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0:02
Behavior learning theories. An overview, these are the things that we'll talk about today-- classical conditioning, operant conditioning, operant conditioning reinforcement, schedules of reinforcement, applied behavior analysis, and then social learning theory. Definition of learning. Learning is seen as a relatively permanent change in knowledge or behavior which is the result of experience and not the result of some temporary condition or maturation.
0:43
Classical conditioning is one kind of conditioning. Here are some terms, then, for classical conditioning. Neutral stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned response, and conditioned stimulus. Pavlov, he was the one who became famous by discovering this, and he actually won the Nobel Prize for his work in this area.
1:14
Behavioral psychologists have come up with new views, not only of animal behavior, but of human nature as well, and these views all concern a process that we take for granted, learning, because we are all truly born to learn. Ironically, one of the most important figures in the study of learning, Ivan Pavlov, wasn't concerned with the subject at all, at least not at first. Pavlov, a noted Russian scientist, won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1904.
1:48
As this original footage shows, Pavlov was initially interested in digestion and the action of the salivary glands. By diverting the saliva of dogs into test tubes, he could precisely measure if and how much they salivated during digestion.
2:06
When food was presented, the dogs salivated quickly, an inherited salivary reflex.
2:14
But over repeated testings, a strange thing happened. The dogs salivated before contact with the food. Just the sight of the food was enough to stimulate their drooling. Then, just seeing the food dish, or even hearing the footsteps of Pavlov or his assistants, was enough to trigger this built-in reflex. What was going on to elicit this response? Pavlov decided to find out by systematically varying the stimuli and measuring the dog's reaction. [CLOCK TICKING]
2:49
Metronomes, lights, and bells were all used as stimuli, and they all worked as stand-ins for the food. What mattered was not the kind of stimulus that was used, but the fact that it reliably signaled that food was on the way. Pavlov had discovered a fundamental type of learning called classical conditioning. An original stimulus elicits an automatic, unlearned response. Both stimulus and response happen naturally. They are unconditioned. Then a second, neutral stimulus that never elicits
3:25
the unconditioned response by itself is introduced just before the presentation of the original stimulus.
3:35
[BELL RINGING] If the neutral, or signaling, stimulus is presented alone and response occurs as if the original stimulus was still there, we say that conditioning has taken place. The arbitrary neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus. [BELL RINGING] The reverse is also true. Pavlov and others studied the extinction over time of such conditioned responses. [BELL RINGING] When the subject learns that the conditioned stimulus no longer signals a desired event, the acquisition process
4:15
is reversed as the learned connection is gradually weakened. [BELL RINGING] Pavlov's work and the work of those who followed him led to a remarkable conclusion, and that is any stimulus an organism can perceive is capable of eliciting any reaction the organism is capable of making. This means that virtually any sound, sight, or smell can influence the way our muscles tense or relax, our moods fluctuate, or even the way our attitudes are formed. For instance, if I say "Relax" and then do this--
4:54
[LOUD NOISE] --you're going to be startled and upset. After five or six pairings of "Relax--" [LOUD NOISE] --just saying the word "relax" is going to generate a negative response, rather than its usual learned reaction. This slide allows us to understand classical conditioning. On the one side, we have an unconditioned stimulus. This is meat. It always produces an unconditioned response, which is salvation. Unconditioned here means no learning. No learning has taken place.
5:29
If I take the meat and I pair it with a neutral stimulus, which could be a bell. A neutral stimulus would be any stimulus that does not elicit a particular response. I have my meat, I sound my bell, and I get salvation. If I do this a number of times, repeated presentations with the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus, then I just ring the bell and I get salivation, we say that learning has taken place.
6:10
The conditioned stimulus is the bell. I ring the bell, I get the conditioned response. This means learning has taken place.
6:21
Here's another way to see it. We have food. The response food presents is salivation. Food always presents salivation. Anytime you give the dog food, he will salivate automatically. Before conditioning means no conditioning has taken place.
6:43
We can use a tuning fork, the same thing. No salvation. It's a neutral stimulus. It does not produce any response. We sound the fork, and it does not produce a response, so we know it's a neutral stimulus. Now we present the tuning fork and food at the same time, and salivation takes place. The reason the dog is salivating here is because he sees the meat. After the conditioning, then I present the tuning fork, and if the dog salivates, then we say that classical
7:20
conditioning has taken place here. There is learning that took place. The dog learns to associate the tuning fork with salivation. Again, why does he salivate here after conditioning? The reason is because he's anticipating meat being presented, and salivation helps in the digestion of meat.
7:45
There's another way to look at it.
7:50
Newborn babies, if something is placed in their mouth, they will automatically suck. This is a reflex action. It happens automatically. We don't have to have any learning. So if I put the nipple in the baby's mouth, he will suck. This is automatic. Then I show the baby the bottle and I put it in his mouth at the same time, no sucking. The bottle itself does not really elicit any particular response. It's a neutral stimulus.
8:33
Now, I show the baby the bottle and place the nipple on the baby's mouth. I do this a number of times, he sucks. He's automatically sucking. Again, it's reflex action. He doesn't have to learn it. Now, I have the bottle with sucking, I pair the two together, and the child starts to suck when something's put in his mouth. Afterwards, we can see the sight of the bottle elicits sucking. Why? Because he's learned to associate the sight of the bottle with the presentation of the nipple.
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So again, we say that learning has taken place here.
9:19
Classical conditioning typically involves involuntary responses, involuntary emotional responses or physiological responses. We do not have to learn these kinds of responses. They're automatic. The dog always salivates to meat. The child always sucks when you put something in its mouth. The reaction is involuntary. The reaction is involuntary to a stimulus that previously had no effect. Again, the tuning fork, dogs don't salivate to tuning forks.
9:57
When you pair the tuning fork and the meat together enough times and then you just sound the tuning fork, they salivate. So we say classical conditioning has taken place. Learning has taken place. The dog has learned to associate the tuning fork with meat, so therefore, they salivate. [DOGS BARKING] So we can say classical conditioning is involved with the automatic or involuntary response to a new stimulus. Additional terms. Generalization discrimination, extinction.
10:37
Generalization takes place when the individual responds to similar yet different stimuli the same way they did before. So in other words, we think about generalization as we taught the dog to respond to the bell. We taught the dog to salivate to the bell. Now, the doorbell rings, and they salivate. Discrimination is telling the difference between different stimuli. We taught the dog to salivate to the sound of the bell. Now the telephone rings. He doesn't salivate.
11:25
He has discriminated between the telephone ring and the bell. Extinction takes place when there is no meat presented with the bell, so eventually, the dog stops salivating. The only reason he's salivating is because he thinks he's going to get some meat. If I ring the bell a number of times but do not give him meat, then the salivation will disappear. We say it has been extinguished. This behavior has been extinguished. The dog no longer salivates to the presentation of the bell.
12:09
John B. Watson did an experiment called Little Albert. John B. Watson, known for establishing the behavioral school of psychology, carried out one of the most influential psychology studies in the 1920s that would later on be something that would never be forgotten.
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Classical conditioning, first experimented by Ivan Pavlov, was used on a dog when an unconditional stimulus was used to produced and unconditional response, and a conditioned stimulus was used to produced a conditioned response. This was later on extended by Watson in his demonstration of the Little Albert experiment.
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In Watson's experiment, a little baby Albert was used to be conditioned. He was born to a woman who was a nurse in the Harriet Lane Home of Invalid Children. Although raised in a hospital environment, Albert developed normally and with [INAUDIBLE]. Ivan Pavlov was indeed able to condition a dog. Could Watson now do the same thing in humans? Now to the actual experiment itself.
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First off, Watson presented Little Albert objects that he was not afraid of, objects that Albert initially liked. These included fire, a monkey, said a dog, a rabbit, and finally, a white rat. Albert in particular liked the white rat. From all these clips, notice Albert's positive reaction.
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Now comes the conditioning. To start off the conditioning, when Albert reached to touch the rat, a loud bar was struck whenever Albert reached for the rat.
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Here, Albert first off fell forward and was startled, but he did not cry yet. But he reached for it for a second time and heard it, and then he started to cry. Watson had indeed conditioned a fear response in Little Albert. Albert was then shown a rabbit. He immediately cried and got as far away as possible from it.
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Then a dog was also brought in. Albert did not cry right away. He was acting cautious, and it was only when the dog came right up to his head that he began to cry and tried to get away from it. After this, a seal fur coat was brought in. Albert turned away from it and was agitated.
15:55
Then Watson used a Santa Claus mask, which evoked an even more negative response by baby Albert. From the previous experience from the white rat, Little Albert suddenly became afraid of familiar objects that had the same characteristics as the white rat. This phenomenon was known as generalization.
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Watson then wanted to test whether the reaction would carry over in a different setting. The previous tests were done in a small, dark room, but now he was brought into a larger room. He was presented with the same objects but did not show strong symptoms of withdrawal until the objects were paired with a loud noise. Watson now wanted to see if fear could remain in Albert over a period of time, so Albert was brought home and returned in one month.
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When he returned, he was tested with the same objects and paired with the same loud noises. Albert indeed showed the same strong signs of withdrawal. Watson once again proved that he could condition fear into baby Albert. Watson concluded that phobias were most likely conditioned responses. The Little Albert study is extremely important in psychology and other disciplines. It has inspired other important researchers of the past, and continues to impact the direction of psychological
17:20
investigation today. The experiment that Watson did would never be allowed today. There are Protection of Human Subjects committees that would not allow you to do this kind of an experiment. But at that time, he was. There was no Protection of Human Subjects oversight. That didn't come until later. In 1930, Watson said, give me 12 healthy infants and I'll make whatever I want out of them-- a doctor, a lawyer, an artist, merchant chief, even a beggar man and thief.
17:59
So I added to that, "a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, a bank robber, a bank president." Imagine the enormity, the significance of this kind of statement. Watson is saying that if he had control over the environment, the reinforcers, that he could make whatever he wanted to out of the child. Now of course, we don't have control over the reinforcers, over the environment, but theoretically, he could do this.
18:33
Implications for teaching. First of all, we know that classical conditioning can affect the teaching and learning process. We know that emotional reactions can be learned through classical conditioning. And then finally, we know that attitudes can be learned in classrooms. So classical conditioning allows us to understand some of the difficulties that children may have in school and with learning.
19:05
Emotional learning can interfere with academic conditioning. Let's say a child sees the classroom as a fearful place, then he doesn't want to go in there. When he does go in there, he's anxious and not much learning might take place.
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Now, classical conditioning examples. Speech phobias. Some of you have experienced speech phobia.
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From a behavioral sense, the reason you have it is that you have expectations of being judged. You get up in front of the room, and then you don't feel good. You have a cold sweat, you're shaking, you're nervous, you want to get away from the front of the room. Another is phobias in general. Anytime we experience phobias, most of the time, behaviorists can go back and look at your history of experience with that fear-inducing event or stimuli, and they can help you
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to understand why you have the phobia. Example, a little boy is locked in the closet for a couple hours. It's dark. He can't get out. He's worried, he's fearful. And finally he does, the mother comes home, lets him out. And then when he grows up, he doesn't want to get into elevators. So this is a direct result of being in that room and of being scared when he was in the room. Being in the room is not enough, but being scared and anxious and fearful in the room.
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Operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is another kind of learning that we can discuss.
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B. F. Skinner was the one who made his bones with operant conditioning. Now, as we learn these different words, we're going to have to understand that they have new meanings. They have different meetings that you're traditionally been aware of. So in Piagetian terms, we'll have to create a new schema for these new words.
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For example, operant conditioning reinforcement. Operant conditioning reinforcement. We have positive, we have neutral. This little symbol here in mathematics and arithmetic, means add to. It always means "add to." This symbol in arithmetic always means take away. If you remember what these symbols mean in arithmetic, you will never be confused by positive operant conditioning reinforcement or negative operant conditioning reinforcement. Keep these two symbols in mind, you will never be
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confused by this kind of reinforcement. Notice I don't call it reinforcement, I call operant conditioning reinforcement to create a new term for you. Skinner, then, operant conditioning had some terms. He has reinforcement, operant conditioning reinforcement, operant conditioning punishment, and we also can use shaping. Most of the time, you don't have other views of shaping. But we're talking about shaping under operant conditioning. Some vocabulary.
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In order to understand operant conditioning, the first thing we must ask ourselves is, what is the behavior in question? What is the behavior that we want to see? What is the behavior maybe that we don't want to see? That is necessary to understand operant conditioning. Reinforcement and operant conditioning punishment, we must create new definitions for these terms. We have operant conditioning reinforcement, operant conditioning punishment. We no longer will use our old definitions.
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We'll use a new definition for both reinforcement and punishment under operant conditioning.
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Operant conditioning reinforcement always increases the rate, the probability, of observing the behavior in question. By definition, operant conditioning and reinforcement increases behavior, by definition. If it does not increase the behavior, then it's not reinforcement. Operant conditioning reinforcement always increases behavior. On the other side, operant conditioning punishment always decreases the rate, or the probability, of seeing the behavior, by definition.
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Again, by definition, punishment decreases the behavior, operant conditioning reinforcement increases the behavior always, always, always. If it doesn't have that effect, if punishment doesn't reduce the behavior, then it's not operant conditioning punishment. We don't know what it is, but it's not operant conditioning punishment unless it decreases the behavior. Operant conditioning reinforcement always increases the behavior.
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To determine which is operant conditioning reinforcement, we first would ask ourselves, what is the behavior in question? What is the behavior of interest? What's the behavior that we're interested in seeing, or maybe not seeing? Teachers want students to behave in class. You've got a big classroom. Everybody can't do their own thing if you're going to have order in the classroom. So teachers want students to behave in the classroom. Behaviorists tell them to use operant conditioning
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reinforcement. If it increases the behavior, then, in fact, it is OC reinforcement by definition. If not, then it's not. If it doesn't increase the behaviors, it's not operant conditioning reinforcement. Behaviorists advise teachers not to use what they think will be punishment. Why doesn't it work? First, we have to define punishment. Operant conditioning punishment means it decreases the behavior. When students are punished by their teachers, the main
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reason is because the teacher does not want to see that behavior again. So they think, if we punish, we're going to reduce that behavior. That's why they use punishment. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work. It may work sometimes, but it doesn't work every time for every child. The Premack principle is a case of operant conditioning reinforcement. In the Premack principle, we have a highly preferred activity which is used as OC reinforcer. Example, you want dessert? Eat your vegetables.
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You want to play outside? Clean your room.
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Here we have the Skinner box.
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We have a speaker here where you could have music or noise or whatever you want. You have lights. You have a lever which the rat will push. And then you have this that goes to the food dispenser, and here you have a place where the food pellet can drop down. You also have an electric grid on the floor which can be turned on. When it's turned on, the rat will feel an electric shock on his feet.
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Hey, who wants to play Drink the Beer? Right here. You win. All right. What do I win? Another beer! Oh, I'm going for the high score. Well actually, Charlie's got the high score. Hey, man, your clock won't flush.
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All right. Here's your trans fats. I'll see you next week. And, you know, kiss your dad for me.
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Well? My boy! Tonight we feast, and this is for you, kiddo. A bunny! You've earned it. You're a first rate smuggler. Oh, what a cute little bunny.
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Hey now. We need to talk. Not now, Lois. The show's about to start. Bryant Gumbel, Greg Gumbel, brothers, bike cops. Gumbel 2 Gumbel, Beach Justice. Lois, are you crazy? Yeah, me and dad haven't missed a Gumbel 2 Gumbel yet. Well, you're going to miss this one, young man. His report card came today. No more TV until your grades improve. Now get upstairs and study.
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Now we know. And knowing is half the battle. [GI JOE THEME SONG] OK, once again, we have positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is something that adds to the situation and increases behavior. In negative reinforcement, we remember that it's negative in that it takes away from the situation and it increases behavior. Negative reinforcement does not mean I like it or I don't like it. My view of it has nothing to do with how we classify it as positive or negative reinforcement.
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It's positive reinforcement because it adds something. It's negative reinforcement because it takes something away. So she took away the television, and she's expecting that the grades are going to increase. If that works, then it is negative reinforcement. If it doesn't, we can't say that it's negative reinforcement.
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Examples of positive reinforcement are praise, attention, and rewards. Again, it doesn't matter whether I like what the reinforcement is. It's the effect that it has on the behavior and the fact that it's added. Negative reinforcement, again, is something that's taken away and it increases a behavior.
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Many times, we see adverse stimuli is used in negative reinforcement, but not always. It doesn't have to be something adverse. Again, the negative doesn't mean I don't like it. It means something's taken away.
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Here's our Sinner box. We have our rat inside. And we can have an example of positive reinforcement. We put the rat in here. The rat runs all around. Eventually, he bumps the bar and some food comes down, the food pellet. We take the rat out, we put him in the next day. He runs around, bumps the bar, food pellet. By the third day, we take him and he runs directly to the bar, bumps it, and then we see the food pellet. Now, that is positive reinforcement. What is added to the situation?
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The food pellet. Now, we can use the same apparatus to test negative reinforcement. I put the rat in the Skinner box, and I have this grid floor, and there's a small electric charge being put through the floor so the rat perceives that as somewhat painful. He runs around, trying to get away from it. Eventually, he bumps into the bar. What happens? The electricity is turned off. So here's an example of negative reinforcement.
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The rat hits the bar, the electricity goes off. What's taken away? The electricity. Electricity is the thing that's taken away. That's why we say it's negative reinforcement.
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What increases bar pressing? Bar pressing is the behavior that increases. I put rat in on day one, I take him out. I come back day two, put the rat in. There's electric grid, he's getting a shock. He runs around. Doesn't take very long before he manages to hit the bar. What happens when he hits the bar? Electricity is taken away. Bar pressing has been increased. By the third day, I put him in, he runs right to the bar and pushes it, and of course, electricity comes off.
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We say that negative reinforcement has taken place. The behavior in question is bar pressing, which has increased. The thing that's taken away is electricity.
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Now let's say for some reason that the shock isn't enough to cause the rat any kind of pain, and so he just walks around and he doesn't try to get away. He's not running away from it. And so we don't see any bar pressing, so we can't justify calling this situation negative or positive reinforcement. So by definition, then, positive reinforcement adds something to the situation that tends to increase a behavior. Negative reinforcement takes something away, which also
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tends to increase the behavior in question, bar pressing. Remember, it doesn't matter if I like the electric grid or don't like the electric grid. If I press the bar and the behavior increases, then that's positive. Something's addend, it's positive. I press the bar, take it away, it's negative reinforcement.
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Today, we're looking at a form of operant conditioning utilizing negative reinforcement. All forms of psychological research must identify some of the essential components of that research, such as the organism, the person or animal that is being studied, and the response of that organism, behavior. And then we have to look at a stimulus, in other words, some change in the energy of the organism's environment that the organism can perceive. This is the basic relationship that we're looking for.
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A stimulus, an organism, and a response. Operant conditioning uses reinforcement. That's what distinguishes it from classical conditioning. The reinforcer is a type of stimulus that the organism is going to perceive from the environment. That stimulus can be called negative or positive, but either way, what really happens is this kind of relationship. An organism emits a certain response, and then something changes in the organism's environment.
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Either something is provided, like food, or something is taken away, like pain, and that's a reinforcer that makes the organism more likely to emit the same kind of response in similar situations in the future. Now let's talk about the difference between positive reinforcers and negative reinforcers. Positive reinforcers provide a reward, and the best example of a positive primary reinforcer would be food. A positive secondary reinforcer would be money.
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Well, food and money are rewards that are provided to the organism for emitting a certain kind of response. Negative reinforcement eliminates an aversive stimulus, something that the organism does not want to happen, such as pain. Our research today is going to use the organism of a dinosaur, specifically this is Godzilla's granddaughter, GG. And what we're going to be doing here is we're going to be applying an aversive. stimulus. Now, I remember from the movie Godzilla that an aversive
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stimulus for this kind of dinosaur is electricity, so I have my special zapper here. You can see the little light go on whenever the electric field is active. Well, how do we get the dinosaur to get on our grid? Let's put the dinosaur's favorite food on the grid. Then the dinosaur will get used to sitting on this particular grid. And again, from the same movie, you might recall that the favorite food of this kind of dinosaur is a Japanese policeman. So here we go with the favorite food, and GG's
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coming, and she's going to eat the favorite food here. Ah yes. There it goes. And after she's consumed that meal, [GROWLS], she's going to just sit on this favorite location in hopes of maybe getting more food. But wait a minute. Here comes the electricity. Bzzt. Aah! And GG starts dancing like this, and then we turn it off. So what's going to happen in the future is we're going to see a kind of negative reinforcement take place. The organism is the dinosaur.
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The response that she emitted was to dance. And when she started dancing, we put the electricity off. The termination of that aversive stimulus is the negative reinforcement. Now, you might think of an electric shock as punishment, and you're right, but the termination of the aversive stimulus, that is the negative reinforcement. And if GG finds herself on the electrified grid again and if it starts shocking her, she is likely to emit that same kind
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of response, the dancing, because it was successful in the past in terminating that aversive stimulus.
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So we can think about this reinforcement and punishment solely in terms of what it does to behavior. Does it increase behavior? Does it decrease behavior? Reinforcement, no matter if it's positive or negative reinforcement, always does what to behavior? The answer is it always increases behavior by definition. Using positive reinforcement. One of the things we can do is set up consequences for appropriate behavior and for undesirable behavior. This is right from Woolfolk's book here.
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We can give second chances for admission of guilt, and we can give initiative rewards for academic effort. Notice she says academic effort, not necessarily academic correct answers, but the effort. What happens when we want to establish a new behavior, that is, a behavior that the person does not exhibit now? First thing we want to do is reinforce it every time it does exhibit. Later, once it's firmly entrenched, then we will choose an unpredictable schedule of reinforcement.
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That is, we won't reinforce every time, but we'll have some kind of unpredictable schedule so that the person or the rat never knows when they're going to get reinforced for doing their homework or for pressing the bar, so they're constantly working as fast as possible, as diligently as possible, in expectation that some reinforcement is going to come. Now, the story about why we have schedules of reinforcement was that Skinner was working on a weekend, and
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he ran out of food pellets, and he wasn't going to get any more for a week or two because he had ordered them from a special company. So he said, what am I going to do? And so he says, well, I'll use schedules of reinforcement, both predictable and unpredictable, in order to continue working on my research. Another thing that can be done is use humorous tactics to remind students of rules.
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Now, how do we know what the reinforcers-- and again, these are operant conditioning reinforcers-- how do we know which reinforcers to use? Well, one of the things we could do is ask the student. We can ask the student, what are the things you like? We can also ask the parents and the teachers what are the things that the student likes? And then, finally, we can put ourselves in the student's shoes and remember, what were the kinds of things that might motivate our behavior? Punishment.
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Now, OC punishment, operant conditioning punishment, has a new definition. The definition in the dictionary is that it's a penalty or a sanction given for a crime or offense. A behavioral definition, now, we have a new definition, is that it decreases the rate or the probability of observing a behavior. So we have an undesirable behavior, we want to get rid of it, so we can use punishment. And in reality, I don't really want to mention punishment,
43:52
but it's in your book and some teachers think that punishment is the way to go, so I will talk about punishment. Remember, operant conditioning punishment always, always, always decreases the probability of seeing the behavior again.
44:13
So we have types of punishment. We have presentation punishment, we have removal punishment. Presentation punishment is something, an example would be detention or giving extra work. I do something, the teacher doesn't like it. The teacher wants to get me to stop doing that behavior, so she uses operant conditioning punishment. She can use presentation punishment, which is detention, extra work, or she can use removal operant conditioning punishment, which is taking away recess or
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taking away loss of privileges. Now, what's the difference between punishment and negative reinforcement? Are they the same? The answer is no. No, they are not the same. Punishment and negative reinforcement are not the same. They are different. Remember, we said that negative reinforcement increases behavior-- takes something away-- but that punishment, whether presentation or removal, decreases the behavior. If it doesn't decrease the behavior, it's not punishment.
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If it increases the behavior, then it's reinforcement.
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Here's another way of looking at it. Stimulus presented, behavior is encouraged, we say it's positive reinforcement. Stimulus removed, increase the behavior, we say it's negative reinforcement. Remember, positive behavior always increases something to the situation, and it always increases the behavior. Negative reinforcement always takes something away, and it always increases the behavior. If it doesn't do these two things, then we can't say it's negative or positive reinforcement.
46:16
Presentation punishment. By definition, punishment always decreases the behavior. So we can present something or we can take something away, but it always decreases the behavior if it's punishment. It doesn't increase the behavior, then we can't say it's punishment. Now, many times in classrooms in public schools, you will see teachers using punishment and they'll be using it over and over and over again despite the fact that it does not curb the behavior. So you might ask yourself why.
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Why are teachers using punishment even though it doesn't seem to really work? The purpose of punishment, then, remember, is to get people to stop their behavior. Teachers use punishment, keep the child in from recess, she expects that the undesirable behavior will stop. It doesn't. She continues to punish. Why is this? Well, there's two possible reasons. One, teachers think you should receive punishment if you break a rule. You should be punished if you break a rule.
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And for some teachers, their thinking cannot get away from that. It's almost like they have blinders. The child misbehaves, I must use punishment, regardless of the fact that it works. So for example, when I was in the sixth grade, there was a boy named Richard. And the male teacher had one of these big fraternity paddles, and he used to use that paddle whenever people misbehaved. Now, it was mostly the boys, and it so happened that Richard was misbehaving often, so that he had the record for
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being hit with the paddle in the sixth grade. Nobody could even come close to the times he got hit. I, on the other hand, got hit one time. One time was enough. I stopped misbehaving, and so for me, it was operant conditioning punishment because I got something, it stopped the behavior. It decreased inappropriate or undesirable behavior. Richard, on the other hand, it didn't. So in fact, you might think that getting hit with the paddle was a punisher, but in fact, it was positive
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reinforcement because not only did the behavior not disappear, it actually increased. For me, it was punishment. For him, it was reinforcement. Now, I'll give you another example of this. When I was a school psychologist, I had five schools, and one of the schools, I knew the principal. The principal and I used to ride our bikes in the morning before school every day, so I knew him pretty well. And so he had a boy, we'll call him Johnny.
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He had a boy named Johnny, and Johnny was mentally retarded. Now, I know some of you don't like this term, but he had a very low IQ. His IQ was in the 60s, and he had adaptive behavior. He actually had been in special ed since kindergarten. He's in the fifth grade now. So the teacher is reporting to the principal that Johnny says dirty wordies on the playground. So the teacher can't tolerate this. How does the teacher find out? Well, the other kids come and tell her.
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So every time this happens after recess, he's sent to the principal's office to get paddled. This principal has the same kind of paddle that they had when I was in the sixth grade. He whacks the child, and what is he expecting? He's expecting that undesirable behavior, saying bad words on the playground, is going to decrease. In fact, it doesn't decrease. According to the principal, it seems to be increasing. He calls me on the phone. He says, I've got Johnny. I've been whacking him.
50:54
He still doesn't stop saying the bad words on the playground. I don't understand it. What should I do? I say, OK, stop hitting him. I'll come and I'll work with him. So I went over to the school, and I talked to the boy, I talked to the principal, and I talked to the boy's mother. Now of course, the mother knows this is going on. She's very unhappy about it. But apparently, there's not much she can do. She was actually a teacher in the third grade in another school. So she's not very happy.
51:29
The principal's not happy either because he doesn't want to be whacking the boy every day. The teacher's not happy because she doesn't want to be sending the boy to the principal's office to get whacked. So I talked to the boy and I found out that what happens is the other boys on the playground call him undesirable words, like they call him Tardo, they call him Four Eyes, and they call him other things. So I found out, in addition, that they used to call him
52:10
these bad words, and they used to stand close to him. And of course, he would reach across, get them by the throat with both hands, and start shaking him. Well, the boys didn't like that, so now they call him the words and then they run away. However, he's still saying these bad words, eff you, and all kinds of other things. So I understand about operant conditioning and reinforcement and such, so what I did was I found out from the mother that the boy likes gummy bears.
52:43
So I'm going to use the gummy bears to teach him to say other things except these words that are unacceptable from the teacher's viewpoint. So I teach him to say, "I'm rubber, you're glue. Everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you." And then I teach him to say, "Same to you." And I use some other things that I heard like, "Go chase yourself," and, "Take a long walk off a short pier." And another one that I learned was, "Drop dead." Some say that's a terrorist threat
53:21
today, so I couldn't teach him that now. But what I do is I get together with the boy once a week, and we role play. I call him the things that they're calling him on the playground, and he pretends like he's on the playground and he's going to say these things that I've taught to him. So every time he says one, I give him a gummy bear. I give him a gummy bear, I give him a gummy bear, I give him a gummy bear. So after about two weeks, I hear that saying the bad words
53:54
on the playground has dropped off to zero. And so let's try to analyze why that is. First of all, the boys in his grade, they get reinforcement because they know he gets hit. So some of you might say, these kids are little devils, and I probably would agree. He's not using those words anymore. Instead, he's saying "Drop dead," or "Go chase yourself." Well, that's nothing that the boys can report to the teacher. I mean, that's not so bad. What are they going to say?
54:29
Oh, I called him Tardo and he told me to drop dead. So that's not going to work. So the boys see that they don't have anything to report to the teacher. So what happens? They stop calling him the names.
54:46
So the reinforcement that the boys have gotten drops off to zero. So they stop calling him the names, he stops saying the words, he stops getting hit. The principal's happy. I guess the teacher's happy. The mother is extremely happy, and apparently everybody's happy all around. Now, what used to happen is he would go into the office, and of course, the principal was never there right away when he came, so he'd have to sit 10 or 15 minutes, and then he'd get his whack. Well, I knew the secretary.
55:21
She was very nice, and she would give the boy chocolate milk and doughnuts and things like that that were leftover from the morning. So going into the principal's office was really not a punishment at all, even though he was getting whacked. One reason is that from the time he said the bad words to the time he got whacked could have been as much as 30 minutes, so he's not making the connection.
55:58
So in the end, he stopped saying the bad words and everybody's happy. Now let's talk about operant conditioning use in everyday life. We have some other terms here, generalization. That means the same as before. In operant conditioning or classical conditioning, the individual responds the same way to a similar yet somewhat different stimulus. We have discrimination. They discriminate between two different stimuli. Extinction, the behavior drops off in the absence of reinforcement.
56:40
Now we have a new term here, spontaneous recovery. Spontaneous recovery means that the behavior that had once been extinguished now comes back. It comes back, and we don't know why it comes back. We can hypothesize that there's something in the environment that stimulated the spontaneous recovery of the behavior, but we're not sure. And then we have shaping, which is breaking behavior down into its component parts and shaping all along the way.
57:16
So an example of shaping is lions and tigers jump through hoops of fire at the circus. And you know that they have an innate fear of fire. So how does the trainer get them to do this? Well, he holds up the hoop and he gets them to jump through. That's not much for a tiger or a lion. They jump very easily. He holds a little piece of food on the other side, and of course, they jump through it. Now he lights a little piece of the hoop, just a small
57:55
piece of the hoop, and the tiger or lion can ignore the fire because he's getting some reinforcement. He lights a little bit more each time, each day, until finally, he has them jumping through the hoop of fire for the reinforcement. So there we have shaping. Now we have reinforcement schedules.
58:22
Let's talk about these. We have a continuous schedule, which means there's reinforcement after every response. Example is turning on the television. You press the remote, the TV goes on. You don't press it very many times until you're looking to figure out why it doesn't go on. So when a continuous schedule reinforcement drops off, nothing happens on the television. You won't be pressing the button on the remote very often if the television doesn't come on.
59:04
Continuous schedules of reinforcement are good for rapid learning of responses. Once the reinforcement stops, there's very little persistence. Rapid disappearance of the response. This is in a continuous schedule. Then we have intermittent schedules. These are the kinds of schedules that you want to use to continue a behavior once it's firmly established. In an intermittent schedule, it's less than every time you exhibit the behavior. The reinforcement comes less than every time you exhibit.
59:40
Continuous schedules are made to establish the behavior. Intermittent schedules, then, would be used to continue the behavior. We can have schedules that are based on interval or ratio. Interval is time. It's a time period. It's a period of time that you can measure with a stopwatch or some other instrument. You have to be able to measure the time in schedules. Ratio is where there is a ratio of behavior to reinforcement. You have to do the behavior so many times in order to get reinforced.
1:00:27
So now we look at the four schedules. We have fixed interval, variable interval, fixed ratio, and variable ratio. Now, remember I said that interval schedules have to do with time, a measurement of time. Ratio schedules are some kind of ratio between the behavior and getting reinforced. Fixed means it doesn't change. Variable means it does change. So in a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement, an example would be 30 seconds. The interval is 30 seconds.
1:01:10
If you exhibit the behavior within that 30-second time period, you get reinforced. It's fixed. It does not change. Every time you do it in a 30-second interval, you get reinforced. Variable interval means you don't know what the time period is going to be. It's changing all the time. So it could be three seconds one time, then five seconds, then 30 seconds, then 20 seconds. It's constantly changing, and it's constantly changing in a random way. Fixed schedules means they don't change.
1:01:50
They're the same. So in a fixed ratio schedule, I have to exhibit the behavior so many times in order to get paid, in order to get the reinforcement. So an example of a fixed ratio schedule would be every time I do five correct math problems, I get reinforced. I do five, I get reinforced. I do five, I get reinforced. It's fixed, so it doesn't change. Variable ratio would be I would do the problems correctly, but it changes all the time. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to do the
1:02:33
problems correctly before I get reinforced. An example, then, is fixed interval. Fixed interval says it's fixed, so it doesn't change. Its interval, so it's a time period. I have to be able to measure the time period. Could be a week, could be a day, could be 30 seconds. So in a fixed interval schedule, behavior is rewarded after a fixed time period. Every day, the mailman brings the mail. Every day, the mailman brings the mail. That is a fixed interval. It's fixed because it doesn't change.
1:03:16
Every day. It's interval because 24 hours is a day. So what happens in a fixed interval schedule?
1:03:29
In a fixed interval schedule, I know when a behavior is going to be reinforced, so I'm working very hard right before reinforcement is given, and after it's given, I drop off until I'm getting close to the time interval, then I do it again. So every day at 10:30, the mailman delivers the mail. And so right before 10:30, I'm looking, I'm out there, I'm opening up my mailbox, I'm getting the mail out. So it produces a scalloped effect. So behavior increases right before reinforcement, then
1:04:12
drops off a little bit, and then increases right before I have the reinforcement. I know when it is, so therefore, I'm working very hard right before the reinforcement is given. Variable interval.
1:04:31
I never know when I'm going to be reinforced, so I'm working hard all the time. I never know when I'm going to have a test on my math problems, so I'm always ready to do the quiz. An example is pop quizzes. We never know when we're going to get tested, so we're busily working.
1:04:56
Variable interval schedule. Slow, steady rate of responding, little pause after reinforcement. When the reinforcement stops, you have great persistence. The reason you have persistence is because the person never knew when they were going to get reinforced, so they were busily working all the time. Variable schedules produce high persistence. Variable schedules always produce a high rate of persistence. You never know when you're going to get reinforced, so you're always working very hard.
1:05:35
Fixed ratio, then, is reinforcement is given after a fixed number of responses. Always know when I'm going to get paid because it's fixed. I have to do so many sweaters in order to get paid.
1:05:54
What happens if I work in a sweater factory and I stop getting paid? Well, then the production of sweaters drops off very quickly because I'm used to getting paid. If I don't get paid, I stop working. How many will be going to work if they don't get paid anymore. Not many of you. Fixed ratio, then, has rapid response. There's a pause after reinforcement. Then right before the reinforcement is going to come, we have diligent working. Once the reinforcement stops altogether, we have little
1:06:30
persistence. We knew when we were going to get reinforced. When we don't get reinforced, we drop, we stop doing the behavior. Variable ratio, again, reinforcement after a varied number of responses, but it's variable, so we don't know. We don't know how many times we're going to have to produce the behavior in order to get reinforced. An example is slot machines, one-armed bandits. You never know when you're going to get paid, so you just keep putting those quarters in, or those dollars, until
1:07:07
you hope you get paid.
1:07:12
Variable ratio. All variable schedules produce high persistence in the absence of reinforcement. So the variable ratio schedule, very high response rate, little pause after reinforcement. When reinforcement stops, we have the greatest persistence. Greatest persistence. It drops off gradually. Why? Because I never knew when I was going to get paid, reinforced, so I'm always working diligently, trying to do it, trying to get reinforced. Reflection questions.
1:07:46
What's the difference between punishment and negative reinforcement? The difference is that punishment seeks to decrease behavior. Negative reinforcement increases behavior. By definition, punishment always decreases behavior. By definition, negative reinforcement always increases behavior. It doesn't matter if I like it or you like it. It only matters the effect that it has on the behavior. What schedule of reinforcement is best for building persistence? And that is a variable schedule.
1:08:22
Variable schedules are always best for persistence in the absence of the reinforcement because the individual never knew when they were going to get paid, when they were going to get reinforced, so they're always working very diligently. What happens when all reinforcement stops? Then the behavior drops off. If all reinforcement stops, the behavior drops off. However, all reinforcement may not stop. For example, if I start doing my homework in school, and I
1:08:58
had a variable schedule of reinforcement, we hope that natural reinforcers in the environment might take over. So Johnny does his homework because, one, his parents like to see those high grades that come home. Other kids in school see the high grades and they say, oh man, Johnny's so smart. The teacher likes to see them because she feels good. The teacher's teaching something. The boy likes to see them because he likes the reinforcement that he gets from producing good, high grades.
1:09:35
Shaping and/or successive approximations. Shaping is when the desirable behavior is broken down into its component parts and then each part of the behavior is reinforced. So we end up, then, with a larger set of behaviors that we want to see.
1:10:33
Well, I think I messed this up here.
1:10:38
Hey Jeremy. Yes sir? Am I recording now? I can't tell. I pressed Control-- oh, Control Shift, F9. OK, before, this was a mistake, so we'll start at this slide. It says Shaping or Successive Approximations. So on three, then. One two three. Shaping or successive approximation is a way to get the behaviors that you want by breaking the behavior down into its component parts. So for example, when you go to the circus, you see lions and tigers jumping through hoops of fire.
1:11:18
You know that the lions and the tigers have an innate fear of fire. So how does the trainer get them to jump through the hoop of fire? Well, the way he does it is that-- let's stop there.
1:11:39
Continue on three. The way that he does it. OK, continue on three. One two three. The way that the trainer gets the lion to jump through the hoop of fire is first, he gets him to jump through the hoop, and he has a little treat on the other side for him. Lions and tigers jump rather well, and so that's relatively easy. Then he lights just an inch or so of the hoop, just lights about an inch or so, and then he gets the lion or tiger to jump through it because he has some treat on the other side.
1:12:21
And he increasingly lights more of the hoop, and each time reinforces the tiger for jumping through until he has the whole thing and they're able to jump through it. They kind of conquer their fear of fire, I guess.
1:12:46
On three, we'll continue. One two three. We have applied behavior analysis. In applied behavior analysis, what we're interested in is seeing the behavior.
1:13:08
OK, let's stop.
1:13:16
One two three. We'll continue on three.
1:13:20
Three. In applied behavior analysis, we devise a plan to alter or to change the behavior. The first thing we do is we must identify the target behavior. What is the behavior in question, the behavior that we either want to increase or maybe we want to decrease? Then we measure that behavior. That's called baseline. We measure the behavior for a while, and we have a clear understanding about how frequent the behavior is. During that baseline, we identify the reinforcers.
1:13:55
What are the reinforcers that the person will find valuable or reinforcing? So for children, then, we can stand in their shoes, remember when we were a child. We can ask the child. We can ask other children. We can ask the parents. And if you look at those behavioral analysis, books you'll find inventories where they ask the person to rate different things that are possibly reinforcing. Then we plan the intervention. We figure out our schedule of reinforcement, the reinforcers
1:14:32
we're going to use, and we run with it. Then we carry out the intervention. During the entire time that we're doing this, we're keeping track of the behavior. We're doing that baseline, and we do it through the entire program. And then after the program, we can go back and look at the behavior. So if the applied behavior analysis was successful, then we'll see that the behavior in question increases or decreases, whichever we were trying to do.
1:15:08
We must keep track of the behavior for the entire time, otherwise, we don't know what the effect of the program is on the behavior. Eyeballing the behavior, trying to remember it, is not adequate. We have to actually measure the behavior each part, each time, through each step of the applied behavior analysis program.
1:15:33
So a classroom application, then. These techniques have great utility. They're very successful if we understand how to use them. So we can take any behavior that we want to see, and we can specify the behavior, measure the behavior, and then apply the program, the reinforcers. Get the reinforcers, and again, we must keep track of the results. Otherwise, we don't know what happened.
1:16:10
So what's positive reinforcement? Positive reinforcement is anything that comes after a behavior is admitted that tends to increase the probability of that behavior. Positive reinforcement doesn't mean I like it or you like it. Positive reinforcement means it's something that's added to the situation and that it increases behavior. Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, is something that takes away from the situation and that increases behavior.
1:16:43
If it doesn't increase the behavior, then it's not negative reinforcement. It's something else. Negative reinforcement does not mean I like it or you like it. It simply means that it's something taken away and increases the behavior. What about the reinforcement schedules? We have the fixed interval. Fixed means it doesn't change. Interval means a measurable time period. Fixed interval would be every 10 seconds, or every week, or every hour. Variable interval is variable. It's changing.
1:17:25
It's constantly changing. Hopefully it's changing on a random basis. There's a time interval, and we give reinforcement during that time interval, provided the behavior is emitted or produced. It's variable. It's changing all the time. Variable schedules are superior to fixed schedules in terms of persistence after the reinforcer is taken away, and also, they produce the highest rates of behavior. Fixed ratio means it's fixed, it doesn't change. There's some kind of a ratio for behaviors to
1:18:10
reinforcement. A fixed ratio could be every time you finish a sweater, you get some money. Variable ratio, then, it's randomly changing. We don't know when we're going to get paid, so we're working very, very hard.
1:18:34
Now, I don't like to talk about punishment, but teachers like to hear about punishment.
1:18:44
Punishment has major disadvantages because people don't like to be punished. It increases their anger or aggression. And it may work in the short term, but it's not helpful for the long term. Now, I know many of you would debate that, but I would say, let's look at the research. What does the research say about punishment? Teachers like to use punishment. There's a number of reasons why I think they like to use punishment. One is they have a philosophy that if the child breaks a
1:19:19
rule, they must be punished. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. If they break a rule, they have to be punished. Another reason is because it makes them feel better. If you give punishment to the child, it makes them feel better. It makes the teachers feel better.
1:19:42
So there's removal and something is removed, or something is given. So this slide allows us to break that apart.
1:19:59
So if stimulus is presented and behavior is encouraged, we say that's positive reinforcement. Examples are praise and reward. We want to encourage the behavior, but we want to take something away, so that's negative reinforcement. An example is you avoid losing points.
1:20:25
Under the punishment side, then, we have behavior is suppressed. We have something given, so we call that presentation punishment. Detention, extra work are examples. And then, finally, we have removal punishment. Something is taken away and behavior is suppressed. Examples, loss of recess and you're grounded. Now, if punishment works, we're not going to have to do it very many times. If you find, as a teacher, that you're keeping the child
1:21:03
in at least once a week from recess, then I would say that it's not working and go on and try to do something else. Another reason that I don't really like to talk about punishment is because it's much easier to get students to do things than to get them to stop doing things. So it's much easier to get them to behave than to get them to stop misbehaving. Now, this may sound complex, but the example is if the child is jumping up out of their seat, then talking out
1:21:46
of turn and yelling things out, it's much easier for you to get them to do something that's incongruent than to get them to be quiet. So what you do, then, is you reinforce them when they are sitting in their seat, and you try to ignore them when they're not. Again, it's much easier to get people to do things than to get them to stop doing things.
1:22:16
Observational learning. This is Bandura.
1:22:23
Well, we'll talk about it here. Let's stop now.
1:22:35
OK, I think that this slide here that says "Observational Learning" is out of place. It should be after the next slide, which says "Identify OC Reinforcement." so let's take this slide here, Observational Learning with the magnifying glass, and put it after this slide that says, Identify OC Reinforcement. So now I'll one, two, three, and on three, I'll start with this slide again.
1:23:12
Let's start with this slide, Identify OC Reinforcement.
1:23:18
So how are we going to identify what we mean by reinforcement? First of all, we need to choose the behavior in question. What is the behavior of interest? Behaviorists tell teachers to use OC reinforcement.
1:23:39
The reason they do is because it's easier to get people to do things than to get them to stop doing things. If we want to increase a behavior, then we will use OC reinforcement. If, in fact, it does increase the behavior, then by definition, we say it's reinforcement. If not, then not. Some teachers believe that whacking the child, hitting the child, is punishment. And the question is, is that true? The answer is yes if, in fact, it stops a behavior.
1:24:19
Then it is punishment, if it stops the behavior. If it doesn't, then it's not. And so this is hard for some people to understand, and that's why I say you need to come up with a new schema for OC reinforcement and OC punishment. Operant conditioning reinforcement by definition increases behavior. Operant conditioning punishment by definition decreases behavior. So some parents or teachers may not understand that what they're doing may inadvertently reinforce the
1:24:58
behavior that they want to get rid of. And so it doesn't make sense that if you whack a student, he's going to do the behavior that got him whacked more, but then, we never said that it made sense. It's only the effect that it has on the behavior. Whether I like it or don't like it is irrelevant. What matters is the effect that it has on the behavior. So Bandura then did the social learning thing, and he did an experiment in the early '60s which came to be known as the Bobo doll experiment.
1:25:38
And what he was interested in was aggression.
1:25:44
It was a common idea that people see people doing aggressive acts and they copy their behavior. Now even at that time, this study was somewhat controversial, mainly because of the conclusions that he came. Today, it would be criticized on ethical grounds because theoretically, you're training children to be aggressive. Are you really training them to be aggressive? Well, that's something we won't be able to resolve here. The result of the experiment is that it changed modern psychology.
1:26:26
It was both applauded and criticized. But it was credited with the shift from pure behaviorism to what we call cognitive psychology. In other words, these experiments were tremendously influential in psychology, and specifically in behaviorism, and of course, they made Bandura nearly a household name. Certainly, he became extremely famous based on these experiments and things that he did later.
1:27:09
[MUSIC PLAYING] Let's continue, then, with observational learning and teaching.
1:32:44
One, the students can model the behavior. We can encourage already learned behaviors through modeling. We can strengthen or weaken the inhibitions to the behaviors, and we could also direct attention, arouse emotions.
1:33:07
And summary.
1:33:11
Learning is a relatively permanent change in attitude or behavior.
1:33:20
Under learning, we see classical conditioning, one kind of learning. We see operant conditioning, which is another kind of learning. We have applied behavior analysis, where we break down the behavior, create a reinforcement schedule, and then the see the effect of the reinforcement on the behavior. And finally, we have social learning theory, which, in a word, would be observation copying behavior.
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