Question 1

A mother has been continually nagging her daughter about how messy her room is.Finally,the daughter gets so tired of her mom's complaints that she cleans her room,thus stopping the nagging of her mother.Given the fact that the withdrawal of the mother's nagging served to strengthen the daughter's room-cleaning behaviour,the mother's nagging would be considered a(n):

Accepted Answer

The mother's nagging was a negative stimulus that the daughter wanted to avoid, and by cleaning her room, she was able to remove that negative stimulus. This reinforces the behavior of cleaning her room by increasing the likelihood that the daughter will clean her room in the future to avoid the nagging. Therefore, the mother's nagging would be considered a negative reinforcer.

Question 2

It has been a long time since Karina stopped bullying other children at school.Her parents simply explained to Karina that every time she bullies a child,she must pay a price for the bullying incident.Karina loves music and has an extensive CD collection; therefore,the cost of a bullying incident is three CDs from her collection.It did not take Karina long to determine that was too high of a price to pay for her behaviour,so the bullying stopped.This response cost method of modifying behavior is a:

Accepted Answer

This is a punishment technique where a cost is associated with the behavior that needs to be modified. In this case, Karina's parents associated a cost of three CDs with every bullying incident, which led to her modifying her behavior.

Question 3

Seven-year old Pat does not like to eat broccoli and does not like to clean his room.Pat's mother tells him that if he eats all his broccoli at dinner tonight then he will not have to clean his room tonight.In her effort to have Pat eat broccoli,Pat's mother is attempting to apply the process of:

Accepted Answer

Pat's mother is using negative reinforcement, as she is removing an unpleasant stimulus (having to clean his room) to reinforce a desirable behavior (eating all his broccoli).

Question 4

Research has determined that chimpanzees can learn to work for and value tokens that can be used in a vending machine to obtain food.According to the principles of operant conditioning,the token would best be considered an example of a:

Accepted Answer

A token is a stimulus that acquires its value through being paired with a primary reinforcer, such as food. Therefore, the token is a secondary reinforcer, which is a stimulus that becomes reinforcing through its association with a primary reinforcer.

Question 5

Operant extinction refers to the process in which a behaviour is:

Accepted Answer

Operant extinction occurs when a behavior is weakened or eliminated because it is no longer reinforced. The lack of reinforcement leads to a decrease in the frequency of the behavior over time.

Question 6

When first training your dog,you say,"Good dog" and give her a doggie treat every time she lies down the way you want her to.After several learning trials,your dog learns that there is an association between the phrase "Good dog" and the appearance of a doggie treat and she will become excited and salivate each time you use this phrase.In fact,this same phrase can be used without doggie treats to reinforce your dog for learning other tricks.In this example,the phrase "Good dog" is both a:

Accepted Answer

The phrase "Good dog" initially has no inherent value or reinforcement for the dog, but through association with the doggie treat, it becomes a conditioned stimulus and a secondary reinforcer. The dog has learned to associate the phrase with the treat, making it an effective way to reinforce other behaviors without the need for a treat. Therefore, the best choice is C - secondary reinforcer and a conditioned stimulus.

Question 7

Shaping is best defined as the process in which:

Accepted Answer

Shaping is defined as the process of reinforcing successive approximations of a desired behaviour. This means that instead of trying to elicit the final behaviour in one go, small steps towards that behaviour are reinforced to ultimately achieve the desired behaviour.

Question 8

Veronica suffers from very painful headaches so she takes her headache medication regularly,regardless of whether she has a headache or not.As a function of taking her medication,she has no headaches.In operant conditioning terms,Veronica's is using __________________.

Accepted Answer

Veronica's behavior of taking medication is being reinforced by the removal of the aversive stimulus (headache). This is an example of negative reinforcement.

Question 9

Don's parents want to him to do more chores around the house so they decide to pay him a small amount (50 cents)for each chore he does.Initially,this produces a large increase in the number of chores that Don does,but his parents soon tire of paying him for his work and discontinue the monetary reward program.Don continues his chores for a short while but once he realizes that he's no longer being paid,he stops doing them all together.The discontinuing of Don's chore behaviour best illustrates the process of:

Accepted Answer

Operant extinction occurs when a behavior that was previously reinforced is no longer reinforced and as a result, the behavior diminishes or stops altogether. In this case, Don's behavior of doing chores was reinforced with monetary rewards. When the rewards were discontinued, his behavior of doing chores was extinguished.

Question 10

Another name for the process of shaping is:

Accepted Answer

The process of shaping involves reinforcing successive approximations toward a desired behavior. This means that small steps or behaviors that are closer to the target behavior are reinforced until the target behavior is fully achieved. This is why the method of successive approximations is another name for shaping. Higher-order conditioning, negative reinforcement, and variable ratio reinforcement are all different processes in classical and operant conditioning that are not directly related to shaping.

Question 11

The process by which a behaviour weakens and eventually disappears because it is no longer reinforced is called:

Accepted Answer

The process described in the question is operant extinction, which occurs when a behavior is no longer rewarded or reinforced, causing it to weaken and eventually disappear. Option A, negative reinforcement, involves removing an unpleasant stimulus to reinforce a behavior. Option C, classical extinction, refers to the gradual disappearance of a learned response when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus. Option D, negative punishment, involves removing a desirable stimulus to decrease a behavior.

Question 12

Parents are interested in getting their son to play piano.In order to do this,they decide to reinforce him by paying him $1.00 for every hour that he practices.Shortly after this,the son decides that he also wants to learn how to play guitar and,since his parents are still paying him,he continues practicing both instruments.After a couple of months,the parents decide that the important thing is that their son is involved in music and so they quit paying him to practice the piano,whereupon the son gradually quits playing the piano and continues playing the guitar.The weakening and disappearance of the son's piano-playing behaviour would best be considered as an example of:

Accepted Answer

The weakening and disappearance of the son's piano-playing behavior is an example of operant extinction, which occurs when a behavior that was previously reinforced no longer results in reinforcement, causing the behavior to gradually disappear. In this case, the reinforcement of $1.00 per hour for practicing the piano was removed, causing the behavior to weaken and eventually disappear.

Question 13

A teenager refrains from using profanity when she is around her parents,who ground her when she swears.When her parents aren't around,she often uses "bad language." The suppression of the undesired behaviour doesn't generalize to other relevant situations and this is an example of a limitation of _________________.

Accepted Answer

This is an example of a limitation of punishment, as the teenager refrains from using profanity only when her parents are around to ground her. The punishment (grounding) is not generalizing to other situations, such as when her parents are not around. This suggests that the punishment is not effectively teaching the teenager to avoid using profanity in all contexts.

Question 14

Positive and negative reinforcers are similar in that both:

Accepted Answer

Positive and negative reinforcers are similar because both are used to strengthen or increase the likelihood of behaviors. Positive reinforcement involves adding a desirable stimulus after a behavior, while negative reinforcement involves removing an aversive stimulus after a behavior. Both strategies aim to make the behavior more likely to occur in the future.

Question 15

Billy is offered five M&Ms and is told that if he can wait and not eat these M&Ms for ten minutes,he can have 15 M&Ms.Unfortunately,after waiting for only a couple of minutes,the M&Ms start to look too delicious,so Billy goes ahead and eats them.Based on this example,psychologists would most likely say that Billy has yet to learn:

Accepted Answer

Billy has yet to learn delay of gratification, which is the ability to resist the temptation of an immediate reward in order to receive a larger reward later.

Question 16

Operant extinction,positive punishment,and negative punishment are similar in that they all:

Accepted Answer

Operant extinction, positive punishment, and negative punishment all serve to weaken or decrease a behavior. Operant extinction involves withholding reinforcement in order to decrease a behavior. Positive punishment involves adding an aversive stimulus to decrease a behavior. Negative punishment involves removing a desired stimulus to decrease a behavior. None of these methods serve to strengthen or increase a behavior.

Question 17

Punishment functions to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour,while negative reinforcement serves to __________ a behaviour.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Punishment functions to decrease the likelihood of...

Question 18

Arousal of negative emotions such as fear and anger and can inspire the dislike or avoidance of the person administering this consequence.This is a disadvantages of the consequence of _________.

Accepted Answer

Punishment can arouse negative emotions such as fear and anger, and can lead to the avoidance or dislike of the person administering it. Negative reinforcement, higher-order conditioning, and secondary reinforcement do not involve the administration of punishment.

Question 19

When Richard had an accident in his parent's car,he had his license suspended for 6 months.This outcome was intended to decrease his poor driving habits,therefore taking his license away is considered:

Accepted Answer

Taking Richard's license away is considered punishment because it is intended to decrease his poor driving habits by providing a negative consequence for his actions. Negative reinforcement involves removing a negative consequence to increase a behavior, and desensitization involves a gradual exposure to a stimulus to reduce a negative reaction. Positive reinforcement involves providing a positive consequence to increase a behavior.

Question 20

All of the following were mentioned as limitations of punishment EXCEPT:

Accepted Answer

Option D was not mentioned as a limitation of punishment in the given options. The other options were mentioned as limitations of punishment.

Quiz 7: Learning and Adaptation: the Role of Experience