PSY 3103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Fixed Action Pattern, Empiricism, Determinism

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3103
• Professor: Catherine Plowright

Document Summary

Nativism where we have some innate knowledge (ie. final cause, fixed action pattern, preparedness) Innate: intuitive, preprogrammed, naturally occurring, basic, biological, universal, present from birth ex. fight or flight, sex, hunger, breathing, crying. There is inadequate support for innate behaviours because the definition is broad and ambiguous. Maybe not if every behaviour has a cause there could perhaps be no free will. Radical behaviouralist view: we are restricted to specific stimuli and observable behaviour. But if a monday equals a bad mood, then some internal events cause behaviour it is possible that internal events are the cause or the consequence of behaviour. (reciprocal determinism) Harvard law of animal behaviour: under controlled experimental conditions of temperature, time, lighting, feeding, and training, the organism will behave as it pleases. Rats put through a maze with curtains and gates. Previous idea that reinforcers were required for learning.