PSYC 2618 Conditioning Lecture 6B

a relatively permanent behavior change due to experience LEARNING

anything in the environment that can be perceived STIMULUS

the process of learning associations CONDITIONING

learning associations between events we don’t control acquiring emotional & physiological reactions to previously insignificant stimuli CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

PAVLOV’S EXPERIMENTS & TERMINOLOGY

the tendency, after conditioning, to respond similarly to stimuli that resemble the conditioned stimulus GENERALIZATION

the weakening of a conditioned response when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus EXTINCTION

learning that affects the probability of engaging in a particular action in the future behavior is influenced by its consequences OPERANT CONDITIONING

SKINNER’S EXPERIMENTS & TERMINOLOGY

gradually molding a desired behavior by reinforcing responses that come close to that behavior SHAPING

Increases behaviors by presenting desirable stimuli POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

increases behaviors by eliminating undesirable stimuli NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT

the weakening of a response when it is no longer reinforced EXTINCTION

decreases behaviors by presenting undesirable stimuli or eliminating desirable stimuli very different from negative reinforcement! PUNISHMENT

Swift Consistent Sufficiently strong To be effective, punishment should be:

It may only suppress undesirable behavior. The punished person does not “forget” this behavior. The punished person may view aggression as an acceptable way to cope with problems. As a result, the person may imitate the punisher’s aggressive behavior. The punished person may learn to fear and avoid the punisher (classical conditioning). POTENTIAL PITFALLS OF PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT

reinforcing a response only part of the time PARTIAL REINFORCEMENT