Psychology: Overt and Covert Responses

Study Notes

Aversive Stimulus and Behavioral Response

An aversive stimulus is an unpleasant or painful event that an organism seeks to avoid.
In learning and behavioral response, a stimulus is any event or object that elicits a reaction from an organism.

Observational Research and Limitations

A limitation of naturalistic observation is that it may not provide insight into the reasons behind observed behaviors or events.

Terminology in Learning Theories

An event that an organism will avoid is referred to as an aversive stimulus or aversive event.
An overt response is a visible and measurable reaction exhibited by an organism in response to a stimulus.

Measurement in Behavioral Studies

Interobserver reliability is calculated by comparing rates of agreement between different observers when recording the same behaviors.

Motivating Operations

A type of motivating operation that increases the effectiveness of an event at reinforcing or punishing behavior is called an establishing operation.
The purpose of motivating operations is to influence the value of a reinforcer or punisher, thereby affecting behavior.

Concepts in Classical Conditioning

Extinction in classical conditioning occurs when the conditioned response diminishes or disappears after repeated presentations of the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus.
Generalization in classical conditioning refers to the tendency of a conditioned response to be elicited by stimuli that are similar to the original conditioned stimulus.
Discrimination in classical conditioning is the ability of an organism to differentiate between similar stimuli and respond only to the specific conditioned stimulus.
Higher order conditioning is a process where a previously conditioned stimulus is used to condition a new stimulus, allowing the new stimulus to elicit a conditioned response without direct pairing with the unconditioned stimulus.

Description

Test your knowledge of overt and covert responses in psychology with this quiz. Learn about the preference of psychologists to observe and measure overt behavior, as well as the calculation of interobserver reliability.