Phase II Definitions

Respondent behavior: a behavior that occurs automatically in response to a certain stimulus. For example, if you wanted to train a dog to do a trick, offering him a treat (the stimulus) and and the dog would respond with shaking his paw (respondent behavior).

Operant behavior: occurs when an act operates on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli. for example, instead of associating two unrelated events, the treat and the trick, the dog would associate performing a trick with the positive consequence of getting a treat (linking the behavior with a positive consequence).

Law of effect: if people are rewarded, they'll continue with the behavior that earned that reward. Conversely, if they're punished, they will reduce that behavior. Rewarded behavior is likely to recur.

Skinner box (operant chamber): a box used in operant conditioning. It contains a bar or key that an animal could activate to receive a reward: food or water. It includes a device to monitor how often the animal manipulates the key or the bar.

Shaping: a method in which reinforcers are used to increase or encourage a desired behavior. It is used in operant conditioning. For example, giving a child allowance for doing his/her chores is shaping.

Successive approximations: In trying to achieve a certain behavior, using reinforcers or rewards to guide someone or something closer to the desired behavior. For example, getting my dog to go up our stairs by putting treats on successively higher steps (and ignoring any retreating he may do) is using successive approximations.

Reinforcement: any act that increases the frequency of a desired behavior. It can be a "negative" or a "positive" action.

Modeling: observing and imitating a certain behavior. Example: a little girl seeing her mother put on makeup and trying to do the same thing.

Albert Bandura: pioneering researcher of obsevational learning. He implemented a series of experiments that showed that people, especially children, are prone to imitating what they see others do. This is especially true when we see or model as similar to us or admirable. Whether or not we model a person also depends on rewards and punishments that we or our model receives. (If we see the model punished for an action, we're less likely to repeat it). Basically, he proved that we do learn from and imitate other people.