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B.F Skinner
Theories of Personality: A Behavioral View
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| The truth is that B. F. Skinner | did not offer a personality theory at all. |
| The essential truth about B. F. Skinner's research is that | his study of behavior is the antithesis of the psychoanalytic, trait, life span, cognitive and humanistic approaches. |
| Skinner's treatment of personality is unusual because he | made no references to internal, subjective accounts for behavior. |
| Skinner described human beings as | empty organisms. |
| Skinner argued that psychology is the science of | behavior. |
| Skinner rejected ____ as a valid personality characteristic. | all of the answers |
| Skinner believed that physiological processes are | irrelevant for mental activities. |
| The research supporting Skinner's theory was conducted on | rats and pigeons. |
| Skinner's research subjects were mainly | animals. |
| Skinner's influence on psychology | has wide practical applications. |
| Skinner's behavioral approach is | used in schools, correctional institutions, and hospitals. |
| Skinner's childhood was characterized by | parental warnings that influenced his adult behavior. |
| We get a glimpse of Skinner's later work in his childhood love of | constructing mechanical devices. |
| Skinner was taught by his parents to | “fear God, the police, and what people think.” |
| At age 22, Skinner experienced | an identity crisis. |
| In his early adulthood, Skinner | decided he would study human behavior by the methods of science rather than the methods of fiction. |
| In Skinner's fictional community of Walden Two, | life is controlled by positive reinforcement. |
| Skinner believed that behavior can be controlled by | its consequences. |
| When a specific stimulus elicits a response, it is called | respondent behavior. |
| In his famous salivating dog experiment, Ivan Pavlov demonstrated that | reinforcement is necessary for learning. |
| Ivan Pavlov's classical conditioning involves | all of the answers. |
| To condition a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, Pavlov | rang the bell shortly before the dog smelled meat powder. |
| Skinner's term for voluntary, explorative behavior is | operant behavior. |
| According to Skinner, operant behavior | all of the answers. |
| A rat pressing a lever in a Skinner box is showing ____ behavior. | elicited |
| According to Skinner, parental disapproval of a child's behavior will | probably lead to the cessation of that behavior. |
| Skinner believed that personality is a(n) | pattern or collection of operant behaviors. |
| In Skinner’s research, food-deprived rats pressed a lever to receive a food pellet. The rat will eventually press the lever | because he will understand that he will be reinforced for his behavior with a food pellet. |
| The _______ becomes the reinforcer for the rat to receive a reward for his behavior. | food |
| When Skinner failed to reinforce rats in a Skinner box continuously, the rats | eventually stopped pressing the lever. |
| In fixed-interval reinforcement, | reinforcement is unrelated to the number of responses. |
| An employee paid on a weekly basis operates under a ____ schedule of reinforcement. | fixed-interval |
| In a fixed-interval reinforcement schedule, if the interval between reinforcements is shortened the response rate will | increase. |
| Compared to fixed-interval schedules, fixed-ratio schedules | produce higher response rates. |
| Slot machines operate on a ____ schedule of reinforcement. | variable-ratio |
| A good example of a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement is | casino gambling. |
| Shaping a behavior that is not likely to occur spontaneously is accomplished by | successive approximation. |
| The secret to shaping behavior is | reinforcing only successive approximations of the final behavior desired. |
| The successive approximation method | is also called shaping. |
| Superstitious behavior is learned quickly when there are | short intervals between reinforcements. |
| To Skinner, self-control means | control of external variables that determine behavior. |
| Skinner suggests all of the following techniques of self-control except | physical punishment administered by a friend. |
| When a token economy was instituted in a psychiatric hospital, | there was a dramatic increase in appropriate patient behaviors. |
| In a token economy experiment, psychotic patients | became less dependent and more responsible. |
| Behavior modified in a token economy | usually reverts to its original state when tokens are no longer provided. |
| In behavior modification therapy, unconscious motivating forces are | ignored. |
| In behavior modification, Skinner advocated using | only positive reinforcement. |
| For changing behavior, Skinner believed punishment is | less effective than extinction. |
| An example of negative reinforcement is | spanking a child to make him stop using curse words. |
| According to Skinner, negative reinforcement is | less effective than positive reinforcement. |
| According to Skinner, human behavior is controlled by | reinforcers. |
| Skinner believed people function | like machines. |
| Skinner believed people are not responsible for their actions, because | all behavior is determined. |
| Which one of the following best describes Skinner's image of human nature? | We are controlled by the environment, but we can control ourselves by changing the environment. |
| Skinner's assessment techniques include | laboratory experiments. |
| The followers of Skinner assess behavior, (not personality) using all of the following techniques except | free association, dream analysis, and projective techniques. |
| Each of the following is a factor in Skinner's functional analysis except | the motivation behind the behavior. |
| Functional analysis | all of these |
| In the application of Skinner’s behavior modification techniques, | it is necessary to first assess specific behaviors. |
| Skinner's methodological approach to the study of behavior is to | observe the subject, have the subject do self-reports, and do physiological measurements. |
| Skinner's assessment methods | preferred the intensive study of a single subject at a time. |
| Skinner believed that valid and replicable results could be obtained without ____________ as long as sufficient data were collected from a single-subject under well-controlled circumstances. | statistical analysis |
| All of the following are criticisms of Skinner's system except which? | Operant conditioning cannot change behavior. |