waldentwo

In the course Learning Theory and Research I have learned Psychology in more depth. Being a criminal justice student I always had an interest in psychology because we need to understand people and that’s what psychology does it helps us read people better. Learning about B.F. Skinner and Bandura and many others who made an impact in psychology was very interesting. Skinners contribution in the study of Radical Behaviorism and Bandura in the study of Social Learning. This course gave me an overview of understanding how psychology was shape in early years and the understanding of general subjects that I can relate to my personal experiences. I enjoy many of the subjects that we touch in this course I thought chapter one was very interesting with the study of behavior in how humans have behavioral excesses, behavioral deficits and inappropriate behaviors. I believe I have a behavioral deficit which is procrastination even though I’m working on it I still lack at it sometimes. I do feel I’...

Symptoms of OCD can be found in the early years of a teenager and can start as early as childhood. Being able to recognize this is very important for the teenager to be able to be diagnosed and treated at the earliest opportunity. Teenagers are a vulnerable group of young people and they have so many teenage pressures to deal with on a daily basis. All that stress and trauma could cause OCD in teenagers.This type of change or can occur very fast in a teenager. OCD can be scary for the teenager to understand and for their parents who will usually not understand what is happening. Their friends will ignore them and will label them as crazy. The anxiety, which leads to OCD, can be environmental, biological, or psychological. Being able to figure out what are the causes will ensure the teenager to get the help they need to understand what they are experiencing. Studies have shown that there is no distinction between male and female sufferers and most of them get OCD first in their childhoo...

When I first signed up for the class I thought is was going to be a little on the dull side. I really enjoyed the book and the posting was a good way for me to do extra research. Everything that was included from the history of Psychology and how it really wasn't viewed as a natural science to howit evolved into modern psychology was all very good to know. Also all of the Classical and operant conditioning, and biological dispositions in learning were all helpful. I really liked the Horcones project (the little city in Mexico where everyone worked as a group to get everything they needed). I think modern society should use psychology more for the good of the people instead of just a way to advertise products and find a way to seperate us from our money. The part I think I enjoyed the most was chapter 12, especially the part about Language. I thought all the studies on animal language were interesting and I couldn't believe the story of Kanzi the Bonobo. The following video is a...

Part 1 Food neophobia, the tendency to avoid unfamiliar foods and prefer familiar ones, is something that almost everyone experiences. However, the degree to which a person experiences this depends on the person themselves. The Food Neophobia Scale was created in 1992 to examine this "fussy eating" disorder and the extend to which children rejected new foods. This phobia is most common in children and infants, but can carry on to adulthood as well. There isnt much of an explanation as to what causes food neophobia, except for its survival value. It provides protection from eating harmful foods. However, the phobia decreases with exposure to unfamiliar foods. Part 2 This class has helped me understand more about stress and coping, especially with school. Also, it has shown me the process of motivation and what drives us, and how we can improve on it. I especially found chapter 4 to be interesting, as it took addiction theory to another level and broke down the inner workings o...

Learning behavior and research can be useful in dog training and other aspects such as pranks. In this video they use it for good. In this course I've refreshed my knowledge on classical conditioning and variables, learned a lot about how studying animal behavior is key into understanding human behavior. This course should definitely be a pre-requisite for experimental psychology. In general, my favorite part of the course was definitely the content. It can be applied in every day life and can be used to full advantage to condition people to do the things that you want. The one thing that I did not like about the course though, was the pace. I feel putting 16 weeks of education into 4 is very difficult to accomplish and Berg did an excellent job however as a pupil I found it difficult to keep up with working full time and having another summer class as well. Overall, this course can be used in everyday life to dog training, to pranks.

Matching law is when a response is equally porportionate to the scenario and produces an equal response. This is observed most in operant conditioning. In a scene from the Office, Jim puts nickles in Dwights phone to make it heavier. Once Jim takes out the quarters, Dwight hits himself in the face with the telephone.

Final Project After taking the Learning: theory and research course I have learned a lot about research methods, elicited behaviors, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning. When we study the effects of certain variables on a behavior, it is important that we properly define behavior. To do this correctly we have to used research methods. Once someone is learned how to develop a hypothesis in some are of interest he or she will employ a research method to obtain behavioral data. Some methods for obtaining data are naturalistic observation, case studies, control group designs and single-subject design. My favorite part about this course was about the behavioral definitions. I like to see how animals can figure their way out, through a maze, to reach the ending food. I also like how a bird was placed in a box with a square object to step on the reach an object the bird wanted. After watching animals sniff their way to the food, I can observe and record methods. Thi...

Positive Reinforcement is a presentation of a stimulus following a response, which leads to an increase in the future strength of that response which is usually pleasant or rewarding. Training a dog is not a very simple task it could take weeks and months of constant training and practice. The time frame does not depend on the breed of the dog it is based on how you train them properly. The fundamental thing in dog training is to give your dog nothing but positive encouraging rewards. Many dog owners punish or hit their dogs when they commit mistakes or do something wrong which is the wrong action to take. These can cause the dog to feel anxious and not perform during the training period. The positive reinforcement method is a very effective training technique. It involves rewards that the dog would surely love. The methods main concept is to reward your pet for every proper action they do. Rewards can be a simple patting, stroking or even giving foods and also and excited voice will e...

I had the opportunity to take both “Learning Theory and Research” and “Motivation” with Dr. Berg. Both classes had similar layouts, was very interesting, and informative. This particular Psychology class “Learning Theory and Research” was filled with a variety of concepts and historical background of studying learning and behavior. The textbook alone went in to great detail of how each theory stands alone but how each theory was built upon another. This course also reviewed many well-known and important psychologists who had a great impact on learning, behavior, and research such as John Watson, Clark Hull, Albert Bandura, Burrhus Skinner, and Ivan Pavlov. Some of the topics covered were human problems of living (i.e. shyness, procrastination, over eating, inappropriate behavior, phobias, etc), social learning, and conditioning. I have taken many psychology courses in school since it is my major and I must say that this class and “Motivation” are two of my favorites. ...

Section 1 Reinforcment schedules are very important to learning via the operant conditioning route. if someone tries to teach an organism and isnt following a set schedule of reinforcement, it can resul in pain, hunger, nothing at all, and most importantly, learning will not occur without reinforcment. Without reinforcement, a learned behavior will become extinct in the organism's mind. Imagine trying to train a dog with a variable time reinforcement schedule. Giving him treats every five minutes isn't going to help him learn what you want him to do when you say, "sit!". It will confuse him as to what is being reinforced, but he isn't going to do anything to change that since he's a happy eating dog. If the trainer followed a fixed ratio schedule, the dog will only be reinforced when the command is completed, hence improving learning. Section 2 In this class, i learned that the majority of our learning is through classical and operant conditioning, and subca...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfZfMIHwSkU&feature=related Here is a perfect example of Pavlov's dogs, in a more modern and comedic reference. Jim had heard about Pavlov's experiment about classical conditioning, and without telling Dwight, had conducted an experiment. Over the course of time, Jim had offered Dwight an Altoid mint whenever Jim's computer made a noise as it shut down. Eventually, like Pavlov's dogs, Dwight had come to expect the presentation of an Altoid when he heard the shut down noise. I chose this because its always interesting when you hear something concerning your major on TV, and knowing The Office, they would take a funny spin onto a predominately scientific topic, which i found entertaining.

The topic of self control management makes me think about people with drug addictions. most people who want to stop cant , partly due to withdrawal symptoms and to self control management. A drug addict does nothing to give them a physical restraint to the drug, or change their environment to get away from the drugs. most likely it is due to not having money, which they spent on drugs instead of moving out of a heroin neighborhood. When the addict is deprived of the drug, he needs to meet his high level of satiation, which wouldn't be so high if he possessed self control management. Drug addicts could also resort to doing something other than drugs, but rarely do. And if a person on drugs wanted to quit and had the self Control skills, they would act as their own reinforcers or punishers and do what they know they need to do to get off drugs and change their lives for the better. This topic is close to me because a member of my family went through a drug addiction, and if he had s...

Phobias are considered unexplainable and sometimes irrational fears. During High School, i knew a girl with a phobia of bridges. She would be terrified to go near them and felt anxious when she started a journey where she knew she would encounter a bridge and sometimes couldn't bring herself to cross it by herself. In certain situations, she would have to have a friend drive over the bridge while she buried her face in the back seat of the car. During my senior year psych class, our teacher told her about Systematic Desensitization as a way to overcome phobias. He told her it would start in a relaxed atmosphere where she would be presented a very small item that was associated with bridges, like looking at a picture. At first, the picture would cause anxiety , but if she attempted to calm herself down while looking at the picture, it would be the first step towards overcoming her phobia. When she no longer felt anxious, she would progress to a more intense anxiety producing situati...

Introduction: This class went by really fast and I feel like I learned a lot of information in a short amount of time. What I really liked about our textbook is that it went into so much detail about the subject. The text also used plenty of real life concepts which made understanding each subject a lot easier. What caught my attention in the first slides of our notes was, “Human Problems of Living”: Behavioral Excesses- (over-eating, excessive alcohol consumption), Behavioral Deficits- (shyness, procrastination,lack of motivation), Inappropriate behavior- (when a problem is when and where certain behavior occurs). What I learned about...Behaviorism: The early founders of behaviorism include, William James who believed that ideas and theories become true through proving their utility in an applied situation. John Watson who rejected introspective methods and wanted to restrict psychology to experimental methods in order to understand a persons "true" behavior and B.F....

PART 1 Positive punishment is something that can be mistaken for negative reinforcement, and is the presentation of an unpleasant stimulus after the response to decrease that response. For example, most of us learned at a young age to NOT swat at a bee, as the likelihood that it will sting you increases. So when one gets stung, they are less likely to swat at the bee again. That, my friends, is positive punishment. Animals also have the ability to benefit from positive punishment. If your cat is scratching your new couch, and you spray him with water, the scratching will decrease. The water is an unpleasant stimulus, therefore decreasing the undesired response. PART 2 I believe one of the reasons I found Learning: Theory and Research so intriguing is because it took many of the topic I enjoyed from previous psychology classes and went more in depth. For example, I had no idea classical conditioning could be so complicated! Sure, I knew about reinforcement, both positive and negative, s...

As college students, we all know about something called procrastination. We have all been subject to its cruel grasps at least once (and I bet you a million dollars it has been more than once). However, procrastination is a bit more than just putting off your school work because you don't feel like doing it. Most believe it is just delaying an action even though one is fully aware of the adverse consequences of doing so. Procrastination all depends on the amount of time between the important event or activity and the moment one becomes "worse off" for not doing the task. Therefore, if you are assigned a psychology project that is due exactly two months from now, the likelihood of procrastination is fairly high, as the consequences of not doing the project is two months away. Scales have even been created so as to test how much you tend to procrastinate (found here: http://www.yorku.ca/rokada/psyctest/prcrasts.pdf ), as this depends on personality. So take the test! Or do ...

This class was very interesting for me. And a good class to take over the summer. I feel like i learn more in a short summer class because there is no time to procrastinate! It was nice learning more in depth all the things that have been learning in other psychology classes, but just as an overview. I thought i was so bored with classical conditioning with Pavlov and his dog experiment, but it was so interesting because there was really so much more to learn. One of the things I found interesting that I can tie to by daily life is observational learning. The video at the bottom is a little dry but you get the point. If you watch someone throw trash on the floor and do nothing while you see someone else pick up the trash and dispose of it, you then are more likely to then pick up trash the next time you see someone just throw trash to the side.

     This summer I took both Learning: Theory and Research and Motivation with Professor Berg. The formats for both of these classes were very similar yet topics varied. For both of the classes I enjoyed the website blogs. It was fascinating to see everyone’s input from their personal experiences, their opinions, their interpretations, and what they were capable of finding on the internet, photos and YouTube videos relating to our topics. I also enjoyed writing the posts, which I was able to express the following I just mentioned, but I was also capable of relating it to my personal life and make personal discoveries. I also enjoyed for both classes the setup of the lectures slides and the detail they went into. I personally learn very well visually and with this also being an online class I greatly appreciated all the examples and visual aids to better help me understand particular topics.        I found this class a lot more in depth and co...

BROAD OVERVIEW I really enjoyed reading the text for this class. I’m really interested in psychology – hence being a psych major – and honestly, learning is one of my favorite subjects of psychology. I feel like I’ve learned an incredible amount within a short time period by taking this class. I feel like the class covered many different topics that had a great flow to them. I reviewed the ideas of Empiricism, structuralism, functionalism, and Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism; I revisited the ideas of research methods (independent and dependent variables, recording methods, and research designs); I reread the many ideas and takes on classical conditioning and how reinforcement effects behaviors, and I went through the many ideas of operant conditioning. I feel like all of these ideas and concepts are all very important to understanding human behavior. I feel like a person’s identity is a formation of half genetics and half learning; therefore, I deem how humans learn very impor...

According to Powell (2009) et al. “Bandura is well known for his studies on aggression, and he is particularly famous for what are now known as the “Bobo doll studies” (p. 471). The experiment involved young children who were to view adult models acting aggressively toward a Bobo doll (a large inflatable doll “that pops back up when pushed”) (Powell et al., 2009, p. 471). These same children were set in a room with a Bobo doll to see if they too would follow the adult model’s actions and act aggressively toward the Bobo doll (Powell et al., 2009, p. 471). Powell et al. (2009) confirms that the “research involved various types of models, various forms of demonstrated aggression, and children of varying ages. In these studies, Bandura found some striking evidence concerning the social learning of aggression” (p. 472). Once he examined the results, Bandura found that the children who witnessed the adults acting aggressively copied this behavior and essentially “replicated the same b...