Study Guide

Psychology 3202 - Test 3

1. Understand Thorndike's "Puzzle Box" experiments. Why did he do them? What did he find? How did he interpret the results?

2. What was Guthrie's explanation of Thorndike's results? What are his views about the Law of Effect? How does he produce changes in behavior?

3. Understand Hull's "need reduction" and "drive-reduction" explanation of the Law of Effect. How does he produce changes in behavior?

4. Understand Meehl's approach to the Law of Effect and the concept of transituationality. How does he produce changes in behavior?

5. Understand Skinner's "empirical" approach to the Law of Effect. How does he produce changes in behavior?

6. Be able to define positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment according to Skinner.

7. Be able to identify the occurrence or nonoccurrence of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment from descriptions of situations.

8. Understand the technique of shaping by successive approximations.

9. What is an "operant" and what is a "discriminative stimulus" according to Skinner?