Author Archives: John Howland Behler

Classical conditioning

One kind of conditioning that we recently learned about in psych class is classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is the process of learning something in which someone connects a stimulus with a consequence because of experience. One way that this applies to me is because of the way we trained our cat, Gracie. When we first got her, my mom thought of the idea of shaking her food every time we were going to feed her so would relate the shaking of the food to getting fed. At first I was confused as to why she did this but then one day we couldn’t find her. My mom went to go shake the food and then all of a sudden we found her. Gracie recognized the shaking of the food and therefore thought she was getting fed. She is always hungry so the second she thought she was getting fed she went right to her food dish. Whenever we can’t find her or she wont come inside, all we do is shake the can of food and she runs to her food bowl right away. This has come in handy many times and it works every time.

Since my cat’s food bowl is in our mudroom, whenever we do simple things such as getting our shoes or walking out the door our cat runs to the mudroom and stars meowing because she thinks she is getting fed. After multiple time of being fed she connected the fact that she gets fed when we are in the presence of her food bowl. Whenever we get home from somewhere, Gracie is always waiting for us at the door. She clearly connects the fact that whenever she hears the sound of the car pull into the driveway that we are home.

Whenever we have food on the counter Gracie will jump on the table and try to eat it. We never could get her to stop so my mom started to squirt her with a spray bottle because cats hate water. My cat would freak out and run away. After a few times of doing this, once our cat saw the squirt bottle it would immediately jump off the counter and run away. The cat made a connection between the spray bottle and getting squirted. I think it is incredible that our cat has learned so much just from repeated experiences. After multiple times of doing things she remembers the outcome.

Operant Conditioning

In our psych class we have been learning about the different ways that we learn behavior. Operant conditioning is the way we form associations between behaviors and resulting events. Edward Thorndike developed the law of effect which states that things that result in a satisfying experience are more likely to occur again in a similar situation. Positive and negative punishments and reinforcements help teach individuals acceptable versus unacceptable behavior. Looking back now, I realize that this is how we learn and these things shape who we are.

For example, when I was in 8th grade, I got in trouble for chewing gum during class, which was against our school policy. My math teacher caught me and gave me a detention for after school. This was a positive punishment because it was added instead of removed and I was forced to stay after school to serve my detention. I learned that I had to follow the rules or else I was going to get in trouble. After that I never received another detention because I had learned my lesson due to the punishment. When I was younger, my parents punished me by not allowing me to hang with friends on the weekend. At first, I didn’t believe their threats, but I realized I was wrong the hard way. One time my parents punished me because I was being rude to them. That was the weekend of one of my friends birthday parties and they refused to let me go. This is an example of negative punishment because they removed something that I had desire for.

In 6th grade, one of the assignments that we had to do during the school year was to read twenty-five books. Every time we finished a book, we let our teacher know and as a result she gave us a sticker to put next to our name on a poster in the back of the room. This was a positive reinforcer as we were given something valuable to let us know we were doing a good job and which strengthened our behavior by presenting a positive stimuli.  Everyday we exemplify negative reinforcements by doing things to avoid unpleasant events. For example, when I drive places, I drive the speed limit because I am trying to avoid a speeding ticket.

These are all examples of operant conditioning that I have experienced because I have learned what to do in a certain situation. After learning about operant conditioning, it makes sense that these type of punishments and reinforcements would teach us things and change the way we behave. We realize after experiences what is right and what is wrong due to these punishments and reinforcers which allow us to act the same way or differently when in a similar situation.

Discerning False Memories

My parents have always taken lots of pictures and videos of major events in our lifetime. Occasionally as a family, we would sit down and watch home video’s together and look at photo albums. There are so many pictures and videos that I have seen millions of times that I can “remember” exactly when it happened and what had happened. Then one day during class we learned about forgetfulness and that there is something called discerning false memories which means that everything we think happened doesn’t necessarily mean we actually remember what happened. Since I have seen these pictures so many times, there is a chance that I could have created an image in my head about what happened instead of actually remembering what really happened. So all of the events that I thought I remembered from looking at pictures and or videos, doesn’t mean I actually remember them. There is a good chance that most of these events I actually do remember, but there is a good chance that I don’t remember some of them. In order to prove it you need some sort of evidence that proves what happened. It is a fact that most of the memories in your head are true because otherwise our lives would be a mess. After recently looking at these pictures over break, I questioned whether or not I actually know what happened or not. I couldn’t tell if I actually remembered being at the event, or if I had constructed a fake event in my head. I tried to think if these memories I had were real or not but it was very difficult to decide. It is very hard to distinguish a difference because we believe we remember what happened but since we can not be sure we doubt ourselves.

Nature vs. nurture

In this psychology course, there are many topics that we have learned about that are applied to our everyday lives. One concept that we learned in class that I have experienced is nature vs. nurture (or nativism vs. empiricism). Nature vs. nurture is the debate of which has a bigger impact on you; the characteristics that we are born with (nature) or what is gained through personal experience (nurture). In my opinion, I personally believe that nurture has a greater impact on an individual that nature.

There are many reasons why I believe this is true. For example, people change. When something happens to a person they way they view life changes. Whether it is a small event or big event your perspective alters. I think this helps develop who you are and can change you. I have seen this occur in my life all the time. I one hundred percent believe that my parents have made me become who I am today. They have always been there for me and have encouraged me to succeed and do well in school. They have always pushed me and taught me everything that I needed to do to accomplish my goals. When I was younger, my parents always made my siblings and I do chores around the house. We always were forced to do the dishes after dinner, do our own laundry whenever we needed clean clothes, take the trash out every monday night, etc. They really taught us to be independent. At the time I hated it, but now that I am in college and have to do all those things on my own, I realized that they only did it because they wanted me to do well in college. When I first came up here, I heard people say they had no idea how to do laundry because there mom would always do it for them. I can honestly say my parents prepared me well for college and that is because of the nurturing part, not nature.

When I turned 16, which is the age of eligibility for a job, my parents made me get a job. I didn’t want one because I knew it would take up time and I would end up having to miss out on events with my family and friends. My parents forced me to get one anyways so I would make money and save it for college. Being up here now I am so glad that I ended up getting a job because I spend a lot of money.

I know that my parents taught me well and shaped me to be who I am. Yes, there are traits that are past down from generation to generation, but I believe that my family, friends and personal experience is why I am who I am today.