A complex, unlearned behavior that involves the whole organism and is triggered by broad events such as seasonal change, like a bird's yearly migration, is an instinct.
Missing Word
instinct
An instinct is an innate behavior that is more complex than a reflex. It engages the whole organism and higher brain centers, and it is set off by broad events such as maturation or the change of seasons.
Category: Learning Basics
Question 2
The school of thought holding that psychology should study only observable actions rather than mental processes is called behaviorism.
Missing Word
behaviorism
Behaviorism, founded by John B. Watson and extended by B. F. Skinner, limits psychology to observable stimuli and responses. Skinner described the mind as a black box that behaviorists did not need to open.
Category: Learning Basics
Question 3
Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist studying digestion in dogs, discovered classical conditioning by accident when the dogs began salivating at cues that came before their food.
Missing Word
Pavlov
Pavlov noticed that his dogs salivated at the sound of footsteps or the sight of an empty bowl. He then showed that a tone paired with food came to trigger salivation, the classic demonstration of classical conditioning.
Category: Classical Conditioning
Question 4
In the 1920 Little Albert study, John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner conditioned an infant to fear a white rat by pairing it with a sudden loud noise.
Missing Word
Watson
Watson, the founder of behaviorism, used the study to show that emotions such as fear can be classically conditioned. The research would be considered unethical today.
Category: Classical Conditioning
Question 5
John Garcia showed that rats readily learn to avoid a flavor paired with later illness but do not learn to avoid a light or sound paired with the same illness.
Missing Word
Garcia
Garcia's work with Robert Koelling showed biological constraints on learning: animals are prepared to link tastes with sickness far more easily than they link sights or sounds with it.
Category: Classical Conditioning
Question 6
The first stage of classical conditioning, in which the neutral and unconditioned stimuli are paired and the learned response grows stronger, is called acquisition.
Missing Word
acquisition
Acquisition is the initial learning period in which the neutral stimulus becomes linked to the unconditioned stimulus and begins to trigger a conditioned response.
Category: Conditioning Processes
Question 7
In classical conditioning, the gradual weakening of a learned response when the conditioned stimulus keeps appearing without the unconditioned stimulus is called extinction.
Missing Word
extinction
Extinction occurs when the conditioned stimulus no longer predicts the unconditioned stimulus, so the conditioned response fades. The response can return after a rest through spontaneous recovery.
Category: Conditioning Processes
Question 8
The law of effect, proposed by Edward Thorndike, states that behaviors followed by satisfying consequences are more likely to be repeated.
Missing Word
Thorndike
Thorndike's law of effect also holds that behaviors followed by unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated. Skinner built his operant conditioning research on this idea.
Category: Operant Conditioning
Question 9
The operant chamber in which a rat presses a lever to earn food, while a recorder counts its responses, is often called a Skinner box.
Missing Word
Skinner
Behaviorist Skinner designed the operant chamber to study how consequences shape behavior. Rats pressed levers or pigeons pecked disks to receive food.
Category: Operant Conditioning
Question 10
Any consequence of a behavior, whether something is added or something is taken away, that makes the behavior more likely to occur again is called reinforcement.
Missing Word
reinforcement
Reinforcement strengthens behavior. Adding a pleasant stimulus is positive reinforcement, and removing an unpleasant one is negative reinforcement.
Category: Operant Conditioning
Question 11
In operant conditioning, the process of following a behavior with a consequence that reduces how often it recurs is called punishment.
Missing Word
punishment
Punishment decreases behavior. Adding an unpleasant stimulus, such as a reprimand, is positive punishment, and removing a pleasant one, such as a privilege, is negative punishment.
Category: Operant Conditioning
Question 12
In gamblers, near misses on a slot machine raise the activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain's reward centers.
Missing Word
dopamine
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter tied to reward. Its response to near misses, combined with the variable ratio payout of slot machines, helps explain why gambling is so hard to stop.
Category: Reinforcement Schedules
Question 13
In observational learning, the person whose behavior is watched and imitated is called the model.
Missing Word
model
A model can be live, verbal or symbolic, and observers are more likely to copy a model whose behavior is rewarded than one whose behavior is punished.
Category: Observational Learning
Question 14
Albert Bandura developed social learning theory, which adds cognitive processes such as attention and memory to conditioning-based accounts of learning.
Missing Word
Bandura
Bandura argued that people learn by watching others and that internal mental states shape whether they imitate what they see. He described the steps of attention, retention, reproduction and motivation.
Category: Observational Learning
Question 15
Children who watched an adult punch and kick an inflatable Bobo doll were later more likely to show the same physical aggression themselves.
Missing Word
aggression
In the Bobo doll experiments, children copied the adult's aggression, including the words used, and they were less likely to do so when they saw the adult punished. The studies showed that aggression can be learned through observation.
Category: Observational Learning