Summary
1.2 Differences between People Summary Problem 2
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This is a summary of the literature for problem 3 of the course Differences between People.
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1Problem 2
1A
1. Why do we associate irrelevant stimuli to certain behaviour or emotions?
2. How do certain cues affect our behaviour?
3. What happened in the Pavlov experiment and why?
4. What is classical conditioning?
Behaviourism
Humans are machinelike mechanisms
o People’s actions, thoughts & feelings can be explained by environmental forces that shape
individual
Determinism: event is caused by or determined by some prior event
o Cause can be explained with scientific laws
Research to understand people’s behaviour should be done in the laboratory (used animals)
Situational specificity: people’s behaviour caused by environment
o Behaviour is expected to be different in different environments
o Maladaptive behaviour caused by maladaptive environment
Classic conditioning (Pavlov)
Reactions could be acquired by associating one stimulus with another
Passive process
Requires two things
o Reflex
Existing connection between stimulus (food) & response (saliva)
Response must occur reliably & automatically when stimulus occurs
o Stimulus in the reflex must become associated with another stimulus (usually neutral)
Two stages
o Before conditioning: only reflex exists (a stimulus causing a response)
Stimulus: unconditioned or unconditional stimulus (US)
Response: unconditioned or unconditional response (UR)
Unconditional → no required special condi on for response to occur (happens
automatically)
o Conditioning: neutral stimulus occurs along or slightly before US
Neutral stimulus: conditioned or conditional stimulus (CS)
Stimulus that becomes conditioned
Response only occurs under specific condition: presence of US
Presence of US results in UR (reflexively)
US & CS are paired → gradual change
CS has a response of its own → conditioned response (CR)
CR & UR often similar
Difference: (CR is less intense)
Similarity: if one has a (un)pleasant quality so does the others
How do you know conditioning has taken place?
o Present CS without US
o If CS gets a reaction → condi on has occurred
Frequency
o The more frequently CS & US are paired → the more likely conditioning occurs
o Condition through only one exposure
Can happen when US is very strong & UR intense
E.g. cancer patient experiences nausea & develops strong CSs to surrounding stimuli
High-order conditioning
o Once condition has taken place → CS-CR combination just like reflex
o Combination can act as another instance for conditioning
o Process repeats itself all over again
, 2
Experiment by Pavlov
o Placed food power (US) inside the mouth of a dog & dog begins to salivate (UR)
o Pavlov rang bell just before the presentation of food various times
o Pavlov rang bell (CS) without any food being present → dog salivates (CR) anyway
→ condi oning has occurred
Conditioning withdrawal
o Learn to avoid a stimulus that initially is neutral
o Electrodes were attached to dog’s paw & delivered electric shocks (US)
Led to withdrawal of the paw (UR)
o Rang a bell just before the shock
Bell (CS) alone elicit the withdrawal response (CR)
Generalization
Responding in a similar way to similar-but-not-identical stimuli
CS almost never occurs in the same way as during conditioning
Encounter similar stimuli → experience somewhat similar feelings than to CS
E.g. bitten by a dog → generalize the fear to all dogs
Discrimination
Responding differently to different stimuli
E.g. discriminate between different races of dogs → only afraid of race that bit you
Extinction
CS appear repeatedly without US
o CS weakens
o CS do not disappear (permanent record in nervous system)
Role of Awareness
People show little or no classic conditioning from repeated paring of stimuli unless they realize the
stimuli are correlated
Expecting an aversive event (US) can produce conditioned response
1B
1. What are the conditions that make us fear stimuli?
2. What can be the effects and consequences of being exposed to such a condition?
3. What does Little Albert study say?
4. How do we condition someone to fear something?
Emotional Conditioning
Classic conditioning in which the CRs are emotional reactions
Colour red evokes negative emotions in academic context → associated with errors (Elliot, 2007)
Personal preferences develop through this process
o Neutral stimulus linked to pleasant event → “like”
o Neutral stimulus linked to unpleasant event → “dislike”
o Different people experience different part of the world → different emo onal arousal
o People experience the same event differently according to their life story
Conditioned Emotional Reactions
Experiment by Watson & Rayner
o Participants: 9-month-old (at the beginning of the study) Little Albert
o Showed Albert white rat, rabbit, dog (US)
Albert showed no fear of any (UR)
o Produced an uncomfortable noise (CS)
Albert started crying
o Produced noise just before Albert reached for the rat, dog, etc.
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