01:830:101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Operant Conditioning, Habituation, Behaviorism

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: 01:830:101
• Professor: ESTELLE MAYHEW

Document Summary

Basic terminology: learning: any relatively permanent change in behavior that is based upon experience. Behaviorism: behaviorists insist that psychologists should study only observable, measurable behaviors, not mental processes. Behaviorists assumptions: behaviorists are deterministic, we live in a universes of cause and effect. Our behavior is apart of that universe, behavior must have identifiable causes. Principles of learning are general: early behaviorists believed that it might be possible to determine the basic laws of learning by studying how animals learn. Ex: clapping hands before the tone before giving food) Acquisition of fears: little albert: a nine month old was playing with a white rat. He has happy and the rat was harmless. He was on the table with the rat and the researcher goes behind albert and bangs a rod against the table that created a loud noise which sacred albert. He kept repeating this banging sound and it took 7 trials until albert became scared of the rat.