Please use this to comment on your reading for sec 2.2. I'll leave it up to you about what and how you would like to comment, however I would ask that you attempt to write using behavioral terms. I will also use this as a way to 'time stamp' that you read the section on or before Thursday.
Let me know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
It was very helpful to have behavioral terms in parentheses when given examples of positive and negative reinforcement. This helped clarify the ABCS of particular examples and helped me in providing examples of my own. I guess if I could choose something to go over more from the chapter, it would be how the context of the situation influences whether or not a reinforcer is actually reinforcing. I understand that some secondary reinforcers can be used to purchase primary reinforcers, but if we could just go over more in depth examples it would be helpful.
I really liked the review for this section. I liked the way that it explained positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. The examples in this section were helpful as well. I really enjoyed learning more about the new material. Prior to this section I did have some idea about classical conditioning and I was aware of Pavlov’s experiment. But I hadn’t thought about it in behavioral terms. In the example, the meat was eliciting a drooling response which caused the dog to emit a drooling behavior. The very first time I learned about this I would have never thought of it like that. I also really liked the break down on the unconditioned/conditioned stimulus and unconditioned/conditioned response. In addition to positive and negative reinforcers there are primary, secondary, and generalized reinforcers. I learned that the primary reinforce can also be called the unconditioned reinforce and are like biological needs. I also learned about secondary reinforcers which are referred to as the conditioned reinforcer. Generalized reinforcers are things that pair with other reinforcers. Overall, reinforcers of every type affect people and the world every day. From this reading I also learned how context affects primary and secondary reinforcers and the values of these two. I learned about intrinsic and extrinsic value. Intrinsic deals with the individual placing value on something and extrinsic deals with the value others place on something. The example given in the text was on money. I have never really thought of money in behavioral terms before. Finally, the last thing I learned about was limited and broad value. I understand that with limited value the effect of something eventually wears off. With broad value, the effects stay there. Overall, I thought this was a good read and had good examples on how to explain things.
I enjoyed this section because it was a fairly even split between review material and new material for me. The terms positive and negative reinforcement are concepts that I have mastered quite well by this point. I did enjoy the practice sections though where we had to write a target behavior and then give examples of both positive and negative reinforcement. It was neat to see how one behavior could have both principles applied to it. I had also heard about primary versus secondary reinforcers, but I did not fully understand the concept until this reading. The question that asked, "If the stimulus occurred in absence of any conditioning, would it be reinforcing?" was very helpful to me in distinguished between the primary and secondary reinforcers. The idea of a generalized reinforcer was very interesting to me. I had never given thought before to the fact that some reinforcers are more reinforcing because they open up the door to many more pleasant things, such as money does. It was good too to recognize that some reinforcers are intrinsically valuable (valuable to you) while some are extrinsically valuable (valuable to others). This clears up for me why some people would do very embarrassing things to get on a reality tv show. It must be intrinsically valuable to them.
Overall, section 2.2 was a solid mixture of review material and new concepts. Within the new material, I found Maslow's hierarchy to be of interest. It's pretty neat to think how we have evolved to interpret these biological/social needs as primary reinforcers. All of these elements, whether esteem needs or aesthetic and cognitive needs, are essential to our behavioral actions and will to survive. They have indeed become unconditioned in a sense. While I found secondary reinforcers to be slightly challenging, it is interesting to consider how many times a day our actions are the result of secondary reinforces such as traffic lights, bells, whistles, music, etc. Generalized reinforcers are a neat concept as well. The internet I felt would be a generalized reinforcer as online access can allow an individual to look up any kind of info (whether political, educational, business, sports, etc.) and be reinforced by their findings. Finally, I found intrinsic and extrinsic values to be somewhat familiar as one hears about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from time to time. For me, intrinsically I feel since I would love to coach, that my emphasis on the elements regarding teaching an athlete within a sport would be more often than not stronger than say an individual who does not want to teach or have a passion for sports.
:-)
After reading 2.2 I felt that some of the information was review and some information was new to me. Learning about primary and secondary reinforcers was interesting. I enjoyed completing the example on the homework. I learned that positive reinforcement is introducing a desirable stimulus. I never thought about it that was. With the reinforcement that we are interested in turns out to be something more which is a desirable factor stimulus. I learned that Responses and stimuli are referred to as unconditioned when they do not have to be taught. Primary reinforcers serve our basics needs and are considered to unconditioned. They are biologically relevant. Secondary reinforcers are associated with primary reinforcers. They are referred to as conditioned reinforcers. Generalized reinforcer is a conditioned reinforcer that has obtained the reinforcing function by pairing with many other reinforcers such as a car or a credit card. I found it interesting that both primary and secondary reinforcers have intrinsic and extrinsic value. Intrinsic refers to the value that the individual places on something and extrinsic refers the value others place on something. Primary and secondary reinforcers can have either a limited or broad. When working on the assignment I really had to think about what reinforce were broad and limited in my life. Overall this an important section to read and to learn about new terms such as generalized reinforcers, aversive, intrinsic, and extrinsic, It was easy to read and gave good examples.
After reading this section, I felt like I came away with a lot. I liked how it drew on old information, as well as introduced us to some new concepts. I thought it was good review to go back over positive and negative reinforcement in this section. It was nice to list a target behavior, a use of positive reinforcement, and then a use of negative reinforcement for the same target behavior. It got easier for me each time we had to do that exercise. I also liked how we learned how there are different types of reinforcers: primary and secondary. Primary reinforcers are those which play a role in a species survival, such as food, water, and air. Secondary reinforcers are those that which have become reinforcers through being paired with a stimulus, which then functions as a reinforcer. I had the example of the noon horn in town. It's main function was not to let people know it's lunch time, but that is the function it now has since it is paired with "noon"; people then know it is lunch time. Overall, I learned a lot from this chapter and am now excited to see what the next section brings.
What I took from this chapter:
This chapter was helpful to me in that it gradually moved me into new ideas of reinforcement. Even though I do not have a major or minor is psychology, I have heard a good amount of information of Pavlov and his dogs and other key topics in this chapter. I did appreciate this chapter on the good overview and slowly walking me through the steps to make sure I am comprehending the information correctly. What was a little more fresh to me was the primary and secondary reinforcers. I have heard about these concepts but have never had to provide examples. It was good for me to come up with my own example so that I would have to look deeper into my environment to notice what is going on around me.
I am feeling pretty comfortable with these new concepts, but we will see what happens when they are to be applied to the bigger picture.
I am a fan of the review sections that come along with each section. I find this to be an easier and quicker way to learn via repetition. Even though we had discussed positive (and negative) reinforcement in past class discussions, I was better able to read through and tie the new material in with behavioral concepts we had already learned this semester. The section on UCS and UCR was more than likely review for most psychology students which is a good thing. I had to laugh yesterday when using StumbleUpon.com I came across a Pavlov comic which depicted a dog speaking with another dog "Want to see something cool? Watch what he does when I drool." (Pavlov shown taking notes). His studies on experimental and observational findings (in relation to dogs) helped define conditioned and unconditioned responses.
This section had a lot of old material and new material. I was able to clarify my knowledge of the older material and grasp an understanding for the new ideas and concepts presented. Some ideas such as CS, UCS, UCR, and CR are review from my intro class but the review was good because it’s been a couple years. When reading material on secondary reinforcers I was able to relate it to my dog. The UPS truck always makes a point to stop at our house and give my dog "maddie" a treat (regardless of whether or not she has a package for our house). When maddie was outside the lady stop and give her a treat, eventually she associate the sound of the UPS truck to the receiving of a treat. Therefore, even when she was inside and heard the truck she would bark to go out and retrieve her treat. The sound of the truck would act as a secondary stimulus because without the association of the truck with the treat the sound of the truck would not elicit a desire to go outside. This secondary response became so prevalent that even when we are outside of the neighborhood walking maddie she would still associate the sound of the UPS truck with the treat because the lady would still stop and give one to maddie (weird I know!)
I though this section was a good review of the reinforcement concept. This concept is covered in many classes offered here at UNI. What I was least familiar with was Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the diagram was a good way to refresh my memory. This chapter made me think about addiction and how that would affect operant conditioning. I would assume that if a secondary reinforcer could create a strong enough addiction than it could be used just as effectively as a primary reinforcer. Just a thought.
This was an excellent review. It's been two years since I took intro to psych, and the distinction between operant conditioning (using positive and negative reinforcement to elict a behavior) and classical conditioning (causing a conditioned response to a previously unconditioned stimulus through association).
Primary reinforcers are based upon our biological needs to survive - food, water, sex (for most of us). Secondary reinforcers are deemed "conditioned reinforcers" because they are closely related to primary reinforcers.
It also reminded me completely about generalized reinforcers are just a means to an end to have other reinforcers (usually of your choice).
Section 2.2 discussed the various forms of reinforcement. It also clarified positive and negative reinforcement with better examples than previous sections of the book which I found helpful.
This section was very beneficial going over reinforcements because I had been having a hard time making examples for negative reinforcement. It is still a struggle, but this section helped get me started to understand it better. It's hard because whenever you think of 'negative', you think punishment, not how to turn it into a reinforcer. It is hard to think of emitting a positive behavior and see how it can become a negative reinforcement. This section was also a good refresher for UCS and UCR. We talk about this in the majority of my psychology classes but it is always nice to have a refresher.
I loved that this was some what of a review. I remember learning about pavlov and his dogs (the prank that Jim pull on Dwight in the Office with the altoids is hilarious http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQmHgBZhlwc). The review was good because sometimes it's hard to keep all the terms straight (unconditioned response, conditioned response, etc).
Secondary reinforcers was a new concept for me though. I guess I knew about the, but didn't know they actually had a name. For instance, whenever I open a can of tuna, my cat comes running from whatever part of the house she is in. Another example in my life is my car. My sister knows the sound of my car coming down the street, and generally always runs to the window to see if I'm home.
I appreciated that this section focused a lot more on one topic than the overview of all of them. I understand the meaning of reinforcement. However, it was beneficial for me to have this section talk about one topic and the things that go into it. For example, discussing Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. I have learned the theory many times before. However, the overview of the theory helping to explain reinforcement was very helpful. The need for food (a physiological need) is a reinforcer. Since the need is such a basic one it would be frightening to lose. The old saying 'don't bite the hand that feeds you' rings true in this theory. Maslow's Hierarchy of needs plays into the primary reinforcers. A secondary reinforcer is a reinforcer that had become a conditioned response. For example: we know to head to the basement when we hear a tornado siren. However, if we had never heard the siren we would have never elicited the response. The last type of reinforcer is the generalized reinforcer. A generalized reinforcer is a conditioned reinforcer that has gained its function by pairing with other reinforcers. And example of this on campus would be our student ID's. You can buy anything from a sweatshirt to a muffin with a student ID.
This section was very helpful for breaking down the meaning and styles of reinforcement.
So this is my comment for section 2.3 since I definitely messed it up.
I thought this section was a very interesting one! The terms of positive punishment and negative punishment seem simple enough, but what I really liked about this section was when we were getting into our personal questions towards the end of our packet. I don't really have a strong opinion of it, but I do think it's reasonable to let the UNI police have guns; they are police after all. I thought it was funny that I had to think of things that I have gotten punished for and I did them anyways, and I sadly realized that there are a lot more than three behaviors that I emit even though I know I will be punished for them.
Last, I know that no society would ever be able to function without punishment. Though I am more for positive reinforcement, if you don't have any form of punishment people will not be scared of the consequences for their behavior and may not even feel guilty for the bad behavior they're eliciting! Yeah we definitely need punishment in our lives. Well maybe except me ;)
Section 2.2 was a very interesting section because it mainly dealt with reinforcement which is very important when dealing with behavior. Some of the section was a review of target behaviors and positive and negative reinforcements, which was good because I feel like I am really understanding these concepts. The other half of the section dealt with new concepts such as secondary reinforcement, intrinsic, extrinsic, limited, and broad value. I had a little trouble understanding secondary reinforcement, but after completing some of the activities I started to catch on. I really liked the personal questions toward the end of the section because it made the activity more fun and interesting. Some of the examples I chose for what I found intrinsically valuable was getting to eat junk food after working out for a week or buying a new outfit after getting an A on an exam. This was an interesting section and I feel like it prepared me for what's coming next.
After reading section 2.2, I feel even more confident about the basics of reinforcement. I do find intrinsic an extrinsic confusing, but that may just be because of the similarity of the words.
One thing I really liked about this section was that it went over the basics of Skinner. Though many may find this boring because it has been presented to them so many times, it has been two years since I learned about it. At that time, I didn't fully understand it but, with this section, I feel much more confident about it.
Overall, I feel quite comfortable with reinforcement.
The examples in this section were really difficult to come up with, and I don't know if that's a result of my lack of understanding or just that they were sort of difficult questions to come up with examples for. I would be tempted to say the textbook is moving slowly, until I take a second to look at my previous classes and the knowledge I've retained from them. Really, I haven't retained much from most of my classes, so I think the "baby steps" approach is really effective. You are forced to use terminology repeatedly, since it is a foundation for where you are going. In a lot of classes I've taken, I've looked at the information, basically said "Yeah, I get it, that's not too tough." and then moved on. In a long term sense, that doesn't do much for me, though. Because I grasped the ideas, I never really spent much time on them, and as a result, most were never really solidly ingrained in my mind. I knew them long enough to get them right on the test, I understood the basic concepts, and I moved on, without being able to really talk much about what I'd "learned" in the class.
Anyway, on to the reading itself. It was good to go over conditioning again, as I remember Pavlov and his dog from Intro, but most of the stuff beyond the unconditioned stimulus/unconditioned response and conditioned stimulus/conditioned response were hazy. The primary and secondary reinforcers were new terminology to me, but the concepts are fairly easy to grasp, because they were just a simple step away from already established concepts. Here's the first situation where examples were tough for me to come up with. Can primary/secondary reinforcers be aversive? For instance, would "Seeing a bottle of Jagermeister, then feeling your stomach flop a little bit" still be considered a secondary reinforcer? I think it would be, but I'm not sure if it would be, because I don't remember any examples being used in the text that were aversive reactions. Generalized reinforcers were also something I felt like I understood, but when trying to come up with examples, I faltered a little bit. It seemed like all of the generalized secondary enforcers I could come up with were varying forms of money. Would services/labor be considered a generalized secondary reinforcers? Intrinsic and extrinsic are ideas that we cover quite a bit in sport psychology classes too, so those were pretty easy to follow. Some people are intrinsically motivated, and go out for the sport because they enjoy it, and are motivated to be the best they can be, whether that is a 3rd string player or an All Stater. Others are extrinsically motivated, and are interested only in being good enough to start, or are motivated by earning awards and recognition. It's a spectrum, obviously, but these are things we have been taught to observe. Finally, broad/limited value seems like another fairly easy concept to understand. The gum example given in the text seems just about perfect. When it came to formulating examples of broad value, though, it got a little shaky. The proverb "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat forever" or however it's worded was sticking in my head. I couldn't really come up with anything that had distinct and strong broad value, besides "knowledge". It seems like the value of almost everything is limited in some sense, whether its because it could be exhausted or because you would just get sick of it.
unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, primary reinforcer, secondary reinforcer, generalized reinforcer, intrinsic, extrinsic, broad value, limited value
I found section 2.2 interesting and I think that it helped me to understand the difference between operant conditioning and classical conditioning. I know I have learned about both of these types of conditioning in previous psychology classes, but I took those classes a really long time ago! I didn't really have much difficulty comprehending the first few pages and filling out the boxes on those pages; I think negative and positive reinforcement is something of which I have a pretty good understanding. I have also had previous experience with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, so that chart was familiar to me as well. However, I did have some difficulty when it came to filling in the boxes on the last few pages of the reading. For some reason, it was difficult for me to think of reinforcers that are intrinsically valuable to me but not to others, and reinforcers that are valuable to others but not to me. I think I grasp the concept behind the limited and broad value, but I'm really not sure if the examples I wrote down are on the right track. I'm hoping that we will be going over this reading assignment in class next week?
I liked that part of this section was review, and part of it was new material. I’ve already learned about Pavlov many times, but it’s always great to have a “refresher” on the topics of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. I thought it was actually fun coming up with examples of generalized secondary reinforcers, because it’s not something I usually think about. On the other hand, I had a difficult time coming up with examples for reinforcers that have limited and broad values. I’m starting to understand it more now, but it took me a long time to think of examples. Also, I always enjoy looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs because it affects me every day. One example is that if I’m really hungry and I’m not able to eat food (such as in class), I can’t think about anything else!
And if you like Pavlov, you’ll probably enjoy these too:
http://www.saynotocrack.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/stivers_pavlovs_dog.JPG
http://muttrunner.buckeyeoutdoors.com/blogs/files/2008/09/cartoon151.jpg
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/ksm0244l.jpg
In the beginning of class you mentioned having been on a trip where you saw cool architecture, and were struck with the fact that if you only had a larger vocabulary for the intricacies of architecture your experience would have been that much more pleasurable.
Throughout this introductory section I've been very interested in how much more interesting all of life has become with this larger vocabulary regarding behavioral terms. This section further increased that vocab by giving new ways to talk about how reinforcers work.
Example: My friend and I went to eat chinese tonight, and have a beer afterwards. Then our discussion ended after an hour or so, and my friend went to work.
Why did we eat chinese and not something else, in particular because we wanted a beer afterwards and beer is much better at other restaurants? I had a bud light my friend a bud heavy. Our talk was concerning our relationships, my wife and his crazy g/f. We sat for an hour after our beer and went our seperate ways.
Behavioral analysis: My friend and I both find chinese food to be a positive reinforcer for paying money to the chinese place so we continue to go there. However, the chinese food acts as a limited reinforcer as 20 minutes after it is finished the pleasure has diminished considerably. The problem with eating chinese food again is that one quickly becomes satiated. As a result my friend and I decided to go to an alternative location in order to purchase beer which also acts as a positive reinforcer for both of us.
Although beer serves as a secondary reinforcer for both my friend and I, since it is an acquired taste (conditioned response), I find bud light intrinsically reinforcing whereas my friend finds bud heavy intrinsically reinforcing. Furthermore beer itself also has limited reinforcing power with a similarly quick satiation point (though more so then chinese).
However, spending time with my friend is a primary, intrinsically valuable, and broad reinforcer independant of the context, though it may be slightly more awesome if the context involves beer.
I found section 2.2 to be informative and good reading. It always helps me when good examples are presented along with the concepts. Its also nice to have more than just one example so you can think about how you could use them in different ways. Reinforcement was always very interesting to me. Many classes I've had prior to this touched on it, and it always made me think of ways I could use it in my own life to my benifit. Although I don't plan on having kids any time soon, I think just knowing the basics of reinforcement could help in raising children. I think negative reinforcement could and probably should be used more when talking about rasing children. Introducing a positive stimulus or reward for something is a good idea and proven to work when talking about positive reinforcement. I'm no expert but I think the child would think they need a reward for EVERYTHING. Overall, what I've continued to like about the readings is that they are to the point and clear.
Well i should probably start out by saying better late than never! I liked section 2.2 as it got more into the aspect of BMOD and what reinforces these behaviors. The most relevant examples i found in the reading were those for generalized secondary reinforcers. It took a little while but after thinking about it made perfect sense that a secondary reinforcer, I'm just wondering now if there are such things as generalized secondary punishers? Time can only tell. I especially like the section that talked about the context of the reinforcement. I think its so easy for us to completely forget the context and take it for granted when trying to think of examples to use for the class worksheets. Also it was a very good lead into the next section of the reading that went further in depth on certain contexts (good example with Rush Limbaugh!). To me it would be the matter of intrinsic vs. extrinsic value of the reinforcer that i would probably focus on. Instrinsicly working out makes you feel good about yourself, we know it releases stress and other related behavioral deficits. But one also extrinsically looks good after staying on a workout plan and those around them may begin to notice the change and emit praise and compliments to "said" individual.
This chapter was a lot of review for me. I have been pretty familiar with the concept of reinforcement for a while now. I know that positive means add something, negative means take something away. COnditioned vs, unconditioned, Maslow's hierarchy, secondary reinforcers, generalized reinforcers, all that good stuff. What I found interesting was in the intrinsic vs. extrinsic, we've been talking in my applied and social pysch about intrinsic motivation and I think these concepts apply very well to most of our in class discussion. I would be interested in learning more about how to build intrinsic motivation using extrinsic reinforcement. Can you even do such a thing? Also the limited and broad value. I had never thought of it like that before. Like instant gratification and delayed gratification. My parents were always big on making my sister and I wait until xmas to open presents, and it did always make it better. I guess I know why now.
A lot of the information in this chapter was review of what I have learned in other classes but looked at in a different way. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve learned about Pavlov or Maslow. The information on the different kinds of reinforces was interesting though. I knew about primary reinforces but had never really thought about secondary. After reading about it I realized that I see these everyday in my life. My favorite example includes my cat. She loves drinking out of the water faucet in the kitchen where I currently brush my teeth since my bathroom is being remodeled. Every morning when I started brushing my teeth my cat would come to the faucet and stick her head under the faucet to get a drink. (it’s really the cutest thing) Now, she seems to have learned that when my alarm goes off it’s time for her to get a drink. By the time I get to the sink she is standing there ready for me. I really never thought about this in behavioral terms but it makes complete sense now.
Section 2.2 covered or reviewed positive vs. negative reinforcement. It is always helpful to reinforce our learning of a concept. I often have to think about what is negative and what is positive reinforcement when disaplining my own son. It is important to know which kind to use in which situation. I also often you used positive reinforcement at work with my employees. I would try to increase a behavior by using positive reinforcers. If I would want them to increase their selling, I would set a goal, and reward them if they would make their goal by giving them praise, recognition, and sometimes monetary rewards.