PSY CH.7

? reinforcement involves the removal of an aversive stimulus after a response. It serves to strengthen the response.

negative

Marcus owns a landscaping company and employs several college students in the summer. He would like to improve the productivity of his employees. According to research on improving job performance through operant conditioning, Marcus should ?

reward specific achievable behaviors, not vaguely defined merit.

Ruben is reading the descriptions of some of the psychology courses in his college's course catalog. The description of one course reads in part, "An introduction to the processes whereby new and enduring behavior and information is acquired through experience." This course is MOST likely titled ?

The Psychology of Learning

Five-year-old Arianna is frightened by the noise thunder makes. Arianna associates lightning with thunder because lightning always precedes thunder. Thus, when Arianna sees lightning, she often cries in anticipation that she will hear thunder soon afterward. This is an example of ? conditioning.

classical

Lightning is associated with thunder and always precedes it. Thus, when one sees lightning, one often anticipates hearing thunder soon afterward. This is an example of ?

classical conditioning

A word of praise is to a delicious meal as a(n) ? is to ?

conditioned reinforcer; primary reinforcer

Dr. Garcia is known for his difficult pop quizzes. Immediately before he springs a pop quiz on his students, he typically goes to the classroom door and closes it, and his students begin to feel anxious and tense. Students soon learn to anticipate a pop quiz and feel anxious whenever Dr. Garcia closes the classroom door. Closing the door has become a(n) ?

conditioned stimulus (CS)

DeMarcus drinks several cups of coffee a day. Often, DeMarcus experiences an almost immediate sense of alertness when he smells a fresh cup of coffee, even though it takes about 20 minutes for the caffeine in the coffee to reach significant levels in the bloodstream. He decides, with the encouragement of his physician, to quit drinking coffee. At first, he still experiences the alertness when he smells freshly brewed coffee, but after about 10 days, he no longer experiences the effect. That DeMarcus no longer experiences the alertness effect exemplifies ?

extinction

John B. Watson believed that psychology should be the science of ?

observable behavior

Macy gave her dog a treat each time she came to Macy when she called her by name. Soon, the dog came every time Macy called the dog by name. This is an example of ?

operant conditioning

Connecting events is to ? as acquiring mental information is to ?

operant conditioning; cognitive learning

Learning refers to ?

the acquisition of new and enduring behaviors or information through experience

Sonya had leukemia as a child and had to undergo numerous bouts of chemotherapy. The chemotherapy always made her nauseous. As she underwent a year of treatment, the waiting room started to make her nauseous. The chemotherapy is the ?

unconditioned stimulus

Although it is unknown if one must buy 1, 10, or 100 scratch-off lottery tickets to get a winning ticket, it is probable that if one keeps buying, eventually one will get a winner. In fact, maybe the very next ticket will be a winner. Therefore, buying scratch-off lottery tickets is reinforced according to a ? schedule

variable-ratio

For professional baseball players, swinging at a pitched ball is reinforced with a home run on a ? schedule

variable-ratio

Gamblers and fisherman have a difficult time controlling their need to gamble and fish because of the ? schedule of reinforcement.

variable-ratio

In Watson and Rayner's experiment with Little Albert, the neutral stimulus that after conditioning became the conditioned stimulus was a ?

white rat