Notes 12

Kyle Park
11E
12/02/14
Notes

Classical or Operant
A very bright (mildly painful) light is turned on a rat. The rat has learned that he can turn off the light by pressing a lever on the other side of his cage. As soon as the light comes on, the rat runs across the room and presses the lever.
Negative Reinforcement because it gets rid of the painful light, which will strengthen this behavior.

Criticisms of Behaviorism
De-emphasizes the role of internal thoughts and feelings in behavior; Presents humans as lacking free will.
Ignores biological predispositions (survival over environment)

Bio-Psycho-Social Approach to Learning

1. Biological Influence
Genetic predispositions
Unconditioned responses
Adaptive responses
2. Psychological Influence
Previous experiences
Predictability of associations
Generalization
Discrimination
3. Social-Culture Influence
Culturally learned presences
Motivation, affected by presence of others

Biological Constraints on Learning
Experiments with humans and animals both indicate that biological predispositions influence conditioning.
Easily learn & retain behaviors that are NATURALLY ADAPTIVE.
Human societies built on behaviorist principles.

Cognition’s influence
Expectations alter the effectiveness of conditioning
Alcoholics – drink with nausea inducing drug = nausea (once conscious of drugs existence, the association breaks down)
Over-justification effect
Associations influence attitudes

Latent Learning
Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.
Observational learning…
Cognitive maps – mental layout of one’s environment (mice).
Insight Learning: piecing together new solutions to problems that have never existed before.

Intrinsic Motivation
(The desire to perform a behavior effectively and for its own sake.)

Extrinsic Motivation
(Seeks out reward and avoids punishment).