PSY 4130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Clark L. Hull, Operant Conditioning, Functional Analysis
12 Apr 2017
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Document Summary
The hypothetico-deductive theory of learning of hull. Influence on the amount of research it produced and methodology. His final theory had 17 postulates and 133 theorems. Three important concepts include reinforcement, habit strength, reaction potential. Reinforcement: a biological need creates a drive and the decreasing of the drive constitutes reinforcement thus a drive-reduction theory of reinforcement. Habit strength: if a response leads to drive reduction, habit strength is increased. Operationally defined, habit strength is the number of reinforced pairings between an environmental situation and a response. Reaction potential: the probability that a learned response will occur. It is primarily a function of the amount of drive and habit strength but is also influenced by other intervening variables. Influence: though hull"s theory has essentially gone away, its great influence was the amount of research it produced as researchers devised projects to test the theory"s predictions and validity, f. skinner.
