Exam 3: Behaviorist Principles and Theories

When Rochelle has an on-the-road lesson as part of her driver education class, she fails to stop at a school crossing zone, as is required by law. Her instructor has her drive around the block several times and stop each time at the crossing zone. He also insists that, once she has stopped, she must wait at least eight seconds before proceeding. The instructor's strategy illustrates the use of _______ as a way of bringing about behavior change.

Which one of the following statements best describes research findings regarding the effectiveness of verbally reprimanding e.g., scolding) children?

Which one of the following is the major reason why assigning extra schoolwork is not an appropriate punishment for classroom misbehavior?

When Judy becomes verbally aggressive toward her peers, she is placed in a quiet and boring room for five minutes. The procedure being used here is most commonly known as:

Paul is usually successful on the math problems his teacher assigns at school, although he occasionally fails on one or two problems. In contrast, Peter's experiences with mathematics are almost always associated with frustration and failure. Considering contemporary views of the roles of contiguity and contingency in classical conditioning, who will acquire classically conditioned anxiety regarding mathematics?

At the beginning of the school year, Mr. Webber is concerned that Frances rarely does her independent seatwork. He begins praising Frances for each seatwork assignment she completes, and by January she is completing her assignments regularly. To make sure that the behavior continues in the years to come, what would behaviorists tell Mr. Webber to do now?

Which one of the following best illustrates Skinner's concept of superstitious behavior?

Which one of the following is the best example of intrinsic reinforcement?

In Mr. Marshall's classroom, students who acquire 10 points in one day can have 20 minutes of free time at the end of the day. Mr. Marshall awards points to his students for good behavior and deducts points if they misbehave. The deduction of points for misbehavior is known as:

Thorndike's original law of effect described the ways in which the learning of a response:

Which one of the following statements best describes behaviorists' two-step theory of avoidance learning?

Mr. Smart tells his students that they can do whatever they want for the first ten minutes of class but must then turn their attention to the day's assignment. The students are delighted with their ten minutes of free time but they don't attend to the assignment when it's time to do so. From an operant conditioning perspective, what mistake has Mr. Smart made?

Which one of the following is an example of negative reinforcement?

A ski instructor is teaching a class of beginning skiers how to do a snowplow turn. She first teaches her students to stand with the fronts of their skis together and the backs of their skis far apart. She then has her students bend their knees slightly and lean forward in this "snowplow" position. After the students can do these two things successfully, the instructor has them add more behaviors to the sequence: gliding across the side of a gentle slope in a snowplow, putting their body weight on the downhill ski, gradually turning downhill, and so on. The instructor praises her students each time they successfully add a new movement to the sequence. In behaviorist terminology, the procedure that the ski instructor is using can best be described as:

Note: Both questions refer to the same situation. -Ms. Washington tries to ignore Warren when he tells jokes in class. But sometimes Warren tells a joke so funny that Ms. Washington laughs in spite of herself. Rather than decreasing his joke-telling, Warren begins telling even more outrageous jokes. Inadvertently, Ms. Washington is modifying Warren's joke-telling behavior through:

If students associate failure with punishment, and then associate playing sports with failure, they may begin to fear playing sports through a process of:

Distinguish among positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, Punishment I, and Punishment II. Give an example of each.

Jimmy misbehaved in class and his teacher punished him by forcing him to skip recess. Withholding recess is generally an ineffective form of punishment because:

Good grades are reinforcing to some children but not to others. Someone explaining this fact from an early operant conditioning perspective would say that good grades are most likely to be reinforcers to children who:

Six-year-old Jack has recently learned to appreciate the value of money, so his father assigns him some simple housekeeping chores to be performed throughout the week. He tells Jack that completion of these chores will earn him an allowance of one dollar every Saturday. Jack rarely completes his chores. From an operant conditioning perspective, which one of the following is most likely to be the reason why Jack is not doing his chores?