Please read the chapter assigned for this week.
(Reading Schedule: http://www.uni.edu/~maclino/hybrid/bm_book_s11.pdf)
After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Of the various aspects of Behavior Modification presented in the chapter, which did you find the most interesting? Why? Which did you find least interesting? Why? What are three things you read about in the chapter that you think will be the most useful for you in understanding Behavior Modification? Why? What are some topics in earlier chapters that relate or fit in with this chapter? How so?
Please make sure you use the terms, terminology and concepts you have learned so far in the class. It should be apparent from reading your post that you are a college student well underway in a course in psychology.
Make a list of key terms and concepts you used in your post.
Let me know if you have any questions.
--Dr. M
I found the most interesting concept to be the conditioned emotional response aspect in this section. Conditioned emotional response usually involves the presentation of a stimulus followed by a shock. In Skinner’s operant chamber the conditioned emotional response that was created was that the rats would freeze up when a light is turned on. The rats were conditioned to learn that the light will bring a bad consequence, so they associated the light with the painful shock. I found this interesting how without even administering the shock, the rats would still freeze up when a light was turned on. They created a conditioned response the conditioned stimulus of the light. There really wasn’t anything I found interesting, all the information in this section was intriguing to me. One of the first pieces of information that I think is important from this section is the difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In classical conditioning the stimulus comes before the response. In operant conditioning the response comes before the stimulus. Another important piece of information is the operant chamber. This device is important to understand and know, because it can show you how things can be conditioned toward a stimulus and a response can be created. The last piece of information I found most important is the concept of shaping. This occurs when we shape the desired behavior to occur. Successive approximation occurs in shaping. A behavior that is close to the exact behavior we want is reinforced and then we reinforce those behaviors that are closer and closer to the exact behavior we want until we get the exact one. This is related to continuous reinforcement which was talked about in a previous chapter. This is also a type of reinforcement which was talked about in previous chapters as well.
Terms: conditioned response, conditioned stimulus, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, continuous reinforcement, reinforcement, conditioned emotional response
I thought the most interesting thing that I found from the chapter would have to about shaping. Shaping is we have to teach it (the rat in this example) to press the lever. It’s just not going just know that it needs to press the lever to get food. Also the concept behind it with the need to lean out the reinforcement schedule when the rat will be reinforced at certain amounts of time so it will increase the times it presses the lever. The rat will experience extinction when it doesn’t get the food on the first, second time pressing the lever but the third time. It will keep pressing the lever until it gets the food. I thought this concept was so interesting! I didn’t really find anything in the chapter that was least interesting to me. It was all fascinating to me to learn.
One of the three things would have to be about the differences between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is when the stimulus comes before the response (S R) and operant conditioning is when the response comes before the stimulus (RS). I felt this important to know before you understand what B.F. Skinner did with his work. Another thing that I felt was important is what was aforementioned with shaping. This is a very important part of Skinner’s work and to future research because it had a big impact with his findings. The last piece of information that I thought was important were his work with Conditioned Emotional Response. It is important to note that that classical conditioning does occur within the operant chamber (which is the cage where the rats will press levers). In this he would shock the rats via the bars on the floor so they know how often they would freeze up. The freezing up was referred to as species specific response. The example would be that the rat would learn that when a light would turn on it would be followed by a shock they would freeze up and after a while of doing so the rat would freeze up when the light turned on a no shock was administered. This was mixed with the pressing of the lever as well. It was measured by the decrease in presses where the fewer presses equaled the more fearful the rat was.
This can relate back to the chapter on schedules of reinforcement. Ratio schedule with how the rat would push the lever the same amount (until the researchers increased it) until the food was dispensed. Also it can relate to continuous reinforcement whenever the rat would press the lever food would come out and when they wasn’t food that was dispensed the rat would go into extinction. This all relates to previous chapters that we read.
Terms: Shaping/lean out/reinforcement schedules/extinction/classical conditioning/operant conditioning/B.F. Skinner/Conditioned Emotional Response/operant chamber/schedules of reinforcement/ratio schedule/continuous reinforcement
I found the operant chamber or "Skinner Box" to be really interesting. What this was was a cage where either a rat pressed a lever or a pigeon pecked at disks. The cage also included a cumulative recorder that recorded the lever pressing. Furthermore, Skinner used these chambers to study reinforcement and punishment relating to animals. The chamber also included a speaker, light, water spout, food hopper, and bar for lever pressing or disks for pecking, dependent on the animal being tested. In the chamber, the speaker and light provided an outlet as a stimulus for the animal to be able to tell when it might be reinforced or punished depending on the procedure. The water spout and food hopper served as a delivery of the reinforcer for the animal. When the desired number of presses or pecks occurred, the computer distributed water or a food pellet to the animal as a reinforcer. The lever or disks could also be referred to as a manipulanda because this is the object that was manipulated, depending on the type of animal being tested of course. The operant chamber was used to train a rat to press a lever to recieve a small amount of food. This chamber was also used to experiment with reinforcement schedules. The rat is eventually shaped to just touch the lever.
The part in the section that I found least interesting was the section about Skinners Air Bed. This was uninteresting to me because I felt that it was just confusing. I didn't understand his reasoning or concept behind this and when the section said something about children dying from this experiment that just made it more confusing to me.
The three things that I think will aid me in understanding Behavior Modification a little better is the whole section on Skinners Box, the difference between operant conditioning and classical conditioning, and the section about Skinner as a writer. These three things are important to understand because if we understand all the terms and information in all three of these topics that were covered, especially Skinner's Box, then we will have a more in depth understanding of testing when it comes to Behavior Modification, but also, understanding one of the men that came up with the discipline of Behavior Modification in Psychology and how he shaped the discipline as a whole.
Topics that relate to this section are the types of reinforcement schedules. By understanding the types of schedules and by implementing them into the Skinner Box section, we have used previous information that was learned to also gain a better understanding of the experiment that Skinner was trying to accomplish and how he shaped the rats and pigeons in using Behavior Modification, but more specifically, the different reinforcement schedules to exhibit his target behavior.
TERMS: operant chamber, Skinner's Box, cumulative recorder, reinforcement, punishment, stimulus, manipulanda, reinforcement schedules, operant conditioning, classical conditioning
The most interesting idea from this section is of course Skinners ideas of Social Engineering. It sounds crazy, but may just be crazy enough to work in keeping a civilized society eutopian. However, people wouldn't stand for it or allow it be clivilized before determining whether it would be worth it or if it would work. But it's possible to see how our government currently utilizes such techniques to create a environment that either reinforces or punishes specific behaviors we emit. The least interesting would probably be the description of the skinner box and how it works, mostly because that looking at it is pretty self explainatory and it's function has been repetitively discussed in many classes. The most useful pieces of information from this section in association with modifying behacior are; well first, species specific responses. It would be incredibly important to know which species do what, and why they do it, in order to be able to shape them and condition an emotional response in them, to attribute to modifying their behavior in a way you wish. Social engineering is important to understand because it focuses a lot on the environment largely determining behavior and how the set up of an environment can change the course of behaviors. It is also useful to know how to create stimulus control where the speicies learns to emit proper behaviors under propper circumstances.
Many topics from earlier chapters and sections are important in understanding how stimulus control, and skinners approaches to shaping behavior work. This section does a good job of reviewing some of these and how they fit in. Such as how schedules of reinforcement or differential reinforcement will assist in shaping, and leaning out. The idea of conditioned emotional responses are important to understand too. All of these can be used by us as individuals, groups, or societies, etc. to help and/or hinder unfortunately what becomes of those around us and their environments and behaviors.
Terms: Emit, Stimulus control, social engineering, shaping, leaning, out, schedules of reinforcement, differential reinforcement, Skinner box, CRE, reinforcement, punishment, condition.
The topic that I found most interesting in the chapter was conditioned emotional response. CER was described in previous chapters as a conditioned response, usually involving a shock. The chapter mentioned that in Skinner’s operant chamber, the bottom panels would shock the rat which caused the rat to emit a conditioned tense/ frozen response. Skinner then paired a light with the shock and the light began eliciting the tensed up response.
I didn’t find any of the topics mentioned in the chapter to be uninteresting; however I didn’t like the topic of shaping because I didn’t fully understand the concept. The reading described shaping as a way to create a certain behavior. The chapter mentioned that one tactic involved in shaping is successive approximation. Successive approximation is when an organism is reinforced for emitting a behavior that’s close to the desired behavior. For example, the rat in the operant chamber was reinforced for looking at the lever and then after awhile was only reinforced for touching the lever and after that was only reinforced for pushing down the lever.
The three additional topics that I will remember after reading the chapter are social engineering, the difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning, and Skinner’s air bed. The chapter introduced Skinner’s topic of social engineering, which I found to be very interesting. Social engineering was described as Skinner’s view that controlling the environment allows us to predict and control behavior to benefit society. Skinner believed that he could take any child and use behavior modification techniques and shape an individual into a banker or thief. After reading the chapter I also discovered that the difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning is due to the order of the stimulus presentation and response. For example, classical conditioning ( type S), is a reflexive response that requires the stimulus to come before the response. Operant conditioning ( type R), is a voluntary response that requires the stimulus to come after the response. The chapter also discussed Skinner’s air bed, which I found amazing! The chapter described Skinner’s air bed as a bed that allowed for environment control. For example, the reading mentioned that Skinner was able to control the temperature of the air bed.
There are several previous topics that were mentioned that tie into the chapter. The different reinforcement schedules were very helpful when reading the chapter because the concept of fixed and variable ratios was mentioned in the chapter. Also the concept of continuous reinforcement and intermittent reinforcement were very helpful when reading the chapter. Of course the topics of reinforcement and punishment were also relevant to the chapter. I also recall previous chapters introducing classical and operant conditioning.
Terms: reinforcement, punishment, emit, elicit, CER, continuous reinforcement, intermittent reinforcement, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, social engineering, shaping, successive approximation
I just finished reading Walden Two in time for this! Took me forever, but it's a great airplane read because it's relatively quick and pretty easy to follow. From reading it, it's obvious that Skinner is proud of the term 'social engineering', he uses it a lot like a catchphrase, making one of the characters express it over and over. Great book, though, I highly recommend it.
The air bed idea is something Skinner used as part of the child-rearing process in Walden Two. I had no idea he actually implemented this idea in reality. Clearly there are perks, as a scientist, to having children of your own to experiment with.
The concept of shaping makes a lot of sense to me. It sounds a lot like weaning a calf off a bottle when it doesn't want to be. While sudden extinction does work, it's always seemed nicer to slowly ease it away from the bottle-feeding behavior with manageable differences. Sure, there's extinction bursts sometimes, but as with shaping (when it's done well), ratio strain can be avoided. I've heard the phrase 'shaping behaviors' used before and it always sort-of made sense, but now it makes a lot more sense to me why it's said like that.
The things I'll take from this are, first and foremost, an easier way to remember classical and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning = s-type = S->R conditioning. The S comes first, in this case it stands for stimulus. So in classical conditioning, the stimulus comes first. Operant is the other way around, the R (response) comes first, thus operant conditioning = R-type.
I'll also remember that classical conditioning is based on reflexive behaviors, using stimulus to get certain behaviors that will later be conditioned to occur in the presence of a conditioned stimulus. Operant conditioning relies on non-reflexive and have to occur naturally and are then reinforced as necessary to increase the behavior.
And, as mentioned, I'll also remember shaping, because I understand it a lot better now.
I think it's sort of a cop-out to say that everything we've learned so far ties into this chapter in some way, since it's all behavior-related. BUT in the spirit on the assignment, knowing my reinforcement schedules will be very helpful for understanding the way shaping works and how to avoid ratio strain.
Terms: ratio strain, reinforcement schedules, operant/classical conditioning, reinforcement, conditioned stimulus, response, stimulus, shaping
I really enjoyed reading this chapter and learning a lot more about Skinner and his works. My favorite concept that I will take away from this reading was the idea of social engineering and how he thought it was the best idea society could implement. Skinner focused his ideas more on the environment as a predictor of behavior rather than the individual. Like the reading stated, if you put a new good school in a poor area you are changing the environment in order to get better results from the students and attract better teachers to the area to give the students a valuable education. If you successfully alter the environment you can expect individuals in the community to emit desired behaviors.
I didn't quite understand the air bed that Skinner invented... it seems dangerous and ineffective. The readings said that some tests were fatal and I think it just sounded a little to risky. Although he did successfully apply his invention with his young daughter who seems to have no problems with it and was not negatively affected by the air bed.
Three things I will remember most from the readings are; 1) Skinner's idea of a perfect society would have to implement a system of social engineering which focuses on changing the environment to influence behaviors. 2) Discriminant stimulus can signal reinforcement (S+) or signal extinction (S-). 3) Skinner differentiated between two types of conditioning, Type S and Type R. Type S is classical conditioning (S precedes R). Type R is operant conditioning (R precedes S).
There were many concepts and topics from previous topics discussed and referred to in the readings. Classical and operant conditioning were reexamined because they were important topics developed by Skinner. Punishment and reinforcement were discussed when reading about Skinner's operant chamber. Satiation was also referred to when explaining the importance of not over feeding the rat in the experiement. Different schedules of reinforcement were also covered such as fixed and variable ratio schedules. Continuous and variable reinforcement were also mentioned. We had also previously learned about conditioned emotional response (CER), this topic was related to fear in rats and their tendency to freeze up when experiencing fear, this is known as species specific response.
Terms: Social engineering, emit, air bed, discriminate stimulus, S+ signal reinforcement, S- signal extinction, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, Type S classical, Type R operant, punishment, reinforcement, operant chamber, satiation, schedules of reinforcement, fixed ratio, variable ratio, continuous/variable reinforcement, conditioned emotional response, species specific response.
One topic in this section that I enjoyed was the part on successive approximation. In terms of the rat, this means that the rat is reinforced when it is close to performing the right behavior. It started out with the rat being reinforced for looking at the lever. After being continuously reinforced for looking at the lever, the rat stopped being reinforced for this behavior. The rat had been classically conditioned to receiving food for looking at the lever. Instead, it was the behavior of approaching the lever was reinforced. Again, after a while, this reinforced was stopped and instead, the rat was reinforced only when it touched the lever.
I also enjoyed reading the part about the air box. The purpose of this was to manipulate the temperature of the box with the baby inside to see how happy and comfortable the baby was. The baby was without clothes so as to eliminate those confounds. They found that raising or lowering the temperature of the air box by more than a few degrees changed the baby's behavior and condition.
There wasn't really a part of this section that I did not like. I was a little confused on the subject of discrimination training. So this is something that I would like to go over more in class.
Three things that I will remember from this section are 1. species specific responses. In the case of the rats, they will freeze up when they are scared. Another way of thinking about this term, is that different species have a unique response in accordance with a behavior. 2. successive approximation is reinforcing the organism when it does something close to the desired behavior. 3. ratio strain is when the schedule of reinforcement is increased too much too fast.
terms used: successive approximation, reinforced, continuous reinforcement, classically conditioned, discrimination training, species specific response, organism, ratio strain, reinforcement schedules
I found the conditioned emotional response training to also be interesting. For instance the bars on the ground would shock the rat every time the light came on. So whenever they were pressing the lever and the light came on they would get shocked. Eventually the rats would learn to freeze up and stop pressing the lever once the light came on—this is basically just classical conditioning. Which we learned about in the previous chapter.Skinner’s operant chamber or “skinner box” was a mechanism in which he placed rats and pigeons inside to study reinforcement and punishment in non-human animals. There is a speaker that emits a tone and a light involved as a stimulus for the behaviors. There is also a waterspout and a food hopper that emits the reinforcement—which is food and water, to the animals. When a desired amount of presses (on the lever, or pecks in a certain place) has occurred, the hopper or spout releases the reinforcement. –this lever is also referred to as a manipulanda. In addition there is also bars on the floor that shock the animals as punishment.
I thought the notion of successive approximation was interesting and helpful because it cleared up something that didn’t really make sense. Obviously we can’t tell the non-human animals to do something and expect them to do it. What the experimenters do is reward a behavior that is close to the target behavior. For instance, if they want the rat to press the lever, they will reward the rat when it looks toward the lever. And eventually, by reinforcing behaviors that are close to the target behavior, the rat will eventually catch on.
terms- emit, reinforcement, punishment, conditioned emotional response, operant chamber, skinner, manipulanda, classical conditioning, stimulus,
I found 4.1 most interesting because I enjoyed reading about self-directed behavior. We learned in the reading that the goal of an effective self-directed behavior program is to have people acquire better, more adaptive patterns of behaviors that will eventually occur automatically and routinely as part of daily life. For this kind of behavior, we should either think of something we would like to increase doing such that we reinforce that behavior, or we should think of behaviors that are incompatible with the bothersome behaviors and reinforce the incompatible behaviors is called differential reinforcement. The difference between self-directed behavior and the kind of behavior we may see in a school is that we rely on ourselves to manage the behavior and in most cases administer the consequences.
Self-directed behavior occurs when we exert our free will to choose a behavior that we want to increase or decrease. With this kind of behavior, we are free to make our own goals and structure our own behavioral interventions and contingencies. What is the point in using self-directed behavior? We have goals that we want to get to. A person may think they are fine the way they are, and because of this elicited feeling, they do not feel that they need to emit a change in their behavior. The self-directed behavior could change the future for this person and maybe establishing operations in this situation would not be a desirable thing to do.
Terms: self-directed behavior, differential reinforcement, desirable, elicited, emit
oops I did the wrong section! I will do the other section next week :)
The 6 basic steps in self-directed behavior are:
1. Set your goal- goals are typically broad and usually reflect a behavioral class rather than specific behaviors. Try to base goals on increasing a desirable behavior rather than decreasing an undesirable behavior to avoid the need for punishment. (hang out with my grandparents more)
2. Define your target behaviors based on your goal. (go to grandparents house and have daily chats with them)
3. Keep records of the behaviors you are going to change using a behavioral diary. (I went to my grandparents house 3 times this week and talked to them for an hour each day) Organize the records in terms of the ABCs of behavior.
4. Graph a baseline using a spreadsheet or by hand. (in this case my graph would be consistent since I visited for an hour each day I went to my grandparent's house)
5. Determine contingencies such as effect reinforcers, how and when they will be delivered. ( When I visit my grandparents for more than just a few minutes, my grandma feeds me cake and ice cream)
6. Determine the antecedents that will help elicit the desired behaviors. (I write on my calendar the days I want to go visit my grandparents)
7. Implement and adjust the contingencies. ( did I visit longer on some days than others? did I visit more days this week than I did last week?)
The thing I found most interesting about this section was the in depth explaination of an Operant Chamber. An Operant Chamber is a secured chamber where a lab animal is placed to study reinforcement and punishment. Skinner used this often to study behavior in various animals. One way he did this way by successive approximation which is when the target behavior is close to being met, the behavior gets reinforced. However, it is key that the animal is positively reinforeced only a few times or else satiation could take place, causing the reinforcer to not be as reinforcing. This may also lead to extinction burst because let's say a rat is used to getting food whenever a lever is pressed and he presses a lever in hopes of recieving food. The rat is then going to keep pressing the lever in hopes of getting a pellet of food, thus causing extinction burst to occur. Another potential problem is when the schedule is increased too fast and too much ,thus resulting in ratio strain.
Another aspect I found interesting was Conditioned Emotional Response. This is a type of classical conditioning, which is when the stimulous comes before the response. This can be done in the form of a shock, which I found to be pretty interesting.
Yet another thing I enjoyed reading in this section was Skinner's Airbed. I've heard about this in other classes, so I already knew quite a bit about it. However, I still find it to be kind of funny that Skinner thought to do this. Although, creating a 'box' complete with everything a child needs for comfort is extremely genius.
As you can see, I thought everything in this section was pretty interesting so I don't have anything that wasn't! I believe that I could use these in bmod in several ways. The three that stick out the most are how it applies to:satiation, reinforcement, and punishment. These are also concepts that greatly fit into other chapters because we have been talking a lot about extinction, punishment, and reinforcers.
Terms: extinction, extinction burst, punishment, reinforcer, positive reinforcement, conditioned emotional reponse, satiation, operant chamber
Another thing to add is that classical conditioning is involuntary and a natural response. This is shown majorly with Pavlov's dogs who salivated by the smell of food. Classical conditioning can also be learned (ie when he rang the bell, the dogs salivated because of association). However, operant conditioning is more so about positive and negative reinforcements. If you tell your dog to "shake" and he shakes your hand, then you give him a treat he'll be more likely to shake your hand again as opposed to if you would bang him over the head when he sat!
I thought there were A LOT of interesting things mentioned in this chapter. What i found most interesting was reading about Julie Vargas, Skinner's daughter that was put in a "air bed" instead of the normal baby being put in a crib. At first it sounds appauling but in a weird way it was good for her when conidering temperature and being comfortable. She was able to crawl around naked all day and what baby wouldn't love that. It also took away other risks, such as being comfortable while she slept and it was easier to clean up after the baby. All that being said, I wouldn't raise my child the same way. I also liked reading the brief descriptions of Skinner's books. I like to read about appauling stories and was intrigued. In fact I bought the "Walden Two" on my Ebook and plan to read it. However, his other book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" seems a little far fetched. I believe that behavior modification can be used for many issues but it is difficult to imagine that it could solve social issues, such as war.
I fell out of interest talking about Skinner's box in detail, because I have already read about it before but I think it is still useful information.
I thought the term species specific response was useful becuase I can relate it to any animal I see, and actual know what they are doing and what it is referred to as. My own example was when dogs get angry or scared, the hair on their back stands up. It was useful that this chapter mentioned that classical conditioning can be used in an operant chamber. Such as the rat associating when the computer generated noise with food. Humans do this as well. For example, when class lets out at 3:15, nearly every student is itching to jump out of their seat, and as soon as the bell rings they burst out of there seat as if they had been in prison all day. Another useful piece was successive approximation. It seems like common sense, but really there is a process to go through to achieve it. It starts out slowly by the rat being reinforced for something similar to the target behavior, and eventually it will the rat would be continuously reinforced for discovering the target behavior. Then extinction would occur in which the rat would only be intermittently reinforced. The rat would have an extinction burst in which he would press the lever multiple times, expecting food and recieving none.
Some previous topics that were mentioned in this chapter were schedules of reinforcment. Mainly referring to the goal of successive approximation, it is essentially the last step. The experiment had an FR25 in which the rat would only be reinforced with food if he pushed the lever 25 times. Schedules of reinforcement can be changed and depend on the situation. This chapter also breifly reviewed the difference between classical and operant conditioning. In which the stimulus comes before the response (S-R) in classical conditioning and the stimulus follows the response (R-S)which is voluuntary in operant conditioning.
terms: species specific response,classical conditioning, operant conditioning, operant chamber, successive apporximation, continuous reinforcment, target behavior, intermittent reinforcement, extinction, extinction burst, schedules of reinforcement, Fixed ratio, stimulus, response.
I found it very interesting, well lets just say that I found the whole chapter very interesting and I could not stop reading it. What really caught my eye was the fact that there was so many new words which were incorperated into old words or language. I felt with this I was being conditioned to retain or remember the past language. I found that Skinner had some very pleasureable ideas about what should be going on with psychology but I felt that he was not seeing the big picture. Maybe it was different then compared to how it is now. He talked about how we can use the enviroment to classically condition us and that if we have a pleasurable environment then we will so to speak turn out good. I see that now as not how it really is. For example one can responcing to seeing domestic violence as they should act that way as well. While another child who grows up in the same home and sees the same thing can not want anything to do with it. I understand how a pleasurable enviroment can allow us to be better people but it all truely depends on the person. Even though this section of the chapter did not have much behavior language, I loved it! Skinner's Air Bed. That invention I felt was the best invention ever. I think about how you never know how much clothing or blankets to put on your child so they are comfortable. With this invention that is not needed because their behavior if monitored will allow you to figure out how comfortable ones child is. I really enjoyed this chapter.
There was nothing in this chapter that I did not like. Well maybe the fact that there was not enough information about the Air Bed.
I would however like to know more about the Air Bed. I am sure if I do some reseach I could find out. Just wondering what you as the teacher knows.
The most interesting concept to me out of section 3.5 was the part about shaping. Shaping is used when you want a specific behavior to occur and you reward the organism for emitting that behavior. Then eventually you move on to other behaviors until the desired target behavior is met. This is interesting to me because it’s cool to see the process of teaching an organism desired behaviors and go from step to step. An example of this would be trying to teach the rat to pull the lever. You reward the rat when it goes near the lever. Then you reward it next when it randomly touches the lever. Then you reward it when it touches the lever all the time and etc. I never really thought it was possible to do any of these things until I read and learned about these behavior techniques.
The thing that I found the least interesting in section 3.5 was the parts about Skinner’s air bead. This part of the section actually got me almost angry. I can’t believe that someone would subject a child to live in a glass box for their childhood. I understand that he was trying to get natural behaviors and responses to occur but I believe that you’re not allowing the child to experiment and live life like he or she is suppose to. I just don’t understand the scientific genius in this invention or the practical use I suppose. I would never raise my child this way just for the fact that the child would not understand the real world once it was out of the chamber. I just think the whole idea is lazy and dumb.
Three things that I learned in this chapter that will be most useful to me are the parts about shaping, social engineering, and conditioned emotional response. I’ll remember shaping because of the step by step process it takes to train an organism to emit target behaviors. It also helps me tie in other terms like successive approximation which means if an organism does something close to the target behavior it is reinforced. Social engineering I will remember because it focused more on the environment around the organism rather than the behaviors emitted by the organism. Remembering conditioned emotional response is easy because I always think of the cat running to the kitchen because it hears the sound of the can opener opening the cat food. I learned that classical conditioning can still occur even when you’re using operant conditioning as well.
Some topics that relate to this chapter would have to be the parts about fixed and variable ratios and intervals. It also ties in parts of the intermittent, continuous, and differential reinforcement.
Shaping, target behavior, emit, organism, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, differential reinforcement, intermittent reinforcement, continuous reinforcement, social engineering
Another thing I found interesting about Skinner was his operant Chamber. He invented the Operant Chamber. Is a secured chamber where a laboratory animal such as a rat or a pigeon is placed to study reinforcement and punishment in non-human animals. In the operant chamber were speakers and lights for the animal to discriminate when it might get reinforced or punished depending on the procedure. The water spout and the food hopper allow for the delivery of the reinforcer. The food hopper is attached to a computerized mechanism which is attached to a canister of food pellets. When the desired number of presses has occurred the computer opens a small gate and a pellet falls into the food hopper for the rat to enjoy. The floor consisted of rollers which allowed poop and urine to fall through and also allowed electric shocks as a punisher. Used CER( conditioned Emotional response). When a rat presses the lever a certain amount of times a light turns on and then the rat is shocked. The rat freezes and eventually the light turning on alone with make the rat freeze.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972472,00.html
For this blog I did mine on why children lie in the courts. I found this interesting because, when I was little I was a child who told the truth in court. But I so badly wanted to lie, I was five at the time. In New York there was a study done that dealt with 72 girls all ages 5 and 7. Half of them received full examinations which included anal and vaginal checks. While the other half just got a general physical. When the first group was asked a broad question about what had happened, only eight mentioned the vaginal examinations, and when the children were shown anatomically correct dolls, six pointed to the vaginal area. But of the girls who received only a general checkup, three claimed they had also had vaginal or anal exams. One child even reported that "the doctor did it with a stick." (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972472,00.html#ixzz1I0PI9LFb) This shows that children are able to say false things even through many people believe that whatever a child says about anything sexual is true. Many children are at the state where they want the adult to have a pleasurable behavior. They in a way are conditioned to please the parents. So when a child is in an aversive situation they tend to say whatever the adult wants to hear. The child at times will say aversive or pleasurable things to please the parents or the social worker. If a child is told something over and over again by someone who is bigger than them or seems to have more power they will say whatever the adult tells them to say. They are conditioned to see that the adults are always right. Sometimes children are also preped by the parents and rewarded or reinforced for doing what they tell them. This is something that tends to happen in the home. Also if the child says something that the parents do not like in the courts they have the chance to punish the child. Questions that are misleading in so many ways can aversivly change the childs thoughts and even mind. When I think about a child Many times I think that a courtroom can be looked at like a skinner box. To where a child will to whatever to get out of the court room or down from the stand. The child is later on conditioned on what to say or do that will get them out of there quickly. This all depends on how many times a child is in the courtroom. Over all the truth for a child can be blurred by what they have been classically conditioned to say or do within the court room or any environment at all.
What are some topics in earlier chapters that relate or fit in with this chapter? How so?
What I found interesting in this reading was the the concept and reaction of the Air Bed. The whole concept seemed strange to me yet interesting because. How the mild change in temperature can elicit a behavioral response. The whole idea is strange to raise a child in, however, Skinner's daughter being raised in the Air Bed, found nothing odd or strange with it. Coming out of such a situation with no abnormalities. Least interesting was the classical conditioning (S->R) and operate conditioning (R->S). They are interesting in their own right, however, after hearing more and more about then they grow less interesting. And considering the Air Bed as something new, the topic paled in comparison.
Things that are important in this section I believe, is as strange as Skinner was with his methods, he had a great influence on Behavioral Modification and had a great many ideas. Another being the concepts of classical conditioning and operate condition, both important concepts in modifying behavior to elicit or have an emitted response from an organism. Understanding these to concepts is important part of behavioral modifications.
Other possible concepts and previous topics that may apply here are series. The elicited and emitted behaviors and organism response with, behavioral conditioning and schedule of reinforcement. Punishment as well applies when dealing with conditioning a desired response.
Terms:
reinforcement, elicit, emit, punishment, classical conditioning, operate conditioning, behavior, response, behavior modification, modify, organism, schedule of reinforcement
The topic I found most interesting from this chapter is shaping. I recently went to a training in Chicago on a new curriculum we are implementing in Waterloo called Sihle. This curriculum is a HIV/Pregnancy prevention for 14-18 year old African American girls. There were a lot of ideas in the curriculum that include shaping. The idea is that considering the AA population of females is the fastest growing population for HIV, we need to give them the education and skills to prevent this, and we go over a lot of strong, tough topics. I think we use shaping in the idea that we don’t just jump into these topics, but we gradually build up to them. If the first day we talked about how to properly and consistently use a condom, they may not come back the second day because this is a sensitive subject and we must build trust and rapport w these girls first. We talk about what it means to be a strong black female first, and do some skill building and core building first, then ease into things about the female body and then into STD’s, HIV, birth control and so on… I learned a lot in this training so everything I read right now is pertaining to what I recently learned so I hope this is a good example. We are shaping the desired behavior of not getting HIV,STD’s or getting pregnant by giving the girls the skills,tools, knowledge and support they need to get to the desired behavior.
I thought the chamber that Skinner used to be the most interesting. He was able to teach animals to elict behaviors through the use of punishment and reinforcement. Depending on what FR or what behavior was desired, Skinner was able to condition the rat into almost any behavior. After conditioning, he would switch up the techniques and for the rat into extinction burst. It all depended on the placement of the response and the stimulus.
I thought the air bed was a somewhat strange concept and I don't really understand the point of it. It seems like babies are just find in normal beds at room temperature, so I was confused at what behavior he was attempting to alter.
Three things that I learned would be:
-The operant chamber will have something that can function as a discriminative stimulus, something to
dispense reinforcers, something to manipulate
(lever), and something to deliver punishers.
-Successive approximation means when the rat does something close to the behavior it gets reinforced.
-Stimulus control occurs in situations when the rat learns to emit the proper behavior under the proper
circumstances.
Some topics that fit in from earlier would be the use of punishment and reinforcement. Also the occurrence of extinction burst and the time of the stimulus/response.
Terms: reinforcement, punishment, extinction bursts, stimulus, response, elict
Laid the foundation for modern behaviorism and behavior modification
Believed in social engineering by creating the right encironment we can predict and control behavior to benefit society
Skinner differentiated between type s conditioning and type r conditioning
-type s- classical conditioning where the stimulus comes before the response
Type r- operant conditioning where the response comes before the stimulus
Invented the operant chamber (a secured chamber where a lab animal such as a rat or pigeon is placed to study reinforcement and punishment for particular behaviors) and the cumulative recorder (the recording device that graphed the lever pressing)
-the opperant chamber has a discriminative stimulus (a speaker and light to discriminate when it might get reinforced or punished) something to dispense reinforcers (water spout and food hopper--dispense only when the desired number of presses occur) something to manipulate (lever) and something to deliver punishers (electrical current administered through metal bars in the floor to shock the rat)
-shaping is used to train rats to lever press which involves reinforcing the rat each time it does something close to the desired response. Aka successive approximation
Ex- (the rat doesn’t know to press the lever yet) the rat looks at the lever--food dispenses
Initially the rat is reinforced each time is presses the lever. This is then replaced with intermittent reinforcement (once in a while) and gradually learned out to the desired schedule
Discrimination training involved differential reinforcement some responses are reinforced while others are not
-a discriminant stimulus (a light) can signal when a reinforcement will follow or when it will not
Stimulus control occurs in situations when the rat learns to emit the proper behavior under the proper circumstances (ex the rat waits to press the lever until the light turns off)
Skinner also created the air bed which provides a controlled environment for the provides a controlled environment for the baby and wrote about how people can use social engineering to create better societies
I found the use of “shaping” to be interesting, how we can use shaping to actually shape a desired behavior, in the reading they want the want the rat to press the lever 25 times (FR5) in order to receive a snack, so as the rat gets closer with intervals of 5 to pressing the lever up to 25 times he get a snack, but less and less he gets a snack until it builds up to 25 actual lever presses, then he learn and understands the behavior needed in order to gain the snack. Skinner’s operant chamber the conditioned emotional response was an electric shock from bars and floor to the rat to evaluate how scared he gets each time; the classic conditioning they practiced was when the rat learned to associate the sound of the computer and the opening of the food gate. I found everything in this chapter to be interesting, because the ways they use to condition behavior are all very interesting. 3 things I read that will be the most useful are: Skinner’s air bed/Baby in box, and how he raised children with this experiment to be better people for themselves and society. How the government manipulates our behaviors with the taxes and tax credits available to us, like the sin tax they put on cigs so that it’s hard to keep affording them, and how we can use shaping to condition behaviors.
Terms: shaping, FR5, operant chamber, conditioned emotional response, classic conditioning, conditioned behavior
BF Skinner was an inventor, a writer, and a researcher. He came up with the idea of social engineering which he what he based his famous book Walden II on. His books was controversial because they threatened our free will. Walden II is about a utopian society based on reinforcement. BF Skinner believed that psychology should only focus on what is observable (behaviors).
There are two different types of conditioning according to Skinner Type S (classical) and Type R (operant). In classical conditioning the stimulus comes before the response but in operant conditioning the response comes before the stimulus
Skinner invented an operant chamber (aka Skinner Box) for rats and pigeons. It is for studying reinforcement and punishment in animals. A rat pushes a lever for food and this lever is called a manipulanda (it’s the object that the animal manipulates).
The most interesting thing I read from this chapter was about shaping. Shaping is used to teach the rat to press the lever. Shaping is used to elicit a desired behavior and successive approximation is also used to get an animal to do what you want, because one cannot just tell the rat or the pigeon what to do to get food. When the animal does something similar or close to the desired/target behavior then the animal is reinforced for it.
Terms used: skinner, elicit, shaping, successive approximation, punishment, reinforcement, operant chamber
The aspect of behavior modification I enjoyed most in this chapter was conditioned emotional response, because it demonstrates a core principle of behaviorism. Conditioned emotional response is actually a form of classical conditioning where a stimulus is conditioned to elicit an emotional response in the subject. The example in the text is a light coming on (neutral stimulus) right before a brief shock is administered (unconditioned stimulus). The rats freeze up when shocked (unconditioned response), which is the operational measure for a fear response. After a while, the rat will freeze up (conditioned response) whenever the light comes on (conditioned stimulus).
I had to read the section about conditioned emotional response twice, because at first I thought it was a mistake to equate a behavior (freezing up) with an emotional state (fear). However, as I think about it, we can't just ask the rat "How afraid are you on a scale of 1-7?" The fact is, emotions tend to manifest themselves in behavior (in this case, the rat freezing, or in the case of people a fight or flight response). Behavior is what *is* measured because behavior is a variable that *can be* measured with fair reliability.
A less interesting part of the section (probably because I didn't understand it very well) was the paragraph about discrimination training. Three things I think will be the most useful are conditioned emotional response, because of the insight it gives into the philosophy of behaviorism (and because it's really cool); reinforcement schedules, because they're so vital in operant conditioning; and successive approximations, because it's a useful way to reinforce complicated behaviors a little at a time.
Two topics in this chapter that were covered in previous ones were classical conditioning, which I mentioned earlier in my discussion of conditioned emotional response; and operant conditioning, which Skinner pretty much invented.
Terms: conditioned emotional response, classical conditioning, neutral stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned response, conditioned stimulus, discrimination training, reinforcement schedules, successive approximations, operant conditioning