AP Psych Behaviorism Terms

Overjustification Effect

The effect of promising a reward for doing what one already likes to do.

Law of Effect

Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely

Counter Conditioning

a behavior therapy procedure that uses classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; includes exposure therapies and aversive conditioning.

Intrinsic Motivation

a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake.

Extrinsic Motivation

a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.

Cognitive Map

a mental representation of the layout of one's environment. For example, after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it.

Learning

a relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience

Conditioned Reinforcer (Secondary Reinforcers)

a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer.

Aversive Conditioning

a type of counter conditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol).

Systematic Desensitization

a type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.

Operant Conditioning

a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer of diminished if followed by a punisher

Classical Conditioning

a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events

Punishment

an event that decreases the behavior that it follows.

Primary Reinforcer

an innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.

Token Economy

an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats.

Shaping

an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior

Respondent Behavior

behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus

Operant Behavior

behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

in classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally- naturally and automatically- triggers a response

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

in classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after associated with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response

Acquisition

in classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response

Discrimination

in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus

Conditioned Response (CR)

in classical conditioning, the learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS)

Unconditioned Response (UCR)

in classical conditioning, the unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus (US), such as salivation when food is in the mouth

Operant Chamber (Skinner Box)

in operant conditioning research, a chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal's rate of bar pressing or key pecking

Variable Ratio Schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.

Variable-Interval Schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.

Fixed Ratio Schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.

Fixed-Interval Schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.

Reinforcer

in operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.

Associative Learning

learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning).

Latent Learning

learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.

Partial (intermittent) Reinforcement

reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement.

Continuous Reinforcement

reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.

Extinction

the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced

Modeling

the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior.

Spontaneous Recovery

the reappearance, after a pause, of any extinguished conditioned response

Generalization

the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses

Behaviorism

the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not (2).