1. Let’s Review:

2. Which schedule? Door-to-door salespeople
People checking the oven to see if the cookies are done
Airline frequent-flyer programs that offer a free flight after every 25,000 miles of travel
Variable ratio, fixed interval, fixed ratio

3. Continuous vs. Partial Schedules
Continuous are excellent for training behavior quickly
Quick results must be reinforced after every desired behavior occurs
Issue: extinguishes too quickly
Best way to have desired behavior stick – use a partial schedule
More resistant to extinction

4. Reinforcement Positive vs. Negative reinforcement OC Term Description
Examples
Positive Reinforcement
Add a desirable stimulus
Getting a hug, receiving a paycheck
Negative Reinforcement
Remove an aversive stimulus
Fastening seatbelt to turn off beeping

5. Punishment: opposite of reinforcement
Punisher = any consequence that decreases frequency of behavior
Positive vs. Negative punishment

6. Positive vs. Negative Punishment
Type of Punisher
Description
Possible Examples
Positive punishment
Administer an aversive stimulus
Spanking, parking ticket
Negative punishment
Withdraw a desirable stimulus
Time-out from privileges, revoked driver’s license

7. Controversies and difference in delineation
Arizona introduces exceptionally harsh sentence for first-time drunk drivers
it did not affect the drunk driving rate
Kansas City started patrolling a high crime area to increase the sureness and swiftness of punishment
Crime rate dropped dramatically
What’s the conclusion?
due to impulsiveness of criminal activity, sureness and swiftness are marks of effective criminal punishment, and threat of severe sentence is not

8. Punishment and Parenting: 4 Drawbacks according to psychologists who agree that physical punishment is wrong
Punished behavior is suppressed, not forgotten
Suppression, although temporary, aims to negatively reinforce parents’ behaviors for punishing
Punishment teaches discrimination
Have you ever been punished for something and learned just that you had to stop the behavior in a certain environment, but continued it elsewhere?
Punishment can teach fear
Teacher who punishes often may create avoidance of students in classroom
Physical punishment may increase aggressiveness by modeling aggression as a way to cope with problems

9. Baumrind’s Parenting Research: Punishment may be effective in some cases
Based on principle that punishment tells you what not to do, reinforcement tells you what to do
A swat is used only as backup to milder disciplinary tactics, like a time-out, removing them from reinforcing surroundings
Swatting with a generous dose of reasoning

10. Conclusion: Change the conversation for punishment that is successful
Punishment is only effective if paired with reinforcement – doesn’t mean that punishment should be used in every scenario
Language is as important as intensity of action
“Clean your room or no dinner!” vs. “You’re welcome to join us for dinner after your room is cleaned.”

11. Role of Cognition in Operant Models
Latent Learning – learning occurs, but is not apparent, until incentive is in place
Studying rats in mazes (Tolman and Honzik)
Cognitive map: mental representation of the layout of one’s environment

12. Cognition in operant cont’d:
Insight Learning
Wolfgang K, Mentality of Apes
Sudden awareness of solution to a problem
Ex: using a short stick to reach a longer stick to reach some fruit

13. Biological Predispositions and Operant Conditioning
Biological constraints predispose organisms to learn associations that are naturally adaptive
Birds can peck to get food and flap wings to avoid shock, but they can’t flap to gain food or peck to avoid shock as the behaviors aren’t available to a natural tendency
Instinctive drift: animals revert to their biologically predisposed patterns

14. In the end, it’s all about motivation…
Intrinsic vs. extrinsic
Intrinsic is a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake
Extrinsic is a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishmnet

15. Observational Learning: Social Learning

16. Observational learning
Learning that takes place by watching another individual model the learning task and then imitating the behavior

17. Albert Bandura
Bobo Doll Experiment:
Implications for humans
Frustration-aggression principle
Ex: potential neg. effects of violent TV or pos. effects for children with appropriate role models

19. How does it work biologically?
Mirrors in the brain: Emotions are contagious
Mirror neurons: neural basis for observational learning based in the frontal lobe
Underlies our intensely social nature and need to affiliate
PET scans show mirror neurons that support empathy and imitation
Known as Theory of Mind (empathy driven ability to infer another’s mental state)
ASD individuals have “broken mirrors”

20. Prosocial vs antisocial
“do as I say, not as I do” teaches what?

22. Antisocial Effects
May help explain why abusive parents can have aggressive children
Effects of television
Bullying is an effective way to control others
Sex is easy and pleasurable without consequence

23. TV Stats During the late 20th century
Average child viewed 8000 TV murders, 100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school (not from cable)
In , out of 3,000 programs, 6/10 featured violence
74% of violence went unpunished
58% didn’t show victims pain
Nearly half involved “justified violence” of an attractive perpetrator

25. Violence Viewing Effect
Violence-viewing effect: violence viewing leads to violent behavior
Careful though! Correlation doesn’t prove causation
Based in imitation (remember Bobo)
Prolonged exposure also desensitizes viewers, they become indifferent
Studies show males who view sexually explicit shows or movies tend to become progressively less bothered by rape and slashings
Conclusion: watching cruelty fosters indifference