Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Operant Conditioning, Reinforcement

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2035A/B
• Professor: Alvin Segal

Document Summary

Your stomach naturally prepares to digest food when you eat (stomach churns and produces acid). When you view a tv commercial that shows a big juicy hamburger, your stomach begins to slightly churn and produce acid, making you feel hungry. Neutral stimulus : image of hamburger (the image didn"t trigger stomach- churning on its own, the churning originated from eating the hamburger) Unconditioned response : stomach churns and produces acid. Conditioned stimulus : image of hamburger (this becomes a conditioned stimulus only after you"ve had the experience of eating the burger) Conditioned response : stomach churns and produces acid (in response to seeing the conditioned stimulus image of the burger) Extinction : the gradual weakening and disappearance of a conditioned response tendency. A newly-formed stimulus-response does not necessarily last forever: discuss how skinner"s principles of operant conditioning can be applied to personality development.