PSY 181 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: B. F. Skinner, Behaviorism, Functional Analysis

• School: University of Rochester
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 181
• Professor: C H R I S T O P H E R N I E M I E C

Document Summary

The active organism: organisms are inherently active and emit new behaviors all the time. Organisms emit behaviors in order to perform operations on the environment (these are operant behaviors) Organisms come across responses to those operant behaviors that are satisfying, and those satisfying responses are reinforcements. Reinforcements increase the probability that a particular behavior will recur in the future. New and novel behaviors occur randomly all the time, but only those that are positively reinforced will recur. Only repeated/recurring behaviors have been positively reinforced in the past and continue to be reinforced in the present. Reinforcements must be separate from the behavior itself, and must be a part of the environment in which the behavior occurs. Organisms are not responsible for their behaviorsthe environment is responsible. Positive reinforcement: giving something to increase the probability that a desired behavior will recur (the presence of something) Negative reinforcement: the removal of something aversive to increase the probability.