PSYCH 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Edward Thorndike, Operant Conditioning, Behaviorism
Document Summary
Work with cats in his puzzle boxes . A collective of contractions, and only one contraction would let the cat out of the box. Jam a cat into these boxes and record all the actions of what the cats did. From this research, he generated the idea of instrumental learning how we learn to evoke different behaviors and repertoires in different environments. Over time, he was able to come up with several laws from observing cats" behaviors. Law of recency - the most recent response is likely to reoccur. When cats were placed in the box, cats tended to do things they were doing in the last box cats doing things over and over again. Restaurant choice (we tend to create habits in which we go. Law of use - connections become strengthened with practice and to the same restaurants over and over again) weakened when practice is discontinued if cat is exposed to something repeatedly, routines start to develop.
