I appreciate that behavioristic accounts don't require mechanisms, only
stimulus-response connections. I teach that negative reinforcement is when
the removal of a stimulus is followed by an increase in the behavior. But,
what stimulus is removed in the case of moving the head? If negative
reinforcement involves the removal of an existing aversive stimulus, how can
avoidance learning be negative reinforcement if the aversive stimulus never
occurs? Although I know that the behavioristic approach doesn't require a
mechanism, it seems that it would require, at least, an observable stimulus.
Rick
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Brandon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 1:04 PM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: RE: operant or classical??
At 1:18 PM -0500 7/29/01, Rick Froman wrote:
>It is avoidance learning. There are some behavioristic explanations for it
Behavioral explanations account for behavior by looking for the conditions
under which the behavior typically occurs and for regularities ion
behavior<=>environment relationships -- we do not look for mechanisms.
Avoidance behavior is defined as behavior reinforced by a reduction in the
frequency (likelihood) of some event.
If ducking makes in less likely that you will hit your head, then ducking
is (negatively) reinforced.
Murray Sidman demonstrated many years ago that avoidance conditioning is
possible without the presence of a conditioned aversive stimulus.
See a good conditioning/learning text such as Catania's LEARNING (1998) for
more details.
We'll let the cognitivists try to figure out _why_ it works.
>but there are problems. If it is operant, what is reinforcing the behavior?
>Not hitting your head? Can a lack of a stimulus be a reinforcer? If so then
>why doesn't not hitting your head reinforce all kinds of other behaviors?
>
>The two-factor explanation says it is due to a combination of operant and
>classical conditioning. Classical conditioning produces a fear response to
>seeing the beam and performing the avoidance behavior decreases this fear
>response (operant negative reinforcement). So, you don't actually move to
>avoid hitting your head but to get away from the fear stimulus (the beam).
>One problem with this idea is that classical conditioning isn't usually
>maintained in the absence of the US (hitting the beam) and certainly the
>fear of the beam would quickly extinguish once you stopped hitting it with
>your head. So what keeps you making the avoidance response? Cognitive
>psychologists would point to expectations as being important to maintaining
>the behavior.
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University, Mankato *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
