10/14/08

CHAPTER
Personality
Psychology
TEN
Psychology 370
Sheila K. Grant, Ph.D.
Professor
SKINNER AND STAATS:
California State University,
Northridge The Challenge
of Behaviorism

Chapter Overview
Chapter Overview
RADICAL BEHAVIORISM: SKINNER
  Part IV: The Learning Perspective PSYCHOLOGICAL BEHAVIORISM: STAATS
  Illustrative Biography: Tiger Woods
  Reinforcement
  Behavior as the Data for Scientific Study
  The Evolutionary Context of Operant Behavior   Basic Behavioral Repertoires
  The Rate of Responding   The Emotional-Motivational Repertoire
  Learning Principles   The Language-Cognitive Repertoire
  Reinforcement: Increasing the Rate of Responding   The Sensory-Motor Repertoire
  Punishment and Extinction: Decreasing the Rate of   Situations
Responding
  Additional Behavioral Techniques   Psychological Adjustment
  Schedules of Reinforcement   The Nature-Nurture Question from the
  Applications of Behavioral Techniques Perspective of Psychological Behaviorism
  Therapy
  Education
  Radical Behaviorism and Personality Theory: Some
Concerns

Chapter Overview Part IV:

The Learning Perspective
Personality Assessment from a  Ivan Pavlov:
Behavioral Perspective  Heuristic Accendental Discovery
  The Act-Frequency Approach to Personality  Classical Conditioning
Measurement
 John B. Watson:
  Contributions of Behaviorism to Personality
Theory and Measurement  Early Behaviorist
 B. F. Skinner:
 Radical Behaviorism
 Arthur Staats:
 Psychological Behaviorism

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Conditioning—the process of learning

associations

  Ivan Pavlov
  1849-1936
  Classical Conditioning   Operant Conditioning
  Russian physician/
  (aka Pavlovian   Responses are learned neurophysiologist
Conditioning) because of their
  Studied digestive
  Reflexive or respondent consequences secretions of dogs
behavior   Behavior is strengthened   Nobel Prize 1904
  Automatic response to a by a reinforcer;   Discovered classical
stimulus diminished by a conditioning
punishment
  Behavior is voluntary

  Unconditioned Stimulus
Pavlov’s Discovery of (US)- a stimulus that
Classical Conditioning naturally (automatically)
brings about a response
  Unconditioned Response
(UR)- a natural response that
requires no training
  Neutral Stimulus (NS)- a
stimulus that in the absence
of conditioning does not elicit
a response
  Conditioned Stimulus (CS)-
a once neutral stimulus that
becomes associated with an
unconditioned stimulus to
produce a Conditioned
Response
  Conditioned Response
(CR)- the learned response
to a once neutral stimulus

Watson’s Classic “Little Albert”

John Watson—Founder of Behaviorism Experiments

  John Watson and

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my Rosalie Rayner
own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll
guarantee to take any one at random and train him
to become any type of specialist I might select
  Little Albert (click to view)
—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes,
even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his
talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations,
and race of his ancestors.
-- John Watson (1924)

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Illustrative Biography: Illustrative Biography:

Tiger Woods Tiger Woods

 Development  Description
 Adaptation &
Adjustment

Preview of Skinner’s and

Illustrative Biography:
Staats’s Theory
Tiger Woods

 Cognitive Processes
 Society
 Biological Influences

 http://www.boreme.com/boreme/
funny-2006/tiger-just-do-it-p1.php

B. F. Skinner
•  Burrhus Frederic Skinner
born in 1904 in Pennsylvania
•  Inventor and writer as a
Radical Behaviorism: youngster
•  Doctorate in Psychology
Skinner from Harvard (1931)
•  Professorships at Minnesota,
Indiana and Harvard
• Died in 1990 of Leukemia

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Behavior as the Data for The Evolutionary Context Of

Scientific Study Operant Behavior

 The Evolutionary   behavior

Context of Operant selected by the
Behavior environment
 The Rate of
Responding

operant conditioning The Rate of Responding

  Skinner box
Definition:   Mode of learning in which  controls the
the frequency of environment
responding is influenced by
the consequences that are   operant
contingent upon a response response
  response
Examples:   bar-pressing in rats,
reinforced by food
  smiling in a child,
reinforced by parental
approval

Learning Principles Reinforcement—anything that increases the

likelihood that the behavior will be repeated

  Positive   Negative Reinforcement

 Reinforcement: Increasing the Rate
Reinforcement removing an aversive
of Responding
rewards or other stimulus; engaging in
positive consequences behavior to remove a
 Punishment and Extinction: that follow behaviors “negative” stimulus
Decreasing the Rate of Responding
  Taking an aspirin to get rid
 Additional Behavioral Techniques   A pat on the back for of a headache
scoring the winning
goal

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Reinforcement: Increasing the Punishment and Extinction:

Rate of Responding Decreasing the Rate of Responding
  positive reinforcer
  base rate punishment:
a stimulus contingent
  primary reinforcer upon a response and
  secondary reinforcer that has the effect of
decreasing the rate
  negative reinforcer of responding
extinction:
reduction in the rate
of responding when
reinforcement ends

Additional Behavioral Techniques Schedules of Reinforcement

  shaping: reinforcement of successive  Continuous Reinforcement
approximations of behavior
  chaining: one response produces or  Partial Reinforcement
alters some of the variables that  fixed ratio schedule (FR)
control another response
  discrimination learning: learning to  variable ratio schedule (VR)
respond differentially, depending on  fixed interval schedule (FI)
environmental stimuli
 variable interval schedule (VI)
  generalization: responding to stimuli
that are similar to, but not identical
to, the stimuli present during
training

Applications of Behavioral Applications of Behavioral

Techniques Techniques
 Therapy  Therapy
 behavior modification  behavior modification
 functional analysis  functional analysis
 token economies  token economies
 Education  Education
 teaching machines (programmed  teaching machines (programmed
instruction) instruction)

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Radical Behaviorism and

Personality Theory:
Some Concerns
Psychological
  Walden Two
(Utopian
Behaviorism: Staats
community)
  unique human
capacities
(including
language)
  freedom and
dignity

Reinforcement Reinforcement

Time-out:   a procedure or environment  based on

in which no reinforcements emotion
are given in an effort to
extinguish unwanted  contrast with
behavior
Skinner's
Example:   removal of a disruptive radical
child from a school class, empiricism
to improve behavior

Basic Behavioral Repertoires Basic Behavioral Repertoires

 The Emotional-Motivational  The Emotional-Motivational

Repertoire Repertoire

 The Language-Cognitive  The Language-Cognitive

Repertoire Repertoire

 The Sensory-Motor Repertoire  The Sensory-Motor Repertoire

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Personality as a
Basic Behavioral Repertoires Basic Behavioral Repertoire

 The Emotional-Motivational
Repertoire

 The Language-Cognitive
Repertoire

 The Sensory-Motor Repertoire

Basic Behavioral Repertoire The Emotional-Motivational

Repertoire

The Emotional-Motivational
Repertoire Situations

 A-R-D theory
 A: affects and attitudes
 R: reinforcements
 D: direct behavior

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The Nature-Nurture Question

Psychological Adjustment from the Perspective of
Psychological Behaviorism
 depends on learning (basic
behavioral repertoire)  intensive learning
 for example:  learning builds on nature
 emotions (phobias, depression,  biology can influence a person
anxiety)  before learning
 social skills  during learning
 positive self-concept
 after learning
 standards for behavior
(perfectionism)

The Nature-Nurture Question

from the Perspective of
Psychological Behaviorism

Personality Assessment from

a Behavioral Perspective

Contributions of Behaviorism to
The Act-Frequency Approach to
Personality Theory and
Personality Measurement
Measurement

Definition:   measuring personality

traits by assessing the
frequency of prototypical
behaviors

Examples:   affiliation needs assessed

by frequency of choosing to
work with friends
  dominance assessed by
frequency of interrupting
others

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Chapter Review