Generalization

-Tendency to respond to stimuli resembling the CS

Operant Conditioning: the process whereby an organism learns to associate a response and its consequences and thus to repeat acts followed by rewards and avoid acts followed by punishment

Edward Thorndike

“father of Operant Conditioning; first one to describe this conditioning, not the most important

-Experiment with cats

  built puzzleboxes in which he would put cats 1 at a time inside and put tuna outside of box, cats smell it, want out of box but trick to get out –cats have to solve puzzles, waits to see animals get out

--Expected 1^st time it would take cats awhile to escape; 2^nd time won’t take that long; but that’s not what happened what happeneed was time to escape increased over time subtley, noticed strategy animals used was animals would repeat behavior that led them to get out of box (example: scratch the wall when they accidently stepped on the trattle and escaped from the box) but no hint  that the animals got insight; trial and error

LAW OF EFFECT

Law of effect:

If a response in a presence of a stimulus is followed by as satisfying event, the association between the stimulus and the response will be strengthened; if the response is followed by an annoying event, the association will be weakened.

·         Main point=consequences are important to behavior, consequence of behavior matters bc consequences determine us repeating that behavior.

B.F. Skinner:

   Doesn’t like the way Thorndike studied w cats,

·         Skinner box-(ex: youtube clip about rat pushing down bar for food) normally used for rats and pigeons

o   Better apartatus to collect data w/o handling animal

·         Disagreed w/Thorndike’s definiton of law and effect bc what is the objective measure of somehting being annoying and something satisfying

·         Came up with terminology for good consequences

o   Reinforcement

Reinforcers: Stimuli that increase the

probability of behavior (if daughter finishes hw

all the time bc if she does she gets to watch

spongebob=reinforcer; if I don’t clean the

house bc spongebob is my reward=not a

reinforcer for me)

require learning Ex:money established by classical conditioning. Another ex:clapping (think of baby kicking toy and telling it it got a good grade=nothing happens, but for college students learn to associate A+ with positive things)

§  PRESENTATION of a desirable stimulus increases the probability of behavior.

REMOVAL of an aversive stimulus increases the probability of behavior. (remove something a person does not like; example: if you say if you get everything done in the office then you won’t have to clean the house tn=neg reinforcement; if you say to a kid if you finish all your hw tn you don’t have to study anymore)

§  Presentation of an aversive stimulus decreases the probability to behavior (Ex:spanking or yelling: giving child something they don’t like; policeman giving a ticket for driving fast=don’t like the ticket so decreases probability of speading)

o   Method of successive approximations

§  Reward respnses that are ever-closer to the final desired behavior

·         (rats every time they go toward the bar-give food, when they sniff the bar give them food, then only when they touch the bar give food, then only reinforce if press the bar)

§  Ignore all other responses

process of observing and imitating a specific behavior

add things or remove things from behavior

Example: guy on elevator pushes button w his nose bc his hands are full of groceries. you see this and learn that you could use your nose too, but your hands are free so you choose to push the button with your finger. use your own knowledge to evaluate whether or not to add/remove from your behavior

·         Economy: learning through observation usually saves time

·         Less danerous than trial and error

·         Allows for flexible behavior

·         Transmission of knowledge

When do we start imitating?

            -Facial expressions can be imitated by infants as young as 2 or 3 weeks old

            -9 month old infants can imitate a novel play behavior

            -14 months old can imitate acts modeled on television

·         If child sees other child misbehaving and getting punished, they wont imitate it. But if the child acted good and got a piece of candy, then they will imitate that behavior. But it depends on whetehr the child personally liked the award

use it to assess whether we will be successful or not

-ex: if child doesn’t know how to ice skate and see older girls ice skating probably will assess that she can’t do it., but if the child is 4 then she will feel that she can do it too since she is similar to her

Status of model

Higher status of model, more likely to imitate the behavior

                        Ex: imitating older brother or sisters actions

Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961

Experiment indicates that children can learn aggressive behaviors by watching aggressive models

-watching aggressive models on TV and in movies may also enhance the viewer’s tendency to aggress

watching a model engage in prosocial behavior can increase a viewer’s tendency to help others