Psychology Chapter 14: Reinforcement and Punishment

Reinforcement and Punishment

• Negative Reinforcement: removal of a stimulus after a behavior to increase the frequency of that behavior.
• Punishment: any stimulus that decreases the frequency of a behavior.
• Positive Punishment: addition of a stimulus that decreases behavior.
• Negative Punishment: removal of a stimulus, usually a desirable stimulus, to decrease behavior.

Shaping

• Shaping: reinforcement of successive approximation of a desired behavior.

Schedules of Reinforcement

• Schedules of Reinforcement: patterns of intermittent reinforcement distinguished by whether reinforcement occurs after a set number of responses or after a certain amount of time has passed since the last reinforcement.
• Continuous Reinforcement: rewarding a behavior every time it occurs.
• Intermittent Reinforcement: does not occur after every response, producing a stronger behavioral response than continuous reinforcement.

Fixed-Ratio Schedule

• Fixed-Ratio (FR) Schedule: reinforcement that follows a set number of responses, making the pattern predictable.

Learning

• Learning occurs when information moves from short-term to long-term memory.
• Association: learning by connection, which can be powerful, and we all experience it.
• Examples of association: learning to link bells with class starting and certain smells with powerful memories.

Conditioning Models of Learning

• Conditioning: the process by which a behavior becomes more likely due to association with events that occur in the organism's environment.

Classical Conditioning

• Neutral Stimulus: an object or situation that, when presented alone, does not lead to an automatic response.
• Unconditioned Response (UCR): the natural, automatic, inborn, and involuntary reaction to a stimulus.
• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): the environmental input that always produces the same unlearned, involuntary response.
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): a previously neutral input that an organism learns to associate with the UCS.
• Stimulus Discrimination: occurs when a conditioned response occurs only to exactly the stimulus to which it was conditioned.
• Extinction: the weakening and disappearance of a CS, which occurs when the UCS is no longer paired with the CS.
• Spontaneous Recovery: the sudden reappearance of an extinguished response.

Operant Conditioning

• Operant Conditioning: the process of modifying behavior by manipulating the consequences of that behavior.
• Law of Effect: the consequence of a behavior increases (or decreases) the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated.
• Reinforcer: any internal or external event that increases the frequency of a behavior.
• Types of Reinforcers: primary reinforcers (innate, unlearned reinforcers that satisfy biological needs) and secondary (conditioned) reinforcers (learned by association, usually via classical conditioning).
• Positive Reinforcement: the presentation or addition of a stimulus after a behavior occurs that increases how often that behavior will occur.