Question 1

When the conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response will gradually weaken in a process called

Accepted Answer

Extinction occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus, leading to a gradual weakening of the conditioned response.

Question 2

You are trying to convince a parent that allowing her children to watch violence on TV can result in the children picking up the violent behaviour themselves. Your argument is based on

Accepted Answer

Social learning theory suggests that people can learn new behaviors by observing others, which includes children imitating violent behavior seen on TV.

Question 3

A child typically needs to burn her hand on a hot stove only once to learn to avoid doing this in the future. Psychologists involved in classical conditioning would most likely consider this as an example of

Accepted Answer

Fear conditioning is a type of classical conditioning in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an aversive stimulus, such as a shock or a loud noise. After several pairings, the neutral stimulus will come to elicit a fear response, even in the absence of the aversive stimulus. In the example given, the hot stove is the aversive stimulus, and the child's hand is the neutral stimulus. After the child burns her hand on the stove, she will come to associate the stove with pain, and she will avoid touching it in the future.

Question 4

When Pavlov was conditioning his dog to salivate in response to a tone, he first paired the tone with the presentation of food until the tone alone could induce salivation. In his experiments, which of the following was considered to be the unconditioned stimulus?

Accepted Answer

The unconditioned stimulus (US) is the stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any conditioning. In Pavlov's experiment, the food is the US because it naturally causes the dog to salivate.

Question 5

Which of the following statement(s) is/are FALSE?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Which of the following statement(s) is/are FALSE?
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Question 6

You are training an animal to bar press for food. Which of the following schedules would be most resistant to extinction?

Accepted Answer

The answer of You are training an animal to bar...

Question 7

According to the two-factor theory of avoidance learning, the jump response is maintained by

Accepted Answer

The two-factor theory of avoidance learning suggests that the jump response is maintained by negative reinforcement, where the removal of an aversive stimulus (e.g., shock) reinforces the behavior (e.g., jumping).

Question 8

Most people like having a job because they receive money for their work. According to conditioning principles, people are actually working for

Accepted Answer

According to conditioning principles, money is considered a secondary reinforcer because it is not inherently valuable but is associated with primary reinforcers like food and shelter.

Question 9

A key principle in many therapies that treat phobias and fears is that the phobia or fear is learned and can therefore be

Accepted Answer

Phobias and fears are often considered learned behaviors, and therapies such as exposure therapy aim to "unlearn" these responses by gradually exposing individuals to the feared object or situation in a controlled manner, reducing the fear response over time.

Question 10

If you were training an animal and wanted to generate the highest rate of responding you would use

Accepted Answer

A ratio schedule, particularly a variable ratio schedule, tends to generate a high rate of responding because the reinforcement is based on the number of responses, encouraging the animal to respond more frequently.

Question 11

Which of the following has the highest adaptive significance for humans in terms of its ability to save time and effort, and to reduce exposure to potentially dangerous trial-and-error processes?

Accepted Answer

Observational learning allows individuals to learn by watching others, which can save time and effort and reduce the risks associated with trial-and-error learning.

Question 12

A decreasing response to a repeated stimulus is called _.

Accepted Answer

Habituation is the process where there is a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure.

Question 13

If you want to train a dog to perform really complex behaviours such as those seen in movies, it might be a good idea to use a procedure called

Accepted Answer

Chaining is a procedure used to teach complex behaviors by breaking them down into smaller, manageable tasks and then linking them together in a sequence. This method is effective for training animals to perform intricate actions.

Question 14

If a conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response will ________ in a process called _.

Accepted Answer

When a conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response will decrease in strength in a process called extinction. This occurs because the association between the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus is weakened.

Question 15

Every time Jeff gets his paycheque, he feels really good. Lately, he has noticed that he has started to like the person who hands him his paycheque every week. From a classical conditioning perspective, the person who hands Jeff his paycheque is a(n)

Accepted Answer

The person handing Jeff his paycheque has become associated with the positive feeling of receiving the paycheque, thus becoming a conditioned stimulus.

Question 16

The schedule of reinforcement that is the most resistant to extinction is the:

Accepted Answer

A variable-ratio schedule is most resistant to extinction because the reinforcement is unpredictable, leading to a high and steady rate of response.

Question 17

In a classical conditioning experiment that is utilizing backward pairing, the conditioned stimulus is presented after the _.

Accepted Answer

In backward pairing, the conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented after the unconditioned stimulus (US).

Question 18

It is virtually impossible to train a rat to peck a key for food, but very easy for a pigeon to learn this task. Most likely this reflects the operation of

Accepted Answer

Preparedness refers to the idea that certain animals are biologically predisposed to learn certain behaviors more easily than others. Pigeons are naturally inclined to peck, making it easier for them to learn this task compared to rats.

Question 19

An animal in a skinner box presses a lever and receives an electric shock. As a result, the lever pressing behaviour decreases. What has happened?

Accepted Answer

The decrease in lever pressing behavior due to receiving an electric shock is an example of positive punishment, where an aversive stimulus is added to decrease a behavior.

Question 20

According to Bandura, if you believe that you have the capability to perform behaviours that produce desired outcomes, you have a high degree of

Accepted Answer

Self-efficacy is the belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task, which is exactly what Bandura describes as the capability to perform behaviors that produce desired outcomes.

Quiz 7: Learning and Adaptation: the Role of Experience