Explain how operant conditioning could be used to teach your pet a trick or change your pet’s behavior. Include a description of how you would use either positive or negative reinforcement to increase the frequency of a desirable behavior.

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Week 3: Learning and Memory

By pursuing your degree, you have actively sought learning; however, learning does not occur simply because you enroll in a course. Learning is much bigger than the school context, and it’s actually much smaller, too—psychologists have developed theories that break down the specific components involved in how we make links between two stimuli (classical conditioning) and between a stimulus and a response (operant conditioning). We know that we can even learn without experiencing something ourselves, but by simply watching others’ experiences (observational learning). Regardless of what your role is in society, a parent, a friend, or a manager on your job, you are probably responsible for both learning new things yourself and helping others learn and commit information to memory. As you progress through this week’s learning materials, think about the different ways in which you yourself learn, reason, problem-solve, and remember, and how you help others do the same.

Learning Objectives

Students will:
  • Assess components of classical conditioning and operant conditioning
  • Label examples of observational and latent learning
  • Distinguish memory encoding, storage, and retrieval processes
  • Compare reasons for forgetting
  • Apply learning and memory concepts to case study individual
  • Apply concepts related to the nervous system, sensation, and perception

Discussion: Classical and Operant Conditioning

According to the course text, learning is defined as a “relatively permanent change in behavior that is brought about by experience” (Feldman, 2020, p. 168). By following the scientific process, psychologists have made great strides in understanding how you learn. Pavlov’s seminal experiment introduced the idea of classical conditioning-learning that occurs when you learn to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. Classical conditioning paved the way for behaviorism.

Operant conditioning, like classical conditioning, is another form of associative learning. Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which behavior is encouraged if followed by a reinforcer and decreased if followed by punishment.

Both classical conditioning and operant conditioning occur every day, though you are probably not used to examining how you learn in these technical terms. For this week’s Discussion, you will have the opportunity to practice your understanding by creating examples of classical conditioning and operant conditioning “in real life.”

This week you will be discussing the concepts of classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Please choose if you would like to apply these learning theories to humans or animals. Be sure that your thread subject line identifies which topic you are posting about (e.g., “Human” or “Animal”)

By Day 3

Human:

Classical Conditioning

Post a response to the following:

Think about someone with a specific fear or phobia. Explain how classical conditioning can explain how the fear or phobia developed. Give an example and explain your answer. Include a description of the neutral stimulus (NS), unconditioned stimulus (UCS), conditioned stimulus (CS), unconditioned response (UCR), and conditioned response (CR) in relation to your example. Support your assignment post with at least one reference (textbook or other scholarly, empirical resources).

AND

Operant Conditioning

Post a response to the following:

Imagine you are a supervisor at work. How can you use operant conditioning to change an employee’s attendance, customer service, or other behavior?

Include a description of how you would use either positive or negative reinforcement to increase the frequency of a desirable behavior. Also, include a description of how you would use punishment to decrease the frequency of an undesirable behavior. Support your assignment post with at least one reference (textbook or other scholarly, empirical resources).

Animal Training:

Do you own a pet? Call to mind some of your pet’s behaviors or desired behaviors.

Classical Conditioning

Post a response to the following:

Explain how classical conditioning could explain an association your pet has learned. (e.g., The sound of a can opener associated with a meal.) Describe your example and include a description of the neutral stimulus (NS), unconditioned stimulus (UCS), conditioned stimulus (CS), unconditioned response (UCR), and conditioned response (CR) in relation to your example. Support your assignment post with at least one reference (textbook or other scholarly, empirical resources).

AND

Operant Conditioning

Post a response to the following:

Explain how operant conditioning could be used to teach your pet a trick or change your pet’s behavior. Include a description of how you would use either positive or negative reinforcement to increase the frequency of a desirable behavior. Also, include a description of how you would use punishment to decrease the frequency of an undesirable behavior. Support your assignment post with at least one reference (textbook or other scholarly, empirical resources).

By Day 5

Response Instructions:

Support your reply to a colleagues’ assignment post with at least one reference (textbook or other scholarly, empirical resources). You may state your opinion and/or provide personal examples; however, you must also back up your assertions with evidence (including in-text citations) from the source and provide a reference.

Respond in one or more of the following ways:

  • Ask a probing question and provide insight into how you would answer your question and why.
  • Ask a probing question and provide the foundation, or rationale, for the question.
  • Expand on your colleague’s posting by offering a new perspective or insight.
  • Agree with a colleague and offer additional (new) supporting information for consideration.
  • Disagree with a colleague by respectfully discussing and supporting a different perspective.

Refer to the Discussion Rubric, located in the Course Information area, for details on how this discussion will be graded.

Note: You are required to complete your initial post before you will be able to view and respond to your colleague’s postings. After clicking on the “Week 3 Discussion” link, select “Create Thread” to create your initial post.

For this part of the assignment, create a bar chart in Excel. You will need the “Summary Data for Graph” worksheet from the Data 1 file.

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Instructions

This assignment has two parts, which will be submitted in one document.

For this task, you will calculate the mean, median, and mode for a fictitious data set. These data represent the results of a fictitious study, which investigates whether a new drug (Drug A) is more effective than a placebo (i.e., an inactive substance) in the treatment of depression. The researcher is also interested in whether the effects of the drug varies by age so participants between the ages of 18-39 years were recruited (the younger adult group), and participants between the ages of 60-80 years were recruited (the older adult group). Participants were randomly assigned to either the placebo group or to the drug group (Drug A). All participants were first screened to ensure they met the criteria for depression. After 2 months of taking either the placebo or Drug A, participants returned to the lab and completed a measure of depressive symptomology called the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II).

Part 1:

For the first part of this assignment, create a table showing the mean, median, and mode for each participant group and each drug condition on the score for the BDI-II. The data for each participant are contained in the “Participant Data” worksheet in the Data1 File. You may use Excel or you can calculate these values by hand. Your table should look like the following:

Younger Adults
PlaceboYounger Adults
Drug AOlder Adults
PlaceboOlder Adults
Drug AMean    Median    Mode

You must have the “Data Analysis” add-in installed. Directions for this installation are provided in the “Data Analysis in Excel 2016” file located under your weekly resources. These instructions will also work for Excel 2010. This document also describes how to calculate basic descriptive statistics using Excel.

Part 2:

For this part of the assignment, create a bar chart in Excel. You will need the “Summary Data for Graph” worksheet from the Data 1 file. Remember, the bar chart shows the means for each condition rather than individual participant data, and the data in this worksheet have been organized accordingly.

For the steps regarding how to create the bar graph, review the steps in “Creating a Bar Graph in Excel 2016” or “Creating a Bar Graph in Excel 2010,” located under your weekly resources. These instructions should also work with other versions of Excel.

You should copy and paste the graph you create into a Word document, along with your table showing the mean, median, and mode.

Length:1-2 pages

Your graph and table should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course by providing new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards.

Describe factors which may mediate the effect(s) of technology within your selected stage (e.g., education, gender, socioeconomic status, culture, or family/parenting).

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Guided Response: Review and respond to two of your peers.

Do you agree or disagree with your colleague’s conclusion(s) regarding the positive and/or negative effect(s) of technology within his or her chosen developmental periods? Whether or not you agree with your colleague’s conclusion(s), describe how your colleague’s stated advantages may actually be a disadvantage in the chosen developmental periods or vice versa. Speculate regarding relative advantages and disadvantages in another developmental period (e.g., infancy or adulthood). Suggest mediating factors for the influence(s) of technology that might have been overlooked by your colleague.

1. Hi classmates,

For your initial post, you will describe the positive and negative influences of technology on human development during childhood (ages 3-12) or adolescence (ages 13-18).

The effects of technology on development during childhood can be positive and/or negative, depending on the context and the content. We are living in a time where access to smartphones, tablets, smart TV’s, computers, etc, can be seemingly limitless and this allows for great opportunity and growth in children, and a large opportunity for negative, unwanted outcomes. With such widespread access to a plethora of information, it is important that technology access is monitored by an adult in order to ensure that content is age-appropriate. Technology brings with it a multitude of ways to access educational information that can enhance well-being and cognition. It also allows for access to harmful materials depicting violence, crimes, sex, and various other forms of explicit inappropriate material that can be extremely harmful for development and behavior outcomes.

Describes the way(s) in which technology has either positively or negatively influenced physical, cognitive, and/or psychosocial development within childhood or adolescence (e.g., the effects of media violence on aggression or educational products on learning).  

Technology can be quite an asset to childhood development, given that technology is being used and administered properly. In one study researchers created a media tool to enhance and evaluate emotional intelligence in children and the results showed that individuals who were subjected to this tool did see an increase in emotional intelligence. Along with this, researchers found that this multimedia tool was much more useful to children when paired with adult-interaction as well. A combination of media and human-interaction is the best method of administering technology to ensure a positive cognitive outcome, but this isn’t to say that technology alone isn’t beneficial. Educational content can still be beneficial to children, even when not co-viewed with another adult.

Describe factors which may mediate the effect(s) of technology within your selected stage (e.g., education, gender, socioeconomic status, culture, or family/parenting).

Studies have shown that during early childhood there are cognitive benefits of co-viewing content with parent and child, it’s also important that the content is educational. In childhood it’s imperative that there is an adult monitoring access to technology, and monitoring the content that is being accessed. Research shows that exposure to appropriate, educational content is associated with increased cognitive and academic performance. Reversely, there are poor cognitive and academic associations with exposure to media that is violent and purely for entertainment.

Violent content has been linked to behavior issues later on as well.. It’s also recommended that technology access is limited to 1-2 hours a day, although research has shown that actual time spent watching television is less important on development than the content that is being absorbed by the child. Another study revealed that there are positive associations with television viewing in low-income households, but in higher income households there are negative associations with television viewing. Based on these results, depending on the type of income in that specific household, television viewing and technology may be somewhat beneficial in moderation.

2. Hello classmates,

Technology has increased, and continues to day by day. When growing up, I remember using either the internet, or the phone, but not both at the same time. Technology and adolescences have a positive and negative effect. The positive effect could benefit the studies of the adolescences for academics, personal research and social media. However, the negatives could be such as cyber bullying, violence, and using personal information on the web for social media, for everybody to see.

An example of the media use, in relation to the self-esteem of adolescences continues to increase. In the year of 2000, there was an increase in self-esteem because of media. Rather than in the years of 1970s, to the 1990’s. By using a smartphone, for an example, technology is becoming more popular. At least 77% of teenagers in America own a smartphone, by the year of 2016, and then ranged to 73% in 2015.

The definitions of self-esteem for teenagers, and older teenagers is due to factors such as, self satisfaction, life satisfaction, and domain satisfaction. The study inside the article, represents a greater satisfaction, with the higher of the grade level. (attached as a document to this discussion). The more screen time that a teenager, has.. the higher the satisfaction level due to social media, texting, facetime and smart phones and TV watching.

The effects of this sort of technology can benefit a teenager, but also decrease the amount of homework per week, in relation to the attention to the smart phone. On average, per week a teenager will do about 30 hours of studying, but does more time with technology (watching TV, texting, social media, applications on smart devices) this includes the amount of time reading for research. (Twenage, Martin, Campbell, 2018)

Technology continues to grow since the first smartphone that was released in 2006, which was the iPhone. Not only does smart phone provide academic, and professional references. It also provides a negative feedback with sharing too much information for public knowledge. I can see in the future that technology can provide an asset to scientific data, but also provide an unnecessary amount of false information in regards to social media websites.

What might be some of the implications, both negative and positive, of turning feminists’ attention from “women’s issues” to socialjustice?

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Intersectionality is a central term in much contemporary feminist scholarship and activism; it is particularly prevalent in the “third wave.” Intersectional scholarship and activism recognizes the multiple and intersecting axes of power that form our identities and around which instances of oppression and resistance are enacted. This means that in addition to attending to issues of gender/sex/sexuality, third-wave intersectional scholars and activists also address questions of race, class, nationality, and (dis)ability, among others. In turn, some third-wave intersectional scholars and activists argue that feminists and feminisms must move beyond “women’s issues” and focus on social justice issues broadly construed. For example, Laboton and Martin (2004), editors of The Fire This Time, argue “intersectionality suggests those issues that have traditionally been associated with the feminist movement—reproductive rights, domestic violence, date rape, and equal pay for equal work—are not the only issues that should define it” (p. xxxiv). While Laboton and Martin are not suggesting that these “traditional” second-wave issues no longer matter, they argue:

“We should not become so distracted by the core issues that we neglect other social justice concerns. The borders of feminism need to be split open, both so that we are freed from ideological rigidity and so that other identity claims of race, sexuality, class, nationality, and geography can move beyond being simply “tolerated” or ’included.’” (p. xxxiv)

A similar sentiment is articulated by Lisa Jervis, cofounding editor of the third-wave feminist magazine Bitch: “Gender isn’t always the primary mode of analysis. . . . Anti-poverty work, international human-rights work, and labor are all issues that are feminist issues, but they aren’t all about women” (Rowe-Finkbiner, 2004, p. 34).

Reflect on the arguments put forth by intersectional feminists. Do you agree or disagree with what they advocate? Specifically, consider the following questions in your journal prompt:

  • What do you think motivates intersectional feminists to broaden their focus from “women’s issues” to socialjustice?
  • What do you Black Feminist believe as it relates to intersectionality?
  • What might be some of the implications, both negative and positive, of turning feminists’ attention from “women’s issues” to socialjustice?
  • By expanding the bounds of feminism and moving beyond “women’s issues,” do you think feminism could become more appealing to men? Why or why not?
  • What issues should intersectional scholars and activists focus on? Whatdecision criteria should guide their focus?
  • If feminists focus on social justice broadly construed, is the term feminism necessary? Is feminism still a legitimate social movement/area ofscholarship?

References

Hayden, S., & O’Brien Hallstein, D. L. (2009). Placing sex/gender at the forefront: Feminism, intersectionality, and communication studies. In K. Chavez & C. Griffen (Eds.), Standing in the intersections: Feminisms, intersectionality, and communication studies, New York: SUNY.

Labaton, V., & Martin, D. L. (Eds.) (2004). The fire this time: Young activists and the new feminism. New York: Anchor Books.

Rowe-Finkbiner, K., (2004). The F word: Feminism in jeopardy: Women, politics, and the future. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.