Behavioralism

1. Behavioralism Psychological perspective that emphasizing the role of learning and experience in determining behavior. A strict behavioralist believes that babies are tabula rasa and the study of psychology should focus purely on observable behaviors and not unobservable thoughts.

2. Associative learning – learning that certain events occur together • Classical conditioning – An INVOLUNTARY behavior is determined by what PRECEDES it • Operant conditioning – rewards and punishment; A VOLUNTARY behavior is determined by the anticipation of something that FOLLOWS it.

3. Which is which? 1. A child is attacked by a dog. The child now fears all dogs. 2. You do your homework every night to get good grades and avoid punishment. Classical – involuntary, stimulus precedes behavior Operant – voluntary, stimulus follows behavior

4. Ivan Pavlov’s Experiments • Pavlov paired a neutral stimulus (a bell) with a meat powder (which made the dog salivate). • Eventually, dog salivates to bell alone

5. Identifying Parts Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) Meat powder Unconditioned Response (UCR) Salivation Conditioned Stimulus (CS) Bell Conditioned Response (CR) Salivation * Hint: replace “conditioned” with “learned” to make it more intuitive.

6. Little Albert • John Watson – famous behavioralist • Little Albert – 11 month old orphan • Showed him a white rat. No fear. • Made a loud noise. Albert cried. • Showed him a white rat and made a loud noise. Albert cried. Repeated several times. • Eventually Albert cried at white rat alone.

7. Identify the parts • Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) • Loud noise • Unconditioned Response (UCR) • Fear/crying • Conditioned Stimulus (CS) • White rat • Conditioned Response (CR) • Fear/crying

8. Watson on childcare “ Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, merchant-chief, and yes, ever beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.” (1930)

9. Definitions • Acquisition – initial learning of the stimulus-response relationship (learning that bell means meat powder) • Extinction – diminished response to the conditioned stimulus when it is no longer coupled with UCS. (stop giving meat powder with bell and dog will stop salivating to bell) • Spontaneous recovery – reappearance of an extinguished CR after a rest. • Generalization – the tendency to respond to any stimuli similar to the CS (Dog salivates to other noises) • Discrimination – the ability to distinguish between the CS and similar stimuli (Dog only salivates to specific tone)

10. Application to Little Albert • If Little Albert generalized, what would we expect to happen? • He might cry at the sight of similar objects (he did – rabbit, dog, sealskin coat, some rumors – Santa’s beard) • How could we teach Little Albert to discriminate? • Continually expose him to stimuli similar to the rat, but only make the loud noise when exposing him to the rat • How could Little Albert’s conditioning be extinguished? • Continually expose him to a white rat without making the loud noise (unfortunately, this was never done because Little Albert was adopted soon after the original experiments (he would be 83 now if he is still alive – probably scared of rats!) • If Little Albert is still alive, his fear of white rats is likely to have been extinguished (no loud noise when he sees a rat). However, occasionally, when he sees a rat, he may find that his heart races for a second or two. What is this called? • Spontaneous recovery

11. On your own • With your partner, practice with the terms my completing the worksheet.

12. A friend has learned to associate the sound of a dentist’s drill to a fearful reaction because of a painful experience she had getting a root canal. In this example, what is the: • UCS? Pain from the drill • UCR? Fear • CS? Sound of the drill • CR? Fear

13. Using the example in question 4, give an example of how each of the following may occur: • Extinction: if the pain does not result when the drill is used, the CS (fear) will diminish. • Spontaneous recovery: the child returns for a visit the next day and the sound of the drill elicits fear again. • Generalization: the child becomes fearful of the sound of any motor • Discrimination: the child learns that only the high pitched dentist drill is associated with pain and not a low pitch hum of the vacuum cleaner.

14. A BMW commercial has lots of pretty people in it. People who watch the commercial find the people pleasing to look at. With repeated viewing, they begin to associate the car with the pleasant feeling. • UCS? Pretty people • UCR? Feeling good • CS? Sight of BMW • CR? Feeling good

15. You get in a car accident and find you are afraid to get in a car. • UCS? Pain of the accident • UCR? Fear • CS? Presence of car • CR? Fear

16. You go to a fancy restaurant and decide to try an appetizer you’ve never tried before – escargot. After dinner, you go to a concert and get violently ill (from a stomach virus that’s been going around). From then on, you can’t even look at snails without feeling sick. • UCS? Stomach virus • UCR? Feeling sick • CS? Sight of snails • CR? Feeling sick

17. You are cruising on 440 at 75 mph when you see flashing police lights behind you. You pull over and the policeman gives you a ticket. You get in insane amounts of trouble from your parents. The next time you see flashing police lights, your heart rate speeds up. • UCS? Getting in trouble from parents • UCR? Increased heart rate • CS? Flashing lights • CR? Increased heart rate

18. Name one practical application of classical conditioning. • Stop drug or alcohol addiction by pairing a nausea-producing drug with the drug of addiction. • Extinguish a drug addiction by administering a drug that blocks the pleasant feeling normally elicited by the drug. • If a child is afraid of rabbits because one bit him when he was young, you can expose the child to rabbits in safe environments repeatedly until the behavior is extinguished

19. Cancer patients and chemotherapy. • Cancer patients tend to associate the nausea produced by chemotherapy with the hospital setting. • UCS – chemotherapy • UCR – nausea • CS – hospital • CR – nausea

20. Cognitive Processes • It was once thought that cognitive processes weren’t involved in classical conditioning. Now we know better. For example, therapists give alcoholics drink containing a nausea-producing drug to condition them to avoid alcohol. Because clients KNOW that the drug is what is actually causing the nausea, it doesn’t work so well.

21. Biological Predispositions It was once believed that conditioning occurred the same in all animals (and therefore you could study human behavior by studying any animal) and that you could associate any neutral stimulus with a response. Not so. Animals have biological predispositions to associating certain stimuli over others • Example – You eat a novel food and later get sick. You will be conditioned to associate the taste of the FOOD with getting sick (and thus avoid that food in the future), but NOT the music playing in the restaurant, the plate it was served on, or the perfume your neighbor was wearing. • It is much easier to condition someone to have a fear of snake than of flowers. • Birds hunt by sight and will more quickly become conditioned to the SIGHT of tainted food