PSYC2010 Chapter 1-3: PSYC2010 textbook bouton notes
Document Summary
Food, water, sex are classic rewards that reinforce learning. Social stimuli such as smiles and approval serve as rewards. Smile of an infant to mother can reinforce certain behaviours. Instrumental conditioning is concerned with the relationship between a behaviour (r) and a biologically significant event (s*) S* can be either good or bad: having a positive or negative survival value, good s* - food, water, sex. Increases strength of behaviour: reward learning, bad s, behaviour decreases in strength. Effect can produce punishment: when a behaviour prevents a bad s*, this will increase the strength of behaviour. This is known as avoidance/escape: when a behaviour prevents the occurrence of a good s*, the behaviour decreases in strength and is called omission. In the table, it shows that animals will generally maximise good s*s and minimise bad s*s: however, it does not tell us how behaviour comes to increase or decrease in strength.
