Psychological learning mechanisms, including classical and operant conditioning.
Test your knowledge with these top questions!
Why does a child's tantrum briefly worsen when parents first stop rewarding the tantrums?
Behavior often spikes before fading because the child pushes the old tactic harder before giving it up.
Why does a sales bonus count as positive rather than negative reinforcement?
Positive means adding something pleasant, while negative means removing something unpleasant.
Which psychologist studied observational learning with an inflatable Bobo doll?
Children who watched adults hit the doll later copied the aggression, even without any direct reward.
A factory paycheck arriving every two weeks regardless of output uses which schedule?
Pay arrives for time passed rather than items made, so effort often surges just before payday.
Why do cancer care teams sometimes offer a new food before nausea-causing chemotherapy?
The unfamiliar snack becomes the target of any food dislike, shielding familiar meals from aversion.
How does taste-aversion learning differ from most classical conditioning?
Taste and sickness can be hours apart and still link, unlike typical conditioning that needs seconds.
A supervisor praises employees for arriving on time to make punctuality do what?
Specific praise signals which action earned approval, so employees repeat punctual arrivals.
When a child learns to fold dumplings by watching a parent cook, what kind of learning occurs?
Watching a skilled model lets beginners skip trial and error by copying the sequence they just saw.
What do people often do when a stranger's phone plays a similar ringtone?
Learned phone checks transfer to close matches because the brain treats near-identical sounds as the same cue.
Checking a phone for messages that may arrive at any moment reflects which schedule?
Rewards tied to passing time at random moments produce slow steady checking that is hard to stop.