PSY C102: Intelligence

• Behavior Genetics


  The school of thought that focuses on how much our genes and our environmental influences our individual differences
• Genes


  The biochemical units of heredity that make up chromosomes
• Environment


  Every nongenetic influence, from prenatal nutrition to the people and things around us
• Environmental influences

  • Culture
  • Family of Origin or Extended
  • Politics
  • Socioeconomic group
• Nature


  The genetic code passed from parent to child
• Nurture


  All environmental influences from prenatal development
• Chromosomes


  • Threadlike structures made up of DNA that contain genes
  • 46 chromosomes in each cell
  • 23 received from each parent
• Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)


  A complex molecule containing the genetic information that makes up chromosomes
• Nucleotides


  The four letter code to distinguish genes
• Nucleus


  The inner area of a cell that houses chromosomes and genes
• Cell


  The basic structural unit of a living thing
• Mutation


  Random errors in gene replication that lead to a change in the individual's genetic code
• Predisposition


  The possibility of something happening through the genetic code
• Twin Studies


  • Used to determine the heritability of a given trait
  • Compare data between identical and fraternal twins
• Identical Twins


  Twins who developed from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms
• Fraternal Twins


  Twins who developed from two different fertilized eggs; they are genetically no more similar than any other two siblings, but they share a fetal environment
• Heritability


  The degree to which traits are inherited
• Adoption Studies


  • Compare adopted children's traits with those of their biological parents and their adopted parents
• Early Learning and Brain Development

  • Early experience is critical in brain development
  • In later life continued use is necessary to maintain neural connections in the brain
• Peer and Parent Influence

  • Peer influence in adolescence is very powerful
  • Parental influence is important in areas of education, discipline, responsibility, orderliness, charitableness, and ways of interacting with authority figures
• Culture


  The shared attitude, beliefs, norms and behaviors of a group communicated from one generation to the next
• Norms


  Understood rules for accepted and expected behavior
• Types of Social Norms

  • Folkway - norm that stems from and organizes casual interactions
  • Taboo - strong negative norm; violating results in extreme disgust
  • More - norm that structures the difference between right and wrong
  • Law - norm that is formally inscribed at the state or federal level
• Learning


  A process that results in a relatively consistent (permanent) change in behavior (or behavior potential, ability) and is based on (as a result of) experience
• Types of Learning

  • Non-associative Learning - Learning about a new stimulus
  • Associative Learning - Involves learning relationships between/among events
• Pavlov and Classical Conditioning

  • Ivan Pavlov was a physiologist who won a Nobel Prize for his research on digestion
  • His original description of classical conditioning was a by-product of this research
• Classical Conditioning


  The process by which an organism learns a new association between two stimuli- a neutral stimulus and one that already evokes a reflexive response

  
• Pavlov's Procedures

  • Unconditioned reflexes
  • Classical Conditioning
  • Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)
  • Neutral Stimulus
  • Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
  • Conditioned response (CR)
• Phenomena of Classical Conditioning

  • Stimulus Generalization
  • Acquisition
  • Extinction
  • Spontaneous Recovery
  • Stimulus Discrimination
• Thorndike and Instrumental Conditioning

  • Edward Thorndike developed a simple, behaviorist explanation of learning
  • He used a learning curve to record how quickly cats learned to escape from a puzzle box
  • The cats would try a repertoire of behaviors to open the box and gradually learn to more quickly select the one that produced escape
• Operant Conditioning


  The process of changing behavior by following a response with a reinforcement
• Classical conditioning usually influences visceral, reflexive and involuntary responses, while operant conditioning applies to skeletal, somatic and voluntary responses

  
• Stimulus Control


  The ability of a stimulus to encourage some responses and discourage others
• B.F Skinner and the Shaping of Behavior

  • B.F Skinner is considered to be the most influential of all radical behaviorists
  • He demonstrated many potential applications of operant conditioning
  • He was a firm believer in parsimony, seeking simple explanations in terms of reinforcement histories, and avoiding the inference of complex mental processes
• Shaping Behavior


  Establishing new responses by reinforcing successive approximations to it
• Chaining Behavior

  An operant conditioning method where behaviors are reinforced by opportunities to engage in the next behavior
• Reinforcement


  An event that increases the probability that a response will be repeated
• Punishment


  An event that decreases the probability of a response
• Four Categories of Operant Conditioning

  • Positive reinforcement - increase in behavior by presentation of food
  • Negative Punishment - decrease in behavior by removal of a desirable condition
  • Positive Punishment - decrease in behavior by presentation of an undesirable condition
  • Negative Reinforcement - increase in behavior by removal of an undesirable condition
• Chained behavior


  1. Animals learn the final behavior, and then the next to last, until the beginning of the sequence is reached

  2. Eating is an example of a chained behavior in humans