Operant Conditioning

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Operant Conditioning.

Very good… What a clever idea… Fantastic…I agree… Thank you… excellent… super… right on… this is the best paper you’ve ever written; you get an A… you are really getting the hang of it… I’m impressed… you’re getting a raise… have a cookie… you look great… I love..

Few of us mind being the recipient of any of the preceding comments. But what is especially noteworthy about them is that each of these simple statements can be used, through a process known as operant conditioning, to bring about powerful changes in behavior and to teach the most complex tasks. Operant conditioning is the basis for many of the most important kinds of human, and animal, learning. Operant conditioning is learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened, depending on its favorable or unfavorable consequences. When we say that a response has been strengthened or weakened, we mean that it has been made more or less likely to recur regularly. Unlike classical conditioning, in which the original behaviors are the natural, biological responses to the presence of a stimulus such as food, water, or pain, operant conditioning applies to voluntary responses. The term operant emphasizes this point: the organism operates on its environment to produce a desirable result. Operant conditioning is at work when we learn that toiling industriously can bring about a raise or that exercising hard results in a good physique.

The Basics of Operant Conditioning.

The inspiration for a whole generation of psychologists studying operant conditioning was one of the twentieth century’s most influential psychologists, B. F. skinner (1904-1990). Skinner was interested in specifying how behavior varies as a result of alterations in the environment. Skinner conducted his research using an apparatus called the Skinner box(shown in Figure1), a chamber with a highly controlled environment that was used to study operant conditioning processes with laboratory animal. Let’s consider what happens to a rat in the typical Skinner box (Pascual &Rodriguez, 2006) suppose you want to teach a hungry rat to press a lever that is in its box. At first the rat will wander around the box, exploring the environment in a relatively random fashion. At some point. The however, it will probably press the lever by chance, and when it does, it will receive a food pellet. The first time this happen, the rat will not learn the connection between pressing a lever and receiving food and will continue to explore the box. Sooner or later the rat will press the lever again and receive a pellet, and in time the frequency of the pressing response will increase. Eventually, the rat will press the lever continually until it satisfies its hunger, thereby demonstrating that it has learned that the receipt of food is contingent on pressing the lever. Reinforcement: the Central Concept of Operant Conditioning.

Skinner called the process that leads the rat to continue pressing the key “reinforcement.” Reinforcement is the process by which a stimulus increase the probability that a preceding behavior will be repeated. In other words, pressing the lever is more likely to occur again because of the stimulus of food. In a situation such as this one, the food is called a reinforcer. A reinforcer is any stimulus that increases the probability that a proceeding behavior will occur again. Hence, food is a reinforcer because it increases the probability that the behavior of pressing (formally referred to as the response of pressing) will take place. What kind of stimuli can act as reinforcers? Bonuses, toys, and good grades can serve as reinforcers-if they strengthen the probability of the response that occurred before their introduction. There are two major types of reinforcers. A primary reinforcer satisfies some biological need and works naturally, regardless of a person’s prior experience. Food for a hungry person, warmth for a cold person and relief for a person in pain all would be classified as primary reinforcers a secondary reinforcer, in contrast, is a stimulus that becomes reinforcing because of its association with a primary reinforcer. For instance, we know that money is valuable because we have learned that it allows us to obtain other desirable objects, including primary reinforcers such as food and shelter. Money thus becomes a secondary reinforcer.

Positive Reniforcers. Nagative Reinforcers, and Punishment.

In many respects, reinforcers can be thought of in terms of reward: both a reinforcer and a reward increase the probability that a preceding response this is where it differs from a reinforcer-for it turns out that reinforcers can be positive or negative. A positive reinforcer is a stimulus added to the environment that bring about an increase in a preceding response. If food, water, money, or praise is provided after a response, it is more likely that that response will occur again in the future. The paychecks that workers get at the end of the of the week, for example, increase the likelihood that they will return to their jobs the following week. In contrast, a negative reinforcer refers to an unpleasant stimulus whose removal leads to an increase in the probability that a preceding response will be repeated in the future. For example, if you have an itchy rash (an unpleasant stimulus) that is relieved when you apply a certain brand of ointment, you are more likely to use that ointment the next time you have an itchy rash. Using the ointment, then, is negatively reinforcing, because it removes the unpleasant itch. Negative reinforcement, then, teaches the individual that taking an action removes a negative condition that exists in the environment. Like positive reinforcers, negative reinforcers increase the likelihood that preceding behaviors will be repeated. Note that negative reinforcement is not the same as punishment. Punishment refers to a stimulus that decrease the probability that a prior behavior will occur again. Unlike negative reinforcement, which produces an increase in behavior, punishment reduces the likelihood of a prior response. If we receive a shock that is meant to decrease a certain behavior, then, we are receiving punishment, but if we are already receiving a shock and do something to stop that shock, the behavior that stops the shock is considered to be negatively reinforced. In the first case, the specific behavior is apt to decrease because of the punishment; in the second, it is likely to increase because of the negative reinforcement. There are two types of punishment: positive punishment and negative punishment, just as there are positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. (in both case, “positive” means adding something, and “negative” means removing something.) positive punishment weakens a response through the application of an unpleasant stimulus. For instance, spanking a child for misbehaving, or spending 10 years in jail for committing a crime, is positive punishment, in contrast, negative punishment consists of the removal of something pleasant. For instance, when a teenager is told she is “grounded” and will no longer be able to use the family care because of her poor grades, or when an employee is informed that he has been demoted with a cut in pay because of a poor job evaluation, negative punishment result in decrease in the likelihood that a prior behavior will be repeated. The following rules (and the summary in figure 2) can help you distinguish these concepts from one another: reinforcement increases the frequency of the behavior preceding it; punishment decreases the frequency of the behavior preceding it. The application of a positive stimulus brings about an increase in the frequency of behavior and is referred to positive reinforcement; the application of a negative stimulus decreases or reduces the frequency of behavior and is called punishment. The removal of a negative stimulus that results in an increase in the frequency of behavior is negative reinforcement; the removal of a positive stimulus that decreases the frequency of behavior is negative punishment.

The Pros and Cons Of Punishment: Why Reinforcement Beats Punishment.

Is punishment an effective way to modify behavior? Punishment often presents the quickest route to changing behavior that, if allowed to continue, might be dangerous to an individual. For instance, a parent may not have a second chance to warn a child not to run into a busy street , and so punishing the first incidence of this behavior may prove to be wise. Moreover, the use of punishment to suppress behavior, even temporarily, provides an opportunity to reinforce a person for subsequently behaving in a more desirable way. Punishment has several disadvantages that make its routine use questionable. For one thing, punishment is frequently ineffective, particularly if it is not delivered shortly after the undesired behavior or if the individual is able to leave the setting in which the punishment is being given. An employee who is reprimanded by the boss may quit; a teenager who loses the use of the family car may borrow a friend’s car instead. In such instances, the initial behavior that is being punished may be replaced by one that is even less desirable. Even worse, physical punishment can convey to the recipient the idea that physical aggression is permissible and perhaps even desirable. A father who yells at and hits son for misbehaving teaches the son that aggression is an appropriate, adult response. The son soon may copy his father’s behavior by acting aggressively toward others . in addition, physical punishment is often administered by people who are themselves angry or enraged. It is unlikely that individuals in such an emotional state will be able to thank theough what they are doing or control carefully the degree of punishment they are inflicting (baumrind, Larzelere,&Cowan,2002; Sorbing, Deater-Deckard,&Palmerus, 2006). In short, the research findings are clear: reinforcing desired behavior is a more appropriate technique for modifying behavior than using punishment (Hiby, Rooney; & 2004; Sidman, 2006).

Schedules of Reinforcement: Timing Life’s Rewards page 174

The word would be a different place is poker players never played cards again after the first losing hand, fishermen returned to shore as soon as they missed a catch, or telemarketers never made another phone call after their first hang up. The fact that such unreinforced behaviors continue, often with great frequency and persistence, illustrates that reinforcement need not be received continually for behavior to be learned and maintained. In fact, behavior that is reinforced only occasionally can ultimately be learned better than can behavior that is always reinforced. When we refer to the frequency and timing of reinforcement that follows desired behavior, we are talking about schedules of reinforcement. Behavior that is reinforced every time it occurs is said to be on a continuous reinforcement schedule; if it is reinforced some but not all of the time, it is on a partial (or intermittent) reinforcement schedule. Although learning occurs more rapidly under a continuous reinforcement schedule, behavior lasts longer after reinforcement stops when it is learned under a partial reinforcement schedule (Standdon & Cerutti, 2003; Gottlieb, 2004; Casey, Cooper-Brown, & wacher, 2006). Why should intermittent reinforcement result in stronger, longer-lasting learning than continuous reinforcement? We can answer the question by examining how we might behave when using a candy vending machine compared with a Las Vegas slot machine. When we use a vending machine, prior experience has taught us that every time we put in the appropriate amount of money, the reinforcement, a candy bar, ought to be delivered. In other words, the schedule of reinforcement is continuous. In comparison, a slot machine offers intermittent reinforcement. We have learned that after putting in our cash, most of the time we will occasionally win something. Now suppose that, unknown to us, both the candy vending machine and the slot machine are broken, and so neither one is able to dispense anything. It would to be very long before we stopped depositing coins into the broken candy machine. Probably at most we would try only two or three times before leaving the machine in disgust. But the story would be quite different with the broken machine. Here, we would drop in money for a considerably longer time, even thought there would be no payoff. In formal terms, we can see the difference between the two reinforcement schedules: partial reinforcement schedules: partial reinforcement schedules (such as those provided by slot machines) maintain performance longer than do continuous reinforcement schedules (such as those established in candy vending machines) before extinction-the disappearance of the conditioned response-occurs. Certain kinds of partial reinforcement schedules produce stronger and lengthier responding before extinction than do others. Although many different partial reinforcement schedules have been examined, they can most readily be put into two categories: schedules that consider the number of responses made before reinforcement is given, called fixed-ratio and variable ratio schedules, and those that consider the amount of time that elapses before reinforcement is provided, called fixed-interval and variable-interval schedules (Svartdal, 2003; Pellegrini et al., 2004; Gottlieb, 2006)

Fixed-and Variable-Ratio Schedules. Page 175

In a fixed-ratio schedule, reinforcement is given only after a specific number of responses. For instance, a rat might receive a food pellet every 10th time it pressed a lever; here the ratio would be 1:10. Similarly, garment workers are generally paid on foxed-ratio schedules: they receive a specific number of dollars for every blouse they sew. Because a greater rate of production means more reinforcement, people on fixed-ratio schedules are apt work as quickly as possible. In a variable-ratio schedule, reinforcement occurs after a varying number of responses rather than after a fixed number. Although the specific number of responses necessary to receive reinforcement varies, the number of responses usually hovers around a specific average. A good example of a variable-ratio schedule is a telephone salesperson’s job. She might make a sale during the third, eight, ninth, and twentieth calls without being successful during any call in between. Although the number of responses that mush be made before making a sale varies, it averages out to a 20 percent success rate under these circumstances, you might expect that the salesperson would try to make as many calls as possible in as short a time as possible. This is the case with all variable-ratio schedules, which lead to a high rate of response and resistance to extinction.

Fixed-and Variable-Interval Schedules: the Passage of time.

In contrast to fixed-and variable-ratio schedules, in which the crucial factor is the number of responses, fixed-interval and variable-interval schedules focus on the amount of time that has elapsed since a person or animal was rewarded.. one example of a fixed-interval schedules is a weekly paycheck. For people who receive regular, weekly paychecks, it typically makes relatively little difference exactly how much they produce in a given week. Because a fixed- interval schedule providers reinforcement for a response only if a fixed time period has elapsed, overall rates of response are relatively low. This is especially true in the period just after reinforcement, when the time before another reinforcement is relatively great. Students’ study habits often exemplarity this reality. If the period between exams are relatively long (meaning that the opportunity for reinforcement for good performance is given fairly infrequently,) students often study minimally or not all until the day of the exam draws near. Just before the exam, however, student begin to cram for it, signaling a rapid increase in the rate of their studying response. As you might expect, immediately after the exam there is a rapid decline in the rate of responding, with few people opening a book the day after a test. Fixed-interval schedules produce the kind of “scalloping effect” one way to decrease the delay in responding that occurs just after reinforcement, and to maintain the desired behavior more consistently throughout and interval, is to use a variable-interval schedule. In a variable –interval schedule, the time between reinforcements varies around some average rather than being fixed. For example, a professor who gives surprise quizzes that vary from one every three days to one every three weeks, averaging one every two weeks, is using variable-interval schedule. Compared to the study habits we observed with a fixed-interval schedule, students study habits under such a variable-interval schedule would most likely be very different. Students would be apt to study more regularly because they would never know when the next surprise quiz was coming. Variable-interval schedules, in general, are more likely to produce relatively steady rates of responding than are fixed-interval schedules, with responses that take longer to extinguish after reinforcement ends.

Shaping: reinforcing What Doesn’t Come Naturally. Page 177-

Consider the difficulty of using operant conditioning to teach people to repair an automobile transmission. If you had to wait until they chanced to fix a transmission perfectly before you provided them with reinforcement, the Model T Ford might be back in style long before they mastered the repair process. There are many complex behaviors, ranging from auto repair to zoo management, that we would not expect to occur naturally as part of any one’s spontaneous behavior. For such behaviors, for which there might otherwise be no opportunity to provide reinforcement (because the behavior would never occur in the first place), a procedure known as shaping is used. Shaping is the process of teaching a complex behavior by rewarding closer and closer approximation of the desired behavior. In shaping, you start by reinforcing any behavior that is at all similar to the behavior you want the person to learn. Later, you reinforce only responses that are closer to the behavior you ultimately want to teach. Finally, you reinforce only the desired response. Each step in shaping then moves only slightly beyond the previously learned behavior, permitting the person to link the new step to the behavior learned earlier. Shaping allows even lower animals to learn complex responses that would never occur naturally, ranging from lions jumping through hoops, dolphins rescuing divers lost at sea, or rodents finding hidden land mines.

Comparing Classical and Operant Conditioning.

We’ve considered classical conditioning and operant conditioning as two completely different processes. And, as summarized in figure 4, there are a number of key distinctions between the two forms of learning. For example, the key concept in classical condition is the association between stimuli, whereas in. a couple who had been living together for three years began to fight frequently. The issues of disagreement ranged from who was going to do the dishes to the quality of their love life. Disturbed, the couple went to a behavior analyst, a psychologist who specialized in behavior-modification techniques. He asked them to keep a detailed written record of their interactions over the next two weeks. When they returned with the data, he carefully reviewed the records with them. In doing so, he noticed a pattern: each of their arguments had occurred just after one or the other had left a household chore undone, such as leaving dirty dished in the sink or draping clothes on the only chair in the bedroom. Using the data couple had collected, the behavior analyst asked them to list all the chores that could possibly arise each one a point value depending on how long it took to complete. Then he had them divide the chores equally and agree in a written contact to fulfill the ones assigned to them. If either failed to carry out one of the assigned chores. He or she would have to place $1 per point in a fund for the other to spend. They also agree to a program of verbal praise, promising to reward each other verbally for completing a chore. The couple agrees to try it for a month and to keep careful records of the number of arguments they had during that period. To their surprise, the number decline rapidly. This case provides an illustration of behavior modification, a formalized technique for promoting the frequency of desirable behaviors and decreasing the incidence of unwanted ones. Using the basic principles of learning theory, behavior-modification techniques have proved to be helpful in a variety of situations. People with severe mental retardation have, for the first time in their lives started dressing and feeling themselves. Behavior modification has also helped people lose weight, give up smoking, and behave more safely (Wadden, Crerand, & Brock, 2005; Dilinsky, Latner, & Wilson, 2006; Ntinas, 2007). The techniques used by behavior analysts are as the list of processes that modify behavior. They include reinforcement scheduling, shaping, generalization training, discrimination training, and extinction. Participants in a behavior-change program do, however, typically follow a series of similar basic steps that include the following: identifying goals and target behaviors. The first step is to define desired behavior. Is it an increase in time spent studying? A decrease in weight? A reduction in the amount of aggression displayed by a child? The goals must be stated in observable terms and must lead to specific targets. For instance, a goal might be “to increase study time,” whereas the target behavior would be “to study at least two hours per day on weekdays and an hour on Saturdays.” Designing a data-recording system and recording preliminary data. To determine whether behavior has changed, it is necessary to collect data before and changes are made in the situation. This information provides a baseline against which future changes can be measured. Selecting a behavior-change strategy. The most crucial step is to select an appropriate strategy. Because all the principles of learning can be employed to bring about behavior change, a “package” of treatments is normally used. This might include the systematic use of positive reinforcement for desired behavior (verbal praise or something more tangible, such as food) as well as a program of extinction for undesirable behavior(ignoring a child who throws a tantrum). Selecting the right reinforces is critical, and it may be necessary to experiment a bit to find out what is important to a particular individual. Implementing the program. Probably the most important aspect of program implementation is consistency. It is also important to reinforce the intended behavior. For example, suppose a mother wants her daughter to spend more time on her homework, but as soon as the child sits down to study, she asks for a snack. If the mother gets a snack for her, she is likely to be reinforcing her daughter’s delaying tactic, not her studying. Keeping careful record after the program is implemented. Another crucial task is record keeping. If the target behaviors are not monitored, there is no way of knowing whether the program has actually been successful. Evaluating and altering the ongoing program. Finally, the results of the program should be compared with baseline, reimplementation data to determine its effectiveness. If the program has been successful, the procedures employed can be phased out gradually. For instance, if the program called for reinforcing every instance of picking up one’s clothes from the bedroom floor, the reinforcement schedule could be modified to a fixed-ratio schedule in which every third instance was reinforced. However, if the program has not been successful in bringing about the desired behavior change, consideration of other approaches might be advisable. Behavior- change techniques based on these general principles have enjoyed wide success and have proved to be one of the most powerful means of modifying behavior. Clearly, it is possible to employ the basic notions of learning theory to improve our lives.

Cognitive Approaches to Learning. Page 183

Consider what happens when people learn to drive a car. They don’t just get behind the wheel and stumble around until they randomly put the key into the ignition, and later, after many false starts, accidentally manage to get the car to move forward, thereby receiving positive reinforcement. Instead, they already know the basic elements of driving from prior experience as passengers, when they more than likely noticed how the key was inserted into the ignition, the car was put in drive, and the gas pedal was pressed to make the car go forward. Clearly, not all learning is due to operant and classical conditioning. In fact, activities like learning to drive a car imply that some kinds of learning must involve higher-order processes in which people’s thoughts and memories and the way they process information account for their responses. Such situation argue against regarding learning as the unthinking, mechanical , and automatic acquisition of associations between stimuli and responses, as in classical conditioning, or the presentation of reinforcement, as in operant conditioning . some psychologists view learning in terms of the thought processes, or cognitions, that underline it-an approach known as cognitive learning theory. Although psychologists working from the cognitive learning perspective do not deny the importance of classical and operant conditioning, they have developed approaches that focus on the unseen mental processes that occur during learning, rather than concentrating solely on external stimuli, responses, and reinforcements. In its most basic formulation, cognitive learning theory suggests that it is not enough to say that people make responses because there is an assumed link between a stimulus and a response-a link that is the result of a past history of reinforcement for a response. Instead, according to this point of view, people, and even lower animals, develop an expectation that they will receive a reinforce after making a response. Two types of learning in which no obvious prior reinforcement is present are latent learning and observation learning.

Latent learning.

Evidence for the importance of cognitive processes comes from a series of animal experiments that revealed a type of cognitive learning called latent learning. In latent learning, a new behavior is learned but not demonstrated until some incentive is provided for displaying it (Tolman & Honzik, 1930). In short. Latent learning occurs without reinforcement. In the studies demonstrating latent learning, psychologists examined the behavior of rats in a maze such as the one shown in. in one experiment, a group of rats was allowed to wander around the maze once a day for 17 days without ever receiving a reward. Understandably, those rats made many errors and spent a relatively long time reaching the end of the maze. A second group, however, was always given food at the end of the maze. Not surprisingly, those rats learned to run quickly and directly to the food box, making few errors. A third group of rats started out in the same situation as the unrewarded rats, but only for the first 10 days. On the 11th days, a critical experimental manipulation was introduced: from that point on, the rats in this group were given food for completing the maze. The results of this manipulation were dramatic, as you can see from the graph in. the previously unrewarded rats, which had earlier seemed to wander about aimlessly, showed such reductions in running time and declines in error rates that their performance almost immediately matched that of the group that had received rewards from the start. To cognitive theorists, it seemed clear that the unrewarded rats had learned the layout of the maze early in their explorations; they just never displayed their latent learning until the reinforcement was offered. Instead, those rats seemed to develop a cognitive map of the maze-a mental representation of spatial location and directions. People, too, develop cognitive maps of their surroundings. For example, latent learning may permit you to know the location of a kitchenware store at a local mall you’ve frequently visited, even though you’ve never entered the store and don’t even like to cook. The possibility that we develop our cognitive maps through latent learning presents something of a problem for strict operant conditioning theorists. If we consider the results of the maze-learning experiment, for instance, it is unclear what reinforcement permitted the rats that initially received no reward to learn the layout of the maze, because there was no obvious reinforce present. Instead, the results support a cognitive view of learning, in which changes occurred in unobservable mental processes (Beatty, 2002;Voicu & Schmajuk, 2002; Frensch & Runger, 2003;Ttouffer & White, 2006).

Observational Learning: learning through Imitation. Page 185-186-188

Let’s return for a moment to the case of a person learning to drive. How can we account for instances in which an individual with no direct experience in carrying out a particular behavior learns the behavior and then perform it? To answer this question, psychologists have focused on another aspect of cognitive learning: observation learning. According to psychologist Albert Bandura and colleagues, a major part of human learning consists of observational learning, which is learning by watching the behavior of another person, or model. Because of its reliance on observation of others-a social phenomenon-the perspective taken Bandura is often referred to as a social cognitive approach to learning (Bandura, 2004). Bandura dramatically demonstrated the ability of models to stimulate learning in a classic experiment. In the study, young children saw a film of an adult wildly hitting a five-foot-tall inflatable punching toy called a Bobo doll (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1963 a, 1963 b). later the children were given the opportunity to pay with the Bobo doll themselves, and sure enough, most displayed the same kind of behavior, in some cases=- mimicking the aggressive behavior almost identically. Not only negative behaviors are acquired through observational learning. In one experiment, for example, children who were afraid of dogs were exposed to a model-dubbed the Fearless Peer-playing with a dog (Bandura, Grusec, & Menlove, 1967). After exposure, observers were considerably more likely to approach a strange dog than were children who had not viewed the Fearless Peer. Observation learning is particularly important in acquiring skills in which the operant conditioning technique of shaping is inappropriate. Piloting an airplane and performing brain surgery, for example, are behaviors that could hardly be learned by using trial-and-error methods without grave cost-literally-to those involved in the learning process. Observation learning may a genetic basis. For example, we find observation learning at work with mother animal teaching their young such activities as hunting. In addition, the discovery of mirror neurons that fire when we observe another person carrying out a behavior (discussed in the chapter on neuroscience) suggests that capacity to imitate others may be inborn. Thornton &McAuliffe, 2006; Lepage & Theoret, 2007; Schulte-Ruther et all. 2007). Not all behavior that we witness is learned or carried out, of course. One crucial factor that determines whether we later imitate a model is whether the model is rewarded for his or her behavior. If we observe a friend being rewarded for putting more time into her studies by receiving higher grades, we are more likely to imitate he behavior than we would if her behavior resulted only in being stressed and tired. Models who are rewarded for behaving in a particular way are more apt to be mimicked than are models who receive punishment. Observing the punishment of a model, however, does not necessarily stop observers from learning the behavior the behavior. Observers from learning the behavior. Observers can still describe the model’s behavior-they are just less apt to perform it (Bandura 1977,1986,1994). Observation learning is central to a number of important issue relating to the extent to which people learn simply by watching the behavior of others.

Violence in Television and Video Games: does the Media’s Message Matter.

In an episode of “the Sopranos” television series, fictional mobster Tony Soprano murdered one of his associates. To make identification of the victim’s body difficult, Soprano and one of his henchmen dismembered the body and dumped the body parts. A few months later, two real-life half-brothers in Riverside, California, strangled their mother and then cut her head and hands from her body. Victor Bautista, 20, and Matthew Montejo, 15, were caught by police after a security guard noticed that the bundle they were attempting to throw in a Dumpster had a foot sticking out of it. They told police that the plan to dismember their mother was inspired by “the Sopranos” episode Martelle, Hanley, & Yoshino, 2003). Do you think observation of “The Sopranos” television show resulted in an upswing in viewer violence? Like other “media copycat” killing, the brothers’ cold blooded brutality raises a critical issue: does observing violent and antisocial acts in the media lead viewers to behave in similar ways? Because research on modeling shows that people frequently learn and imitate the aggression that they observe, this question is among the most important issues being addressed by psychologists. Certainly, the amount of violence in the mass media is enormous. By the time of elementary school graduation, the average child in the United States will have viewed more than 8,000 murders and more than 800,000 violent acts on network television (Huston et al., 1992; Mifflin, 1998). Most experts agree that watching high levels of media violence makes viewers more susceptible to acting aggressively, and recent research supports this claim. For example, one survey of serous and violent young male offenders incarcerated in Florida showed that one-fourth of them had attempted to commit a media-inspired copycat crime (Surette, 2002). A significant proportion of those teenage offenders noted that they paid close attention to the media. Several aspects of media violence may contribute to real-life aggressive behavior (Bushman & Anderson, 2001; Johnson et al., 2002). For one thing, experiencing violent media content seems to lower inhibitions against carrying out aggression-watching television portrayals of violence makes aggression seem a legitimate response to particular situations. Exposure to media violence also may distort our understanding of the meaning or others’ behavior, predisposing us to view even nonaggressive acts by others as aggressive. Finally, a continuous diet of aggression may leave us desensitized to violence, and what previously would have repelled us now produces little emotional response. Our sense of the pain and suffering brought about by aggression may be diminished (Bartholow, Bushman, & Sestir,2006; Weber, Ritterfeld, & Kostgina, 2006; Carnagey, Anderson, & Bushman, 2007).

Pages 337-349-353-354-366-369

Psychodynamic Approaches to Personality. 336-337

The college student was intent on making a good first impression on an attractive woman he had spotted across a crowded room at a party. As he walked toward her, he mulled over a line he had heard in an old movie the night before: “I don’t came out was a bit different. After threading his way through the crowed room, he finally reached the woman and blurted out, “I don’t believe we’ve been properly seduced yet.” Although this student’s error may seem to be merely an embarrassing slip of the tongue, according to some personality theorists such a mistake is not an error at all. Instead, psychodynamic personality theorists might argue that the error illustrates one way in which behavior is triggered by inner forces that are beyond our awareness. These hidden drives, shaped by childhood experiences, play an important role in energizing and directing everyday behavior. Psychodynamic approaches to personality are based on the idea that personality is motivated by inner forces and conflicts about which people have little awareness and over which they have no control. The most important pioneer of the psychodynamic approach was Sigmund Freud. A number of Freud’s followers, including Carl Jung, Karen Horney, and Alfred Adler, refined Freud’s theory and developed their own psychodynamic approaches.

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory: mapping the Unconscious Mind 337

Sigmund Freud, an Austrian Physician, developed psychoanalytic theory in the early 1900s. according to Freud’s theory, conscious experience is only a small part of our psychological makeup and experience. He argued that much of our behavior is motivated by the unconscious, a part of the personality that contains the memories, knowledge, beliefs, feelings urges, drives, and instincts of which the individual is not aware.. like the unseen mass of a floating iceberg, the contents of the unconscious far surpass in quantity the information in our conscious awareness. Freud maintained that to understand personality, it is necessary to expose what is in the unconscious. But because the unconscious disguise the meaning of the material it holds, the content of the unconscious cannot be observed directly. It is therefore necessary to interpret clues to the unconscious-slips of the tongue, fantasies, and dreams- to understand the unconscious processes that direct behavior. A slip of the tongue such as the one quoted earlier (sometimes termed a Freudian slip) may be interpreted as revealing the speaker’s unconscious sexual desires. To Freud, much of our personality is determined by our unconscious. Some of the unconscious is made up of the preconscious, which contains material that is not threatening and is easily brought to mind, such as the knowledge that 2+2+4. But deeper in the unconscious are instinctual drives- the wishes, desires, demands, and needs that are hidden from conscious awareness because of the conflicts and pain they would cause if they were part of our everyday lives. The unconscious provided a “safe haven” for our recollections of threatening events.

Structuring Personality: Id, Ego, and Superego

To describe the structure of personality, Freud developed a comprehensive theory that held that personality consists of three separate but interacting components: the id, the ego, and the superego. Freud suggested that the three structures can be diagrammed to show they relate to the conscious and the unconscious. Although the three components of personality described by Freud may appear to be actual physical structures in the nervous system, they are not. Instead, they represent abstract conceptions of a general model of personality that describes the interaction of forces that motivate behavior. If personality consisted only of primitive, instinctual cravings and longings, it would have just one component: the id. The id is the raw, unorganized, inborn part of personality. From the time of birth, the id attempts to reduce tension created by primitive drives related to hunger, sex aggression, and irrational impulses. Those drives are fueled by “psychic energy,” which we can think of as a limitless energy source constantly putting pressure on the various parts of the personality. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, in which the goal is the immediate reduction of tension and the maximization of satisfaction. However, in most cases reality prevents the fulfillment of the demands of the pleasure principle: we cannot always eat when we are hungry, and we can discharge our sexual drives only when the time and place are appropriate. To account for this fact of life, Freud suggested a second component of personality, which he called the ego. The ego, which begins to develop soon after birth, strives to balance the desires, of the id and the realities of the objective- seeking id, the ego operates according to the reality principle, in which instinctual energy is restrained to maintain the safety of the individual and to help integrate the person into society. In a sense, then, the ego is the “executive” of personality: it make decisions, controls action, and allows thinking and problem solving of a higher order than the id’s capabilities permit. The superego, the final personality structure to develop in childhood, represents the rights and wrongs of society as taught and modeled by a person’s parents, teachers, and other significant individuals. The superego includes the conscience, which prevents us from behaving in a normally improper way by making us fell guilty if we do wrong. The superego helps us control impulses coming from the id, making our behavior less selfish and more virtuous. Both the superego and the id are unrealistic in that they do not consider the practical realities imposed by society. The superego, if left to operate without restraint, would create perfectionists unable to make the compromises that life requires. An unrestrained id would create a primitive, pleasure- seeking, thoughtless individual seeking to fulfill every desire without delay. As a result, the ego must mediate between the demands of the superego and the demands of the id.

The Big Five Personality Traits 349

For the last two decades, the most influential trait approach contends that five traits or factors- called the “Big Five”-lie at the core of personality. Using modern factor analytic statistical techniques, a host of researchers have identified a similar set of five factors that underlie personality the five factors, described in. are openness to experience, and conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (emotional stability ). The Big Five emerge consistently with different kinds of measures, in different population of individuals, and across different cultures. In short, a growing consensus exists that the “Big Five” represent the best description of personality traits we have today. Still, the debate over the specific number and kinds of traits-and even the usefulness of trait approaches in general-remains a lively one.

Biological and Evolutionary Approaches: are We Born with Personality? Page 353

Approaching the question of what determines personality from a different direction, biological and evolutionary approaches to personality suggest that important components of personality are inherited. Building on the work of behavioral geneticists, researchers using biological and evolutionary approaches argue that personality is determined at least in part by our genes, in much the same way that our height is largely a result of genetic contributions from our ancestor. The evolutionary perspective assumes that personality traits that led to survival and reproductive success of our ancestors are more likely to be preserved and passed on the subsequent generations (Buss, 2001). It is increasingly clear that the roots of adult personality emerge in the earliest periods of life. Infants are born with a specific temperament, an innate disposition. Temperament encompasses several dimensions, including general activity level and mood. For instance, some individuals are quite active, whereas others are relatively calm. Similarly, some are relatively easygoing, but others are irritable, easily upset, and difficult to soothe. Temperament is quite consistent, with significant stability from infancy well into adolescence( Caspi, Harrington, & Milne, 2003; Wachs et al., 2004 Evans & Rothbart, 2007). Although an increasing number of personality theorists are taking biological and evolutionary factors into account, no comprehensive, unified theory that considers biological and evolutionary factors is widely accepted. Still, it is clear that certain personality traits have environment interact to determine personality (Plomin et al., 2003; Ebstein, Benjamin, & Belmaker, 2003; Bouchard,2004).

Humanistic Approaches: the Uniqueness of You 354

Where, in all the approaches to personality that we have discussed, is an explanation for the saintliness of a Mother Teresa, the creativity of a Michelangelo, and the brilliance and perseverance of an Einstein? An understanding of such unique individuals-as well as more ordinary sorts of people who have some of the same attributes-comes from humanistic theory. Humanistic approaches to personality emphasize people’s inherent goodness and their tendency to move toward higher levels of functioning. It is this conscious, self-motivated ability to change and improve, along with people’s unique creative impulses, that humanistic theorists argue make up the core of personality.

Rogers and the Need for Self-Actualization

The major proponent of the humanistic point of view is Carl Rogers (1971). Along with other humanistic theorists, such as Abraham Maslow, Roger maintains that all people have a fundamental need for self-actualization, a state of self-fulfillment in which people realize highest potential, each in a unique way. He further suggests that people develop a need for positive regard that reflects the desire to be loved and respected. Because other provide this positive regard, we grow dependent on them. We begin to see and judge our-selves through the eyes of other people, relying on their values and being preoccupied with what they think of us. According to Rogers, one outgrowth of placing importance on the opinions of others is that a conflict may grow between people’s experiences and their self-concepts, the set of beliefs they hold about what they are like as individuals. If the discrepancies are minor, so are the consequences. But if the discrepancies are great, they will lead to psychological disturbances in daily functioning, such as the experience of frequent anxiety. Rogers suggests that one way of overcoming the discrepancy between experience and self-concept is through the receipt of unconditional positive regard from another person-a friend, a spouse, a therapist. Unconditional positive regard refers to an attitude of acceptance and respect on the part of an observer, no matter what a person says or does. This acceptance says Rogers, gives people the opportunity to evolve and grow both realistic self-concepts. You may have experienced the power of unconditional positive regard when you confided in someone, revealing embarrassing secrets because you knew the listener would still love and respect you, even after hearing the worst about you (Snyder,2002; Marshall, 2007). In contrast, conditional positive regard depends on your behavior. In such cases, others withdraw their love and acceptance if you do something of which they don’t approve. The result is a discrepancy between your true self and what others wish you would be, leading to anxiety and frustration.

Evaluating Humanistic Approaches

Although humanistic theories suggest the value of providing unconditional positive regard toward people, unconditional positive regard toward humanistic theories has been less forthcoming. The criticisms have centered on the difficulty of verifying the basic assumptions of the approach, as well as on the question of whether unconditional positive regard does, in fact, lead to greater personality adjustment. Humanistic approaches have also been criticized for making the assumption that people are basically “good”-a notion that is unverifiable-and, equally important, for using nonscientific values to build supposedly scientific theories. Still, humanistic theories have been important in highlighting the uniqueness of human beings and guiding the development of a significant form of therapy designed to alleviate psychological difficulties (Cain, 2002; Bauman & Kopp, 2006)

Intelligence. Page 366—367-368-369

Intelligence can take on many different meanings. If, instance, you lived in a remote part of the Australian outback, the way you would differentiate between more intelligent and less intelligent people might have to do with successfully mastering hunting skills, whereas to someone living in the heart of urban Miami, intelligence might be exemplified by being “street wise” or by achieving success in business. Each of these conceptions of intelligence is reasonable. Each represents an instance in which more intelligent people are better able to use the resources of their environment than are less intelligent people, a distinction that is presumably basic to any definition of intelligence. Yet it is also clear that these conceptions represent very different views of intelligence. To psychologists, intelligence is the capacity to understand the world, think rationally, and use resources effectively when faced with challenges. This definition does not lay to rest a key question asked by psychologists: is intelligence a unitary attribute, or are there different kinds of intelligence? We turn now to various theories of intelligence that address the issue. Theories of Intelligence: Are There Different Kinds of Intelligence?

Perhaps you see yourself as a good writer but as someone who lacks ability in math. Or maybe you view yourself as a “science” person who easily masters physics but has few strengths in interpreting literature. Perhaps you view yourself as generally fairly smart, with intelligence that permits you to excel across domains. The different ways in which people view their own talents mirrors a question that psychologists have grappled with: is intelligence a single, general ability, or is it multifaceted and related to specific abilities? Early psychologists interested in intelligence assumed that there was a single, general factor for mental ability, which they called g, or the g- factor. This general intelligence factor was thought to underline performance in every aspect of intelligence, and it was the g-factor that was presumably being measured on tests of intelligence 9Spearman, 1927; Gottfredson,2004; Colom, Jung, & Haier,2006). More recent theories see intelligence in a different light. Rather than viewing intelligence as a unitary, they consider it to multidimensional concept that includes different types of intelligence (Tenopyr, 2002; Stankov,2003; Sternberg & Pretz,2005)

Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

Some psychologists suggest that there are two different kinds of intelligence: fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. Fluid intelligence reflects information-processing capabilities, reasoning, and memory. If we were asked to solve an analogy, group a series of letters according to some criterion, or remember a set of numbers, we should be using fluid intelligence (Kane & Engle, 2002; Saggino, Perfetti, & Spitoni, 2006). In contrast, crystallized intelligence is the accumulation of information, skills, and strategies that people have learned through experience and that they can apply in problem- solving situation. It reflects our ability to call up information from long-term memory. We would be likely to rely on crystallized intelligence, for instance, if we were asked to participate in a discussion about the solution to the causes of poverty, task that allow us to draw on our own past experiences and knowledge of the world.

Garden’s Multiple Intelligence: the Many Ways of Showing Intelligence

Psychologist Howard Gardener has taken an approach very different from traditional thinking about intelligence. Gardener argues that rather than asking “how smart are you?” we should be asking a different question: “how are you smart?” in answering the latter question, Gardener has developed a theory of multiple intelligences that has become quite influential (Gardener, 200). Gardener argues that we have at a minimum eight different forms of intelligence, each relatively independent of the others: musical, bodily kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. Describes the eight types of intelligence, with some of Gardener’s view, each of the multiple intelligences is linked to an independent system in the brain. Although Gardener illustrates his conception of the specific types of intelligence with description of well-known people, each person has the same eight kinds of intelligence-in different degrees. Moreover, although the eight basic types of intelligence are presented individually, Gardener suggests that these separate intelligence do not operate in isolation. Normally, any activity encompasses several kinds of intelligence working together. In a busy pharmacy technician will often rely on both fluid and crystallized intelligence. Which do you think will be most important in your chosen career? The concept of multiple intelligence has led to the development of intelligence test that include question in which more than one answer can be correct; these provide an opportunity for test takers to demonstrate creative thinking. In addition, many educators, embracing the concept of multiple intelligences, have designed classroom curricula that are meant to draw on different aspects of intelligence (Armstrong, 2000,2003; Kelly & Tangney, 2006).

Is information Processing Intelligence?

One of the newer contributions to understanding intelligence comes from the work of cognitive psychologists who take an information-processing approach. They assert that the way people store material in memory and use that material to solve intellectual tasks provides the most accurate measure of intelligence. Consequently, rather than focusing on the structure of intelligence or its underlying content or dimensions, information-processing approaches examine the processes involved in producing intelligent behavior(Hunt,2005;Neubauer & Fink, 2005; Pressley & Harris, 2006). For example, research shows that people with high scores on test of intelligence spend more time on the initial encoring stages of problems, identifying the parts of a problem and retrieving relevant information from long-term memory, than do people with lower scores. This initial emphasis or recalling relevant information pays off in the end; those who use this approach are more successful in finding solution s than are those who spend relatively less time on the initial stages (Sternberg, 1990; Deary & Der, 2005; Hunt, 2005). Other information- processing approaches examine the sheer speed of processing. For example, research shows that the speed with which people are able to retrieve information from memory is related to verbal intelligence. In general, people with high scored on measures of intelligence react more quickly on a variety of information-processing tasks, ranging from reactions to flashing lights to distinguishing between letters. The speed of information processing, then may underlie differences in intelligence (Deary & Der, 2005; Jensen, 2005; Gontkovsky & beatty, 2006).