BI308 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Demand Curve, The Strongest
Document Summary
Ps261 chapter 7 notes instrumental conditioning: motivational mechanisms. The first of these streams that tries to explain what is being learned considers three separate variables that are involved in the instrumental conditioning situation: the stimulus context (s), the response (r), and the outcome or consequence (o) In this figure, each arrow represents a potential type of association that could develop: Thorndike concluded that r occurs because s triggers an s-r association. O simply served to increase or decrease the strength of the s-r association. The problem with thorndike"s ideas are that it seems very counterintuitive that the rat isn"t pressing the lever to get the food. There is ample evidence that animals are representing o, something that thorndike"s law of effect cannot explain. Recent interest in applying s-r mechanisms to habitual behaviour in people. Some people believe that habits constitute something like 45% of all human behaviour.
