PS261 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Self-Control, Reinforcement
Document Summary
Complex human decisions limit your options once you have made a choice, involves commitment. Studies how organisms make choices that involve commitment to one alternative or the other. 2 stages: 1) choice link, participant allowed to choose between two schedule alternatives by making one of two responses, 2) terminal link, occurs after choice has been made. Participants prefer the variable schedule alternative (variety is the spice of life) even if vr schedule requires more time for reinforcer to become available. Because the stimulus is present when primary reinforcer is provided, the terminal link stimulus becomes a conditioned reinforcer. Thus a concurrent schedule is one in which initial link responses are reinforced by the presentation of a conditioned reinforcer. Self control is a matter of choosing a large delayed reward over an immediate small reward. Delay discounting is the idea that the value of a reinforcer declines as a function of how long you have to wait to obtain it.
