Human Development: A Life-span View 7th Sample Test for Ch. 3

Mr. Loosigian is worried about Jerri, a girl who is struggling in his seventh grade class. He thinks about several different reasons why she might be having so much difficulty with her schoolwork. Which one of the possible reasons that he considers is consistent with a behaviorist perspective of learning?

"Maybe I don't praise her enough when she does something well."

Which one of the following is a primary reinforcer?

A cookie

Mandy has learned that whenever her father comes home drunk, he is likely to yell at her, so she usually goes to her friend's house before he has the chance. In this situation, the father's coming home drunk is:

A pre-aversive stimulus

Which one of the following is the best example of punishment as behaviorists define it?

After Nora spends a few minutes in the time-out room for hurting a classmate's feelings, she is more careful not to hurt her peers' feelings in the future.

Which one of the following is the best example of a social reinforcer?

Being told that you did a good job

Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are two learning paradigms within the behaviorist tradition. A major difference between these two paradigms is that:

Classically conditioned responses are elicited by specific stimuli, whereas responses learned through operant conditioning are voluntary.

Which one of the following best describes contemporary theorists' perspective on classical conditioning?

Cognitive factors, such as mental representations of stimuli and predictions that organisms make, must often be considered in addition to observable stimuli and responses.

a. Alice is praised for her accurate bookkeeping at work. After that, she continues to keep accurate books at work. She also begins to be more careful about balancing her personal checkbook each month, even though she receives no reinforcement for doing so.

David usually struggles with his geography exams, but he recently got high scores on two occasions when he wore a Denver Broncos sweatshirt to school. He now wears his Broncos sweatshirt whenever a geography test is scheduled.

Extinction is one method of eliminating undesirable conditioned responses, but there are several problems associated with its use. Which one is not a problem encountered in using extinction?

Extinction often occurs too quickly to be controlled.

Which one of the following statements best describes behaviorists' two-step theory of avoidance learning?

Fear of the pre-aversive stimulus is classically conditioned, and escape from that stimulus is negatively reinforced.

Which one of the following responses is most likely to be learned through classical conditioning?

Feeling anxious around horses

Which one of the following is the best example of intrinsic reinforcement?

Feeling good about your own generosity toward a less fortunate classmate

Nick is extremely anxious whenever he takes a test. From a classical conditioning perspective, a teacher can best reduce his anxiety by:

Giving him a few easy tests while he is feeling relaxed

Good grades are reinforcing to some children but not to others. Someone explaining this fact from an early operant conditioning perspective would say that good grades are most likely to be reinforcers to children who:

Have previously associated those grades with primary reinforcers

Which one of the following educational practices is most clearly derived from behaviorist principles?

Having students make overt responses

Which one of the following is the major reason why assigning extra schoolwork is not an appropriate punishment for classroom misbehavior?

It gives students the message that classwork is an unpleasant task.

John and Bill have both learned that when they whine and complain, their teacher will hurry over to see what's wrong. John's teacher gives him attention every time he complains. However, Bill's teacher gives him attention only on some of the occasions he complains. Both teachers eventually realize that they are reinforcing the boys for inappropriate behavior and so both stop attending to the boys when they whine and complain. From a behaviorist perspective, we can predict that:

John's complaining will decrease more rapidly than Bill's.

When behaviorists describe an organism as a "black box," they mean that:

Learning processes occurring within the organism cannot be studied scientifically.

Which one of the following alternatives best describes instrumental conditioning?

Learning to behave in ways that either bring pleasure or reduce the likelihood of aversive events

David is addicted to a drug that increases his blood sugar level, temporarily giving him more energy. David always takes this drug in the bathroom. He finds that he becomes tired when he enters the bathroom and also that he needs more and more of the drug to maintain the same high energy level. From the perspective of classical conditioning, which one of the following is the most likely explanation of David's increasing addiction to the drug?

Lowering blood sugar level to counteract the effect of the drug has become a conditioned response to the "bathroom" stimulus.

Bill's behaviors in Ms. Kennedy's class are really distracting to other students. For example, he whispers to the boy beside him when Ms. Kennedy is giving directions on how to do any assignment. He flings paper clips at a girl across the room. He makes strange grunting noises that a few classmates find amusing. Ms. Kennedy glares at him or admonishes him whenever he behaves in a distracting way, yet his inappropriate behaviors are increasing rather than decreasing. Which one of the following interpretations of this situation best explains why Bill's behaviors are increasing?

Ms. Kennedy is positively reinforcing him for the distracting behaviors.

Which one of the following accurately describes the difference between negative reinforcement and punishment?

Negative reinforcement increases the frequency of behavior, whereas punishment decreases it.

Paul is usually successful on the math problems his teacher assigns at school, although he occasionally fails on one or two problems. In contrast, Peter's experiences with mathematics are almost always associated with frustration and failure. Considering contemporary views of the roles of contiguity and contingency in classical conditioning, who will acquire classically conditioned anxiety regarding mathematics?

Only Peter will develop math anxiety, because whenever math is presented, failure always follows.

Which one of the following statements best reflects behaviorists' notion of tabula rasa ("blank slate")?

Organisms inherit few predispositions to behave in particular ways; instead, the behaviors they exhibit are largely the result of environmental experiences.

Martin went to two or three school dances but felt uncomfortable and self-conscious at them. Martin no longer goes to school dances. His lack of attendance is an example of:

Passive avoidance learning

When Rochelle has an on-the-road lesson as part of her driver education class, she fails to stop at a school crossing zone, as is required by law. Her instructor has her drive around the block several times and stop each time at the crossing zone. He also insists that, once she has stopped, she must wait at least eight seconds before proceeding. The instructor's strategy illustrates the use of _______ as a way of bringing about behavior change.

Positive-practice overcorrection

At the beginning of the school year, Mr. Webber is concerned that Frances rarely does her independent seatwork. He begins praising Frances for each seatwork assignment she completes, and by January she is completing her assignments regularly. To make sure that the behavior continues in the years to come, what would behaviorists tell Mr. Webber to do now?

Praise her for only some of her completed assignments.

A teacher wants to encourage her students to work cooperatively with one another as they study classroom subject matter. If she were to use the concept of a setting event to encourage such cooperative behavior, she would:

Provide instructional materials that students can use only by working together.

Feedback about one's performance is most likely to be effective when it:

Provides information about how to improve

Tammy is scolded for submitting a messy math homework paper, so she tries to do her math problems more neatly after that. The scolding Tammy received is an example of:

Punishment I

DeeDee is upset that she has been taken off the basketball team because of a failing grade in her history class. The consequence of DeeDee's failure in history is an example of:

Punishment II

Three of the following statements reflect contemporary perspectives of instrumental conditioning and reinforcement. Which one does not?

Punishment has a more pronounced effect on behavior than reinforcement does.

Nadia is an only child who lives on a ranch that is located many miles from the homes of other children. Although she enjoys being with her peers at school, she is often physically aggressive toward them. School personnel have made many small attempts to curb Nadia's aggression (for example, they have scolded her, kept her in from recess, and put her in a time-out situation) but always without success. They are now thinking about taking more drastic measures. According to the textbook, which one of the following is most likely to be effective?

Putting Nadia in in-school suspension

Imagine that you want to improve a distractible child's ability to sit still and listen in class. Which one of the following procedures illustrates how you might use shaping to do so?

Reinforce the child for sitting still and listening for only a minute, then for progressively longer and longer periods of time.

Which one of the following statements best describes research findings regarding the effectiveness of verbally reprimanding (e.g., scolding) children?

Reprimands are more effective when they're brief and unemotional.

Julie gets very upset when her mother will not let her help her bake cookies. Julie yells at her mother and throws flour all over the kitchen. Julie's mother makes Julie clean up all of the flour and do all of the dishes Julie's mother created from baking the cookies. Her mother's punishment was a form of:

Restitutional overcorrection

Ivan Pavlov conducted a series of studies that led him to propose his theory of classical conditioning. In these studies, Pavlov observed how a dog learned to:

Salivate to a simple stimulus such as a light or bell

A mother has been paying her daughter Melissa one dollar an hour to shovel snow off the driveway. At the end of January, the mother raises the rate to two dollars an hour. Based on research related to contrast effects, we can predict that Melissa will probably:

Shovel more snow than if the pay for shoveling snow had always been two dollars an hour.

Mr. Smart tells his students that they can do whatever they want for the first ten minutes of class but must then turn their attention to the day's assignment. The students are delighted with their ten minutes of free time but they don't attend to the assignment when it's time to do so. From an operant conditioning perspective, what mistake has Mr. Smart made?

The "reinforcer" is presented before the response.

Jacob is suffering from a mild case of flu and, as a result, is feeling a bit nauseous. He decides that he needs to eat something to keep up his strength, so he gets out of bed, puts on a heavy sweater to keep himself warm, heats up a bowl of leftover chili, and settles down in an easy chair to watch a television game show while he eats. A few days later, after Jacob has recovered from the flu, one of the stimuli in the situation just described elicits a feeling of nausea. With the phenomenon of associative bias in mind, choose the stimulus that is most likely to elicit nausea.

The chili

An avoidance behavior of a previously aversive situation is particularly difficult to extinguish because:

The learner has no opportunity to learn that the situation is no longer aversive.

Which one of the following statements best describes the view of early behaviorists about how learning can best be studied?

The study of learning will be more objective and scientific if only observable events are considered.

Six-year-old Jack has recently learned to appreciate the value of money, so his father assigns him some simple housekeeping chores to be performed throughout the week. He tells Jack that completion of these chores will earn him an allowance of one dollar every Saturday. Jack rarely completes his chores. From an operant conditioning perspective, which one of the following is most likely to be the reason why Jack is not doing his chores?

There is a delay in reinforcement.

A child who was once spanked for running into a busy street no longer runs into the street. This can best be explained by which one of the following?

Thorndike's original law of effect

When Lily is presented with money after many different behaviors (e.g., cleaning her room, getting a good grade or eating her vegetables) she is more likely to perform each of those behaviors. The fact that this single reinforcer (i.e., money) can increase many of Lily's behaviors is explained by:

Transituational generality

Classical conditioning typically occurs when:

Two stimuli are presented at about the same time

Which one of the following is an example of negative reinforcement?

When Lucas complains about a classmate who is picking on him, his teacher allows him to come in from recess on bitterly cold days.

In the basement of Marcy's college dormitory is a Coke machine that dispenses a can of Coke whenever someone firmly pounds the side of the machine. Marcy is delighted when she discovers this fact, because she can now get Cokes from the machine without having to pay for them. One morning a repairman fixes the machine. The next time Marcy goes to get a soft drink from the machine, she finds that her usual pounding strategy doesn't yield her the Coke she wants. But rather than insert the required coins to purchase a drink, Marcy begins pounding the side of the machine vigorously for several minutes. In behaviorist terminology, Marcy's behavior at this point can best be described as:

an extinction burst

Lori has learned that when she wants to say something in class, she must raise her hand before doing so. At home, however, she speaks without ever raising her hand ahead of time. We can say that the classroom has become a(n) ____ for Lori's hand-raising behavior.

antecedent stimulus

A physics teacher wants her students to work on several difficult physics problems that involve calculating velocity, acceleration, or time using the formula v = a t. The teacher first has her students work on a few easy problems involving the formula. She then presents the more difficult problems; when she does so, she finds that her students are reasonably persistent in working at the problems, and most of them eventually solve the problems correctly. By using the easy problems to promote persistence in her students during the more difficult ones, the teacher is, in behaviorist terminology, using the concept of:

behavioral momentum

A ski instructor is teaching a class of beginning skiers how to do a snowplow turn. She first teaches her students to stand with the fronts of their skis together and the backs of their skis far apart. She then has her students bend their knees slightly and lean forward in this "snowplow" position. After the students can do these two things successfully, the instructor has them add more behaviors to the sequence: gliding across the side of a gentle slope in a snowplow, putting their body weight on the downhill ski, gradually turning downhill, and so on. The instructor praises her students each time they successfully add a new movement to the sequence. In behaviorist terminology, the procedure that the ski instructor is using can best be described as:

chaining

When Julie's father comes home from work he opens the front door and picks her up to give her a big hug. Before long, Julie starts smiling whenever she hears her father turn his key to open the door. In this situation, Julie's smiling at the sound of her father's key turning in the door is a(n) _____; the hugging is a(n) _____.

conditioned response; unconditional stimulus

At the dentist's office, Teresa has a painful experience that leaves her tense and fearful. The next time her mother brings her to the dentist's office, Teresa begins to get tense and anxious. In this situation, the dentist and dentist's office are _____; Teresa's fear of pain is a(n) _____.

conditioned stimuli; unconditioned response

Tiffany is a hyperactive child who rarely sits still for more than 30 seconds at a time. Ms. Garcia decides to use positive reinforcement to help Tiffany learn to sit quietly in her seat during class time. Which one of the following approaches will bring about the fastest change in Tiffany's behavior?

continuous reinforcement

After being bitten by a neighbor's dog, Kathy is now afraid of the puppy her family has just adopted. Kathy's father gives Kathy a hot fudge sundae; then, while she is happily eating it, he brings the puppy about fifteen feet from where she is sitting. On each successive day, Kathy gets another ice cream treat, and her father brings the puppy a little closer than he did on the previous day. Eventually Kathy is able to pet and enjoy the new puppy. Kathy's father is using a procedure known as:

counterconditioning

A teacher claps his hands together loudly three times as a way of reminding his students that they need to talk more quietly during their free time at the end of the day. In behaviorist terminology, his strategy can best be described as:

cueing

Mr. McDonald wants his students to ask him for help on their geometry problems only after they have tried to solve the problems independently for at least five minutes. Mr. McDonald should reinforce students' help-seeking behavior on a ___________ schedule.

differential rate of low responding

Warren has earned himself a reputation for being the class clown. His teacher, Ms. Washington, used to laugh at Warren's funny remarks, but is now trying to discourage Warren's disruptive behavior by ignoring his jokes. In behaviorist terminology, Ms. Washington is now trying to modify Warren's joke-telling behavior through:

extinction

After a painful experience at one dentist's office, Teresa's mother takes Teresa to a different dentist, who takes great care to make her visits painless. Teresa is anxious at first, but after a few visits, Teresa gradually becomes less resistant about going to the new dentist. Teresa's change in behavior can probably best be explained in terms of _____. But then Teresa doesn't go to see the dentist again until three years later. On her first visit to the painless dentist after that time interval, she is anxious once again, even though she had not been anxious in her previous visits. The return of this response after it had previously disappeared is known as _____.

extinction; spontaneous recovery

After repeatedly being hugged by her father when he comes through the door, Julie begins to smile when she hears a key turning to open the door opening by any person. Julie's behavior can be explained by:

generalization

If students associate failure with punishment, and then associate playing sports with failure, they may begin to fear playing sports through a process of:

higher-order conditioning

Thorndike's original law of effect described the ways in which the learning of a response:

is affected by the consequences of that response

David's mother insists that he vacuum the living room carpet. But when she sees how haphazardly he vacuums (he misses two-thirds of the carpet), she tells him, "Never mind, I'll do it!" David's escape of household chores:

negatively reinforced

Jimmy misbehaved in class and his teacher punished him by forcing him to skip recess. Withholding recess is generally an ineffective form of punishment because:

recess provides a break from academic activities, which improves children's concentration.

In Mr. Marshall's classroom, students who acquire 10 points in one day can have 20 minutes of free time at the end of the day. Mr. Marshall awards points to his students for good behavior and deducts points if they misbehave. The deduction of points for misbehavior is known as:

response cost

Ms. Washington tries to ignore Warren when he tells jokes in class. But sometimes Warren tells a joke so funny that Ms. Washington laughs in spite of herself. Rather than decreasing his joke-telling, Warren begins telling even more outrageous jokes. Inadvertently, Ms. Washington is modifying Warren's joke-telling behavior through:

shaping

Mark's previous girlfriend always told him how handsome he looked whenever he wore his green sweater. Tonight Mark is going out with a new girlfriend and puts on the same green sweater. In behaviorist terminology, Mark is:

showing generalization

Gina became ill after eating Turkey on Thanksgiving and was unable to look at Turkey without feeling ill for two months. However, during that two-month period Gina was able to look at chicken without feeling ill. Gina's behavior when presented with chicken is explained by:

stimulus

When Judy becomes verbally aggressive toward her peers, she is placed in a quiet and boring room for five minutes. The procedure being used here is most commonly known as:

time-out

Sharon has learned that her language arts teacher answers her questions willingly but that her biology teacher discourages questions. Sharon therefore asks questions in language arts but not in biology. In behaviorist terminology, Sharon is:

under stimulus control

George has learned that if he pesters his father about using the family Cadillac enough times, his father will eventually break down and give George the keys to the Cadillac. George's "pestering" behavior is apparently being reinforced on a ___________ schedule.

variable ratio