will both elicit blinking.
Activity 15-2. Learned helplessness anagrams (I like to do this activity before we get to the section on learned helplessness so students are more likely to actually experience learned helplessness because we haven’t talked about it yet.)
Emphasizes objectivity, publicly observable data, and tight theoretical reasoning: so it’s seen by many as more scientific than other approaches; focus on aspects of psychology that can be observed directly and therefore are outside of the mind
Definition: study of how a person’s behavior is a direct result of his environment, particularly the rewards and punishments that the environment contains
People should be studied from the outside: All knowledge worth having comes from direct, public observation; introspection is not valid because it cannot be verified; environment is what’s important
Personality is the sum of everything a person does: does not include anything that cannot be directly observed (traits, unconscious conflicts, etc.); internal processes are not seen as important
Belief that the causes of behavior can be directly observed: because the causes are in the environment (rewards and punishments in the social world)
Functional analysis: determining how behavior is a function of one’s environment; the goal of behaviorism
Empiricism: idea that all knowledge comes from experience
In opposition to rationalism: idea that the structure of the mind determines our experience of reality; this is the belief held by phenomenologist's and some deconstructionists and cultural psychologists
Associationism: idea that any two things, including ideas, become mentally associated as one if they are repeatedly experienced close together in time
Hedonism: organisms learn for two reasons: to seek pleasure and to avoid pain
Implications for values and morality: whatever produces the most pleasure for the most people is good
Utilitarianism: the best society creates the most happiness for the largest number of people; this is more important than truth, freedom, and dignity
Habituation: a decrease in responsiveness with each repeated exposure to something
How to maintain the intensity of the original response: The stimulus has to change or continually increase.
It is possible to habituate to violence portrayed in the media and video games (and there is evidence that this decreases helping behavior), winning the lottery (winners are not happier in the long run), and being paralyzed (people are not less happy in the long run)
Classical conditioning: the kind of learning in which an unconditioned response that is naturally elicited by one stimulus becomes elicited also by a new, conditioned stimulus
Classical conditioning affects normally involuntary processes: insulin release, speed of heartbeat, nausea, opponent processes that lessen the effects of drugs, etc.
Learned helplessness: belief that nothing one does really matters; occurs when events seem to happen randomly and cannot be predicted; produces anxiety and depression
Stimulus-response (S-R) connections in personality: personality is our learned repertoire of S-R associations; people are unique because they have different learning histories
Activity 15-1. Classical conditioning: “That was easy”
Operant conditioning: the process of learning in which an organism’s behavior is shaped by the effect of the behavior on the environment
Thorndike’s law of effect: responses followed by a rewarding state of affairs will be strengthened, and responses followed by an aversive state of affairs will be weakened.
Figure 15.1 on p. 530—Thorndike’s puzzle box
Skinner article in the reader—Why organisms behave
Skinner box: used to figure out the laws of operant conditioning
Reinforcement: a good result that makes a behavior more likely
Shaping: raising the criterion for reward until the desired behavior is produced
People are not always aware of the causes of their behavior: usually when this occurs the rewards are hidden.
Definition: an aversive consequence that follows an act in order to stop it and prevent its repetition
Availability of alternative responses: Alternatives should be rewarded and not punished so people can learn what they are supposed to do.
Behavioral and situational specificity: about what is being punished and when, so people learn what they are not supposed to do and what is okay to do; punish yelling inside but not outside
Apply punishment immediately after the behavior and every time it occurs: to ensure understanding of what is being punished
Condition secondary punishing stimuli: Verbal warnings are usually effective and allow the avoidance of the actual punishment.
Avoid mixed messages: Don’t console directly after punishing, because the consolation can be rewarding.
Arousing emotion: in the punisher (can lead to loss of control) and the punished (pain, discomfort, humiliation, fear of the punisher, self-contempt; decreases likelihood that something will be learned from the punishment)
It is difficult to be consistent: Mood can influence type and severity of punishment.
It is difficult to gauge the severity of punishment: for physical and psychological punishment
Teaches misuse of power: that powerful people get to hurt less powerful people
Activity 15-3. Functional analysis of punishment
Kohler’s chimpanzees: figuring out puzzles; they did more than learn from rewards; they developed insight (based on sudden changes in behavior that imply understanding the situation)
Link to Youtube video that shows an example of insightful behavior: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPz6uvIbWZE
Ignoring of motivation, thought, and cognition: in social learning theory (SLT), these are important parts of learning
Primarily based on animal research: some aspects of learning (insight, thinking) may be more important in humans than in the animals studied by behaviorists (rats, pigeons, dogs)
Ignores the social dimension of learning: but we often learn by watching others
Organisms are treated as essentially passive: behaviorists put animals in particular environments with specific rules for which behaviors will and which will not be reinforced; people often seek out environments and change them once they are there
Habit hierarchy: all of the behaviors an individual might do, ranked in order from most to least probable; the key idea of this theory; a person’s most likely behavior is at the top of the hierarchy and the least likely behavior is at the bottom
Motivation: what a person wants and why they want it
Drive: a state of psychological tension that feels good when reduced
Primary drives: a drive that is innate to an organism; food, water, physical comfort, avoidance of physical pain, sexual gratification, etc.
Secondary drives: a drive that is learned through its association with a primary drive; love, prestige, money, power, and avoidance of fear and humiliation; learned during socialization
Drive reduction theory: for a reward to have the power to encourage the target behavior, the reward must satisfy a need; implies that the goal of all behavior is to satisfy every desire, which would result in no motivation; but this does not seem like a desirable state and people often increase their level of need
The frustration-aggression hypothesis: the natural reaction to being blocked from a goal is frustration, which results in the urge to lash out and injure; preferred target is the source of the frustration, but the aggression can be directed elsewhere
Approach-avoidance conflict: addresses the conflict between desire and fear and how it can change over time
5 keys assumptions
Stronger response: the one with greater drive strength
#5 is the most important assumption, and results in the avoidance gradient
Many goals of both positive and negative elements: the negative elements become more important than the positive elements as the event gets closer in time
Figure 15.5 on p. 545—Approach-avoidance conflict
Primary concerns of the theory: decision making and the role of expectancies
Expectancy value theory: behavioral decisions are determined by the presence or size of reinforcements and beliefs about the likely results of behavior; even if a reinforcement is very attractive, you are not likely to pursue it if your chances of success seem slim; even something that is not particularly desirable might motivate behavior, if the chances of getting it are good enough
Expectancy: belief about how likely it seems that the behavior will attain its goal; can be right or wrong; the belief is what causes action or inaction; different from classical behaviorism, in which the actual reward is what is important
Specific expectancy: belief that a certain behavior, at a certain time and place, will lead to a specific outcome
Generalized expectancies: general beliefs about whether anything you do is likely to make a difference
Locus of control: generalized expectancies; people with high generalized expectancies have an internal locus of control and people with low generalized expectancies have an external locus of control; domain-specific (academic, health, etc.)
Builds directly on Rotter's theory
Efficacy expectations: one’s belief that one can perform a given goal-directed behavior; Bandura's interpretation of Rotter's expectancies; difference is Rotter focused on the likelihood of success if something is done and Bandura focused on the likelihood of being able to do something in the first place
Self-efficacy: another name for efficacy expectations; a belief about what one is capable of doing
Influenced by the self-concept (attractiveness, ability level)
How to change behavior: change efficacy expectations by watching someone else accomplish the behavior (modeling) or forcing yourself to do the behavior
Observational learning: learning a behavior vicariously, by seeing someone else do it; very different from classic behaviorism
Bobo doll experiments—search Youtube if you want to show a video
Figure 15.6 on p. 550
Reciprocal determinism: the way people affect their environments even while their environments affect them
People are not passive: they can choose their environments and change situations
Figure 15.7 on p. 551.
Bandura article in the reader—The self system in reciprocal determinism
People do more than behave, observe, and expect—they also think.
Personal construct theory: Personal constructs are the idiosyncratic ideas about the world that guide each individual’s perceptions and thoughts.
Thoughts proceed simultaneously on multiple tracks that occasionally intersect: many things happen at the same time, and we are only aware of some of them; thoughts, feelings, and behavior are the product of compromises between these different processes; consistent with psychodynamic theory
Definition of personality: a stable system that mediates how an individual selects, construes, and processes social information and generates social behaviors
Cognitive person variables: properties and activities of the cognitive system; this is where individual differences in personality come from
Cognitive and behavioral construction competencies: mental abilities and behavioral skills; IQ, creativity, social skills
Encoding strategies and personal constructs: ideas about how the world can be categorized and efficacy expectations
Subjective stimulus values: beliefs about the probabilities of attaining a goal if it is pursued; value placed on different rewarding outcomes (money vs. prestige)
Self-regulatory systems and plans: a set of procedures that control behavior; also how people directly control their own thoughts; self-reinforcement, selection of situations, and purposeful alteration of the situations selected
Affects: feelings and emotions; influence social information processing and coping behavior; added to the updated model
If . . . then contingencies: a repertoire of actions triggered by particular stimulus situations
Behavioral signature: a person’s unique pattern of contingencies
Mischel wants these to replace traits as the essential units for understanding personality differences: redescribe traits and specific behavior patterns
Mischel article in the reader—Personality coherence and dispositions in a Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) approach
Establishing psychology as an objective science: tight theoretical reasoning, careful experimental design, backs up statements with data
A technology of behavior change: because the process of learning is about changing behavior; works well in the short run
Unclear whether behavioral therapies are generalizable and long-lasting: People are more complicated than learning theories acknowledge.
Underappreciation: This makes it harder to change people’s behavior, because it is hard to know how an individual will respond to a specific situation.
