Question 1

Other stimuli can become secondary reinforcers by being associated with

Accepted Answer

Secondary reinforcers become effective through their association with primary reinforcers, not through the stimuli themselves. Primary reinforcers, such as food or water, satisfy a basic survival need and do not require learning to be effective. When a neutral stimulus is consistently paired with a primary reinforcer, it can become a secondary reinforcer.

Question 2

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 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 by removing an unpleasant task (cleaning his room) as a consequence of performing a desired behavior (eating broccoli). This increases the likelihood that Pat will eat his broccoli.

Question 4

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

Accepted Answer

The mother's nagging is a negative reinforcer because its removal (when the daughter cleans her room) strengthens the behavior of cleaning. Negative reinforcement involves the removal of an unpleasant stimulus to increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.

Question 5

Which of the following is an example of a primary reinforcer?

Accepted Answer

Food is considered a primary reinforcer because it satisfies a biological need. Primary reinforcers are inherently valuable and do not require learning to be considered valuable, unlike secondary reinforcers such as praise, money, and grades, which acquire their value through learning and association with primary reinforcers.

Question 6

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

Accepted Answer

Operant extinction, positive punishment, and negative punishment are techniques used in behavior modification that serve to weaken or reduce the frequency of a behavior. Operant extinction involves the removal of a reinforcer to reduce a behavior, positive punishment involves adding an unpleasant stimulus to decrease a behavior, and negative punishment involves removing a pleasant stimulus to decrease a behavior.

Question 7

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 after the parents stopped paying him is an example of operant extinction. This occurs when a previously reinforced behavior is no longer reinforced, leading to a decrease in that behavior.

Question 8

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 secondary reinforcer, also known as a conditioned reinforcer, is something that a subject learns to value as it can be used to obtain a primary reinforcer (in this case, food). The tokens themselves do not satisfy a basic biological need but have been learned to be valuable through their association with obtaining food.

Question 9

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" acts as a secondary reinforcer because it is associated with the primary reinforcer (the doggie treat) and reinforces the behavior through this association. It also functions as a conditioned stimulus because the dog has learned to associate this specific phrase with the positive outcome of receiving a treat, leading to a conditioned response (excitement and salivation).

Question 10

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 is using _______________.

Accepted Answer

Negative reinforcement involves the removal of an unpleasant stimulus (in this case, the potential for headaches) to increase the likelihood of a behavior (taking medication).

Question 11

Shelley has noticed that if her dad is in good mood, he will usually praise her for working on her homework in the evening. If he isn't in a good mood, he doesn't do this. Based on the principles of operant conditioning, the mood of Shelley's dad signals when he will praise her for her homework and this is considered to be a(n) ______.

Accepted Answer

The mood of Shelley's dad acts as an antecedent in this scenario because it comes before the behavior (Shelley working on her homework) and signals when a certain consequence (praise) is likely to follow, fitting the definition of an antecedent in operant conditioning.

Question 12

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 away Richard's license is a form of punishment intended to decrease his poor driving habits by introducing a negative consequence (license suspension) for his actions (accident). Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, involves removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase a behavior, which is not the case here. Positive reinforcement involves adding a pleasant stimulus to increase a behavior, and desensitization is a process of reducing sensitivity to a stimulus, neither of which apply to this scenario.

Question 13

Joey likes to watch wrestling on TV, but his mother usually does not allow him to do this. However, Joey has noticed that when his mom has a bad day at work and gets very tired, she usually doesn't mind if he watches wrestling. As a result, Joey usually will only ask to watch wrestling if his mother has had a hard day at work. In this instance, the kind of day that Joey's mother has at work would be considered a

Accepted Answer

The kind of day that Joey's mother has at work acts as a discriminative stimulus because it signals to Joey when he is more likely to be allowed to watch wrestling without objection. This means Joey has learned to distinguish when it is appropriate to ask based on the condition (his mother's bad day), making it a cue or signal for his behavior.

Question 14

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

Accepted Answer

Operant extinction occurs when a behavior that has previously been reinforced no longer receives reinforcement, leading to a decrease and eventual disappearance of that behavior.

Question 15

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

The discontinuation of Don's chore behavior after the removal of monetary rewards is an example of operant extinction, where a behavior decreases after previously reinforced consequences are removed.

Question 16

According to the principles of operant conditioning, natural stimuli such as food and water that an organism naturally finds reinforcing are called

Accepted Answer

Primary reinforcers are stimuli that are naturally reinforcing because they satisfy biological needs, such as food and water.

Question 17

Operant extinction refers to the process in which a behaviour is

Accepted Answer

Operant extinction occurs when a behavior is weakened because it is no longer reinforced, meaning the previously reinforced behavior is no longer followed by reinforcing consequences, leading to a decrease in the frequency of that behavior.

Question 18

A stimulus that is present before a given behaviour has been displayed is a(n) _____________.

Accepted Answer

Antecedents are events, environments, or stimuli that occur before a behavior. They set the stage for the behavior to happen.

Question 19

Antecedents play a significant role in operant conditioning because they

Accepted Answer

Antecedents are cues or signals in the environment that indicate to an organism that a particular behavior will lead to certain consequences, thus guiding the organism's response.

Question 20

Positive and negative reinforcers are similar in that both

Accepted Answer

The answer of Positive and negative reinforcers are similar in...

Quiz 7: Learning and Adaptation: the Role of Experience