Final Exam
The two topics I chose for this paper are:
Operant conditioning and Cognitive development
Operant conditioning, also known as instrumental conditioning, is a form of associative learning where the consequences of a behavior change the probability of the behavior’s occurrence. In layman’s terms, this means learning because of the consequences of one’s behavior. There are different types of operant conditioning; it is not entirely all negative or positive. Throughout life we all as humans have encountered this phenomenon at one point or another.
Cognitive development refers to how thought, intelligence, and language processes change as people mature. Also note that cognition, which refers to the operation of thinking and our cognition skills and abilities, is important for understanding this concept.
There is a strong connection with operant condition on the behavioral approach. It fits perfectly under the approach’s definition, the scientific study of observable behavioral responses and their environmental determinants. Given the nature of conditioning and the multitude of variables that influence it, it only makes sense that it would fall under this approach. Not only is operant behavior observable, but it also comes from observation of one’s possible actions and the consequences that fall along with it.
It only makes sense that the cognitive approach covers cognitive development, the definition being the mental processes involved in knowing how we direct our attention, perceive remember, link, and solve problems. Through our lives we develop and grow, and our learning does the same.
In comparison to the rest of the content in chapter 5, operant conditioning falls under a larger topic of associative learning. This is because all forms of associative learning involve taking a neutral stimulus and then associating it with a different stimulus. Once again, this different stimulus can have a positive or negative affect on the individual. This learning goes hand in hand with shaping, which is how successful approximation of a desired behaviors are rewarded (Abramson, Dinges, & Wells, 2016; Francis & Kanold, 2017). In operant conditioning, seeing that a particular behavior often yields a positive result, the individual will be more likely to repeat that behavior for the reward response.
Cognitive development is only a small subsection under the wide umbrella that is covered in chapter 8 about development. From before birth in prenatal development to genetics and heredity influences our biological processes, there are multiple factors that all influence not just cognitive development, but physical and emotional development as well. To look at the cognitive side of development without looking at different domains of processing would be a disservice because the topics go hand in hand.
Operant conditioning: A young child who observes a sibling get in trouble for breaking a vase ensures in the future that child will take care to avoid breaking any vases in the future to avoid being yelled at as well. Another instance would be if a teenager arrives home past curfew and gets yelled at by their parents, as well as have permissions taken away for breaking their rules. In the future, she returns home at or before curfew to avoid having her things taken away and to not be yelled at again for disobeying.
Cognitive development: There are different stage in which humans grow and mature, as well as learn in different capacities. From birth to early childhood, the developments human makes cognitively focus on learning about the world around them and how their social life is expanding as well. Through the remainder of childhood into adolescence, humans are now focused on mastering knowledge and skills, as well as figuring out who they are and how they fit in the world. More serious sand intimate relationships take shape into adulthood, finding themselves in others and wanted to share that knowledge with the upcoming generation.
Concerning both topics, I believe that nature/nurture explain them both the best. Regarding operant conditioning, we as humans are constantly learning throughout our lives. A large part of this comes from our curious natures. Humans have an innate desire to understand and explore new experiences and circumstances, even if it means we may experience not so pleasant situations. Parents teaching their children about the consequences from missing curfew or touching a hot stove are all part of nurturing the child (even though it may not seem like it at the time.)
Cognitive development is critically influenced by the environment around the individual, pre- and post-natal stages. The mother can be nurturing towards her infantile child and abstain from teratogens to ensure the proper synaptic connections are made or she could indulge in harmful substances, therefore permanently altering the cognitive abilities of her child. On the nature side of things, we see some altering effects to effective cognitive development are influenced by hormones. About 1 in every 25 pregnancies results ion a child with a chromosomal anomaly or other condition that leads to the formation of a disability. These vary, of course, from mild to severe. This further changes the precent of cognitive development which is affected.
My second oldest brother is on the Autism-spectrum. This has made his and my cognitive development quite different. I had the standard development path, keeping up with the average from elementary well into middle and high school. My brother however fell behind early on in elementary because his way of learning did not fit well with the standard education curriculum the U.S. has. It was not until after therapy with a lot of trial and error that he managed to meet the average standards for learning, and this was well into high school. Now that we are both out of school and working, it is obvious that there is a vast difference in our developmental processes. He gets frustrated and angry more quickly than I do when working with an issue that is frustrating. It takes him a bit longer to understand jokes or stories we share at the diner table, but he joins in, nonetheless.
Having a sibling on the Autism-spectrum has also made our operant conditioning different in many ways. When we were back in elementary school, my brother would have these terrible fits of anger and he would go on a destruction spree. In the process, he often ended up hurting himself and others around him, sometimes severely. Using myself as a comparison for when I also threw massive tantrums, it took me a few months to learn that destroying things not only got me grounded, but it also hurt my hands and feet, so I stopped lashing out physically to avoid the pain. My brother took a few years to finally stop using physical violence to let out his frustrations, and that was after a few rounds of intensive behavioral therapy. He understood that hitting walls and floors hurt and did not want to hurt, but the correlation between getting mad and hitting things just did not sink in as fast as it did for myself.
Operant conditioning as well as automatic and controlled reasoning are both vital towards the other. Controlled reasoning is derived from operant conditioning. IN this process of creating new controlled responses, they slowly begin to replace automatic deductions after a set amount of time has passed or the reoccurrence has increased more so.
Cognitive development falls under metacognition in the sense that they are both processes by which an individual thinks and determines thoughts. Morse specifically, I believe that unconscious thoughts work hand in hand with cognitive development. Sometimes the unconscious thoughts we have interfere with our learning because both the unconsciousness and consciousness are fighting for control over the brain. As an example, let us imagine there is a toddler who wants to explore a room where the lights are turned off. A base instinct of fearing what you cannot see stops the child from entering the room to explore further. Jump forward in time and now this toddler is a teenager. They have learned that even with the lights off they can explore a room just fine, however that base instinct of fear of the unknown is still present, though perhaps somewhat muted in comparison to their childhood years.
Operant conditioning is something that all humans have encountered at one point or another. It is an extremely useful tool to not only promote learning, but to also ensure safety. Schools can use it to teach their students the proper responses they need to use later in life once they are out of school. Proper etiquette and responses in stressful situations can be implemented early in life during development stage to ensure that individuals are well prepared for events before they even begin worrying about them.
Knowing how vital cognitive development is could significantly impact the amount of learning disabilities there are in the world. Mothers could be informed of the dangers consuming hazardous chemicals and food could affect their child’s growth and therefore their cognitive abilities as well. With the knowledge of what needs to be done to ensure the most productive way for cognition to develop, the national intelligence average would skyrocket. More people would be able to obtain education and use it toward a career, further helping not just themselves but their family as well.
Research Methods
American psychologist E.L. Thorndike (1898) established the power of consequences in determining voluntary behavior. His experiments including putting a hungry cat within a box and placed a fish outside of it. The first few tries proved ineffective for the cat, clawing at the bars, and thrusting its paws through the openings. But eventually the cat stepped on a level which then released the door bolt. Upon returning to the box a second time, it went through the same random activity until it stepped on the lever once again. On repeated trials, the cat made fewer and fewer random movements until immediately stepping on the lever to open the door. This law of effect states that behaviors followed by satisfying outcomes are strengthened and that behaviors followed by frustrating outcomes are weakened.
Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) traced cognitive development through childhood into adulthood. In Piaget’s view, human beings use schemas to make sense of their experience. Schemas are expressed as various behaviors and skills that the child can utilize in relation to objects or situations. In adulthood, schemas may represent more complex expectations and beliefs about the world. A schema is a mental concept or framework that organizes information and provides a structure for interpreting it.
“In the first place, most of the books do not give us a psychology, but rather a eulogy of animals. They have all been about animal intelligence never about animal stupidity.” (Animal Intelligence pg. 3) I like this quote because it opened the discussion and challenged the status quo about previous animal research that had been done. Animals are so like human, and yet up to that point researchers had overlooked the possibility of them having human faults.
I as curious as to why they used such a wide range of animals for testing. To me it seems like it might be better to focus solely on one species at a time to get isolated date. They used cats, dogs, and chicks in their study. And why did they use a box that was 20 in by 15 in by 12 in? Would the animals have reacted differently had a larger or smaller box been used for the experiments?
From the cognitive development article there is a quote I found particularly interesting that goes “In contrast, the deductive and organizing activity of the mind is unlimited and leads, in the realm of space, precisely to generalizations which surpass intuition.” (Origins pg. 2) It makes sense that the brain makes shortcuts to understand the environment it is put into, as the brain is very lazy after all. Understanding a situation as fast ads possible allows individuals to then exist and interact without the feel of awkwardness or fear.
I do question why in their fourth stage of research (where they begin implementing coordination of secondary schema) why they did not place more emphasis what the children already knew before taking part in the tests. I believe if they did some naturalistic observations to see what the children would do unprompted and then compare it to the results of the tests.
Operant conditioning:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1473025/pdf/nihms-2125.pdf (Staddon, J. E. R., & D. T. Cerutti 2003)
Cognitive development:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yue-Liang-Guo/publication/21721478_Cognitive_development_of_Yu-Cheng_%27Oil_Disease%27_children_prenatally_exposed_to_heat-degraded_PCBs/links/553bb0550cf2c415bb0b133a/Cognitive-development-of-Yu-Cheng-Oil-Disease-children-prenatally-exposed-to-heat-degraded-PCBs.pdf (Yung-Cheng Joseph Chen, MD, MPH., & others 1992)
Yes, I would have to agree with the finding in both internet articles, though their methods of research are different from the approach I would have taken.
When comparing the cognitive development study to previous studies done under similar circumstances that I have read in the past, it is the data collection that confirms the accuracy of the research. Often, studies will be done to help an agenda (whether for politics or views) that end up with severely skewed results. The plot points in data will be so far apart or displayed in a way that makes them appear worse than they are. In this article, it states multiple times in several different paragraphs that there is a small, yet distinct difference in the children who are affected and the control group. The closeness in data helps me understand that even though the difference in numbers may not be that drastically different, cognitive development is still being seriously affected.
In the operant conditioning article, the researchers did well to focus on the effects of time and expand on that concept deeper. The textbook covers a broader view on conditioning from several different psychologists with differing theories. This can cause the research and meaning behind said studies to become muddled from the vast amount of information being shared with the reader. In this online article, however, they did good to keep your focus on one main subject and then split into small subcategories without straying too far from their original testing intentions.
In the cognitive development article, the IQ tests and data graphs used to represent their findings really helped to illustrate the differences between those affect by PCBs and the control group. Though the numbers are close, there is still a clear distinction in the affected children that showcases negative correlations between their exposure and cognitive development. The collection of the data spans over several years but remains consistent in when the check ups were to ensure proper documentation of cognitive development.
There was an emphasis placed on the correlation between self-control and operant conditioning. Yet it would seem self-control is a matter that heavily depends on personal experience. Everyone’s definition of self-control is different, as is the application into real life situations. They used a cookie experiment where if the participants would be given a not-so-good cookie to eat right then and there or if they waited a certain amount of time would be given a very good cookie to eat. This type of experiment has been used in numerous other studies because it works as a basis for typical reward/response systems in humans. Despite that, there are other areas where individuals may have more self-control over their actions because of their relationship to the stimuli. An individual who hates cookies could easily wait the allotted time before being given the good cookie while a child with a sweet tooth will more than likely devour the first cookie immediately.
With the oil disease article, I believe there may be some bias stemming from the group of participants and their background demographics affecting the results. There were far more participants who were categorized as “unskilled” and “semi-skilled” than those who were deemed as professionals in their field. With a 9:1 ratio, the data tends to lean more towards the poorer grouping of participants whose living situations may have caused them to be overly exposed to PCBs, therefore increasing their children exposure as well. A way they could have fixed this is to ensure there were an even number of affected individuals in each working category, or at least closer in numbers.
With the nature of the operant conditioning and time, there are a lot of math problems involved in the process. Most of the basic formulas and equations are quite simple to follow and process, given the helpful cures in the text itself to define what each variable is. However, I seem to get lost the further down the rabbit hole we go. Once there are cross examinations between separate data sets comparing animals and humans’ reactions and schedules I find it hard to comprehend.
I feel that I would need to dive deeper not into the research itself per say, but into the culture of the participants. This would help me to better understand the environment these participants came from and how that may also affect the levels of cognitive development. Some families may treat their children differently if they show signs of less intellect in comparison to their other children, baby them if you will. These family dynamics could severely alter the results because of the intervention, or lack thereof, from the parents towards the affected children.
I would make the study sample of the article smaller and not so broad so it would be easier to understand without having to read through an avalanche of data. Make some tests that place emphasis on the causal factors in operant conditioning to better understand them as induvial data sets first.
Like mentioned above, I would ensure the control and test groups have a more equal distribution of participants in all categories to ensure nothing was too heavily biased to a subcategory. Perhaps testing just one specific demographic of people would yield different test results if the same steps were taken from the online study.
Why would a larger emphasis be placed on time in one study than in the one in the textbook? Both used the same base theories and laws to carry out their tests, so why change that one variable?
Are the articles I found outliers in relation to their topics? Are the textbook studies the outliers here?
Operant conditioning and Cognitive development
- Define the terms/concepts/theories (How to Learn; semantics/meaning)
Operant conditioning, also known as instrumental conditioning, is a form of associative learning where the consequences of a behavior change the probability of the behavior’s occurrence. In layman’s terms, this means learning because of the consequences of one’s behavior. There are different types of operant conditioning; it is not entirely all negative or positive. Throughout life we all as humans have encountered this phenomenon at one point or another.
Cognitive development refers to how thought, intelligence, and language processes change as people mature. Also note that cognition, which refers to the operation of thinking and our cognition skills and abilities, is important for understanding this concept.
- Organize it by connecting it to our psychology perspectives (where does it fit best and why? Cognitive, behavioral, evolutionary, etc.) (How to Learn; organization)
There is a strong connection with operant condition on the behavioral approach. It fits perfectly under the approach’s definition, the scientific study of observable behavioral responses and their environmental determinants. Given the nature of conditioning and the multitude of variables that influence it, it only makes sense that it would fall under this approach. Not only is operant behavior observable, but it also comes from observation of one’s possible actions and the consequences that fall along with it.
It only makes sense that the cognitive approach covers cognitive development, the definition being the mental processes involved in knowing how we direct our attention, perceive remember, link, and solve problems. Through our lives we develop and grow, and our learning does the same.
- Connect it to larger and/or smaller (How to Learn; organization) concepts from that chapter that relate to it
In comparison to the rest of the content in chapter 5, operant conditioning falls under a larger topic of associative learning. This is because all forms of associative learning involve taking a neutral stimulus and then associating it with a different stimulus. Once again, this different stimulus can have a positive or negative affect on the individual. This learning goes hand in hand with shaping, which is how successful approximation of a desired behaviors are rewarded (Abramson, Dinges, & Wells, 2016; Francis & Kanold, 2017). In operant conditioning, seeing that a particular behavior often yields a positive result, the individual will be more likely to repeat that behavior for the reward response.
Cognitive development is only a small subsection under the wide umbrella that is covered in chapter 8 about development. From before birth in prenatal development to genetics and heredity influences our biological processes, there are multiple factors that all influence not just cognitive development, but physical and emotional development as well. To look at the cognitive side of development without looking at different domains of processing would be a disservice because the topics go hand in hand.
- Give an example(s) or analogy(ies) of it to help create some links and connect it to background knowledge that people might already know so they can understand the concept/theory better. (How to Learn; depth of processing)
Operant conditioning: A young child who observes a sibling get in trouble for breaking a vase ensures in the future that child will take care to avoid breaking any vases in the future to avoid being yelled at as well. Another instance would be if a teenager arrives home past curfew and gets yelled at by their parents, as well as have permissions taken away for breaking their rules. In the future, she returns home at or before curfew to avoid having her things taken away and to not be yelled at again for disobeying.
Cognitive development: There are different stage in which humans grow and mature, as well as learn in different capacities. From birth to early childhood, the developments human makes cognitively focus on learning about the world around them and how their social life is expanding as well. Through the remainder of childhood into adolescence, humans are now focused on mastering knowledge and skills, as well as figuring out who they are and how they fit in the world. More serious sand intimate relationships take shape into adulthood, finding themselves in others and wanted to share that knowledge with the upcoming generation.
- Utilize at least one of our overarching themes to discuss this concept or theory (nature/nurture, individualist vs. collectivist cultures, system 1 vs. system 2 thinking, correlation is not causation, etc.). (How to Learn; depth of processing)
Concerning both topics, I believe that nature/nurture explain them both the best. Regarding operant conditioning, we as humans are constantly learning throughout our lives. A large part of this comes from our curious natures. Humans have an innate desire to understand and explore new experiences and circumstances, even if it means we may experience not so pleasant situations. Parents teaching their children about the consequences from missing curfew or touching a hot stove are all part of nurturing the child (even though it may not seem like it at the time.)
Cognitive development is critically influenced by the environment around the individual, pre- and post-natal stages. The mother can be nurturing towards her infantile child and abstain from teratogens to ensure the proper synaptic connections are made or she could indulge in harmful substances, therefore permanently altering the cognitive abilities of her child. On the nature side of things, we see some altering effects to effective cognitive development are influenced by hormones. About 1 in every 25 pregnancies results ion a child with a chromosomal anomaly or other condition that leads to the formation of a disability. These vary, of course, from mild to severe. This further changes the precent of cognitive development which is affected.
- Apply the topic to your life, to someone you know, or to a hypothetical person. (How to Learn; depth of processing)
My second oldest brother is on the Autism-spectrum. This has made his and my cognitive development quite different. I had the standard development path, keeping up with the average from elementary well into middle and high school. My brother however fell behind early on in elementary because his way of learning did not fit well with the standard education curriculum the U.S. has. It was not until after therapy with a lot of trial and error that he managed to meet the average standards for learning, and this was well into high school. Now that we are both out of school and working, it is obvious that there is a vast difference in our developmental processes. He gets frustrated and angry more quickly than I do when working with an issue that is frustrating. It takes him a bit longer to understand jokes or stories we share at the diner table, but he joins in, nonetheless.
Having a sibling on the Autism-spectrum has also made our operant conditioning different in many ways. When we were back in elementary school, my brother would have these terrible fits of anger and he would go on a destruction spree. In the process, he often ended up hurting himself and others around him, sometimes severely. Using myself as a comparison for when I also threw massive tantrums, it took me a few months to learn that destroying things not only got me grounded, but it also hurt my hands and feet, so I stopped lashing out physically to avoid the pain. My brother took a few years to finally stop using physical violence to let out his frustrations, and that was after a few rounds of intensive behavioral therapy. He understood that hitting walls and floors hurt and did not want to hurt, but the correlation between getting mad and hitting things just did not sink in as fast as it did for myself.
- Synthesize each topic with other psychology concepts/theories you have learned about this year. How do they relate/compare? How do they differ/contrast? How do they work together or work against each other? (How to Learn; depth of processing)
Operant conditioning as well as automatic and controlled reasoning are both vital towards the other. Controlled reasoning is derived from operant conditioning. IN this process of creating new controlled responses, they slowly begin to replace automatic deductions after a set amount of time has passed or the reoccurrence has increased more so.
Cognitive development falls under metacognition in the sense that they are both processes by which an individual thinks and determines thoughts. Morse specifically, I believe that unconscious thoughts work hand in hand with cognitive development. Sometimes the unconscious thoughts we have interfere with our learning because both the unconsciousness and consciousness are fighting for control over the brain. As an example, let us imagine there is a toddler who wants to explore a room where the lights are turned off. A base instinct of fearing what you cannot see stops the child from entering the room to explore further. Jump forward in time and now this toddler is a teenager. They have learned that even with the lights off they can explore a room just fine, however that base instinct of fear of the unknown is still present, though perhaps somewhat muted in comparison to their childhood years.
- If people in society (as individuals, groups, or as the government) were informed about this concept/theory, how would/could it help improve people, relationships, or society? Be specific in your ideas. (How to Learn; depth of processing)
Operant conditioning is something that all humans have encountered at one point or another. It is an extremely useful tool to not only promote learning, but to also ensure safety. Schools can use it to teach their students the proper responses they need to use later in life once they are out of school. Proper etiquette and responses in stressful situations can be implemented early in life during development stage to ensure that individuals are well prepared for events before they even begin worrying about them.
Knowing how vital cognitive development is could significantly impact the amount of learning disabilities there are in the world. Mothers could be informed of the dangers consuming hazardous chemicals and food could affect their child’s growth and therefore their cognitive abilities as well. With the knowledge of what needs to be done to ensure the most productive way for cognition to develop, the national intelligence average would skyrocket. More people would be able to obtain education and use it toward a career, further helping not just themselves but their family as well.
Research Methods
- Describe some research that was mentioned in the book related to your concept/theory. Cite the research from the textbook.
American psychologist E.L. Thorndike (1898) established the power of consequences in determining voluntary behavior. His experiments including putting a hungry cat within a box and placed a fish outside of it. The first few tries proved ineffective for the cat, clawing at the bars, and thrusting its paws through the openings. But eventually the cat stepped on a level which then released the door bolt. Upon returning to the box a second time, it went through the same random activity until it stepped on the lever once again. On repeated trials, the cat made fewer and fewer random movements until immediately stepping on the lever to open the door. This law of effect states that behaviors followed by satisfying outcomes are strengthened and that behaviors followed by frustrating outcomes are weakened.
Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) traced cognitive development through childhood into adulthood. In Piaget’s view, human beings use schemas to make sense of their experience. Schemas are expressed as various behaviors and skills that the child can utilize in relation to objects or situations. In adulthood, schemas may represent more complex expectations and beliefs about the world. A schema is a mental concept or framework that organizes information and provides a structure for interpreting it.
- Using the citation above or another one related to your concept/theory, use the bibliography at the back of the book to find the full article name and citation. Using a search engine online, try to find a link/page to that research article. Add a URL link to the article you find.
- Thorndike, E. L. (1898). Animal intelligence: An experimental study of the associative processes in animals. Psychological Review, monograph supplements, no. 8. New York: Macmillan
- Piaget, J. (1952) The origins of intelligence in children. New York: Oxford University Press
- Briefly skim over the online article and describe one thing you learned from it and one question you had after skimming it.
“In the first place, most of the books do not give us a psychology, but rather a eulogy of animals. They have all been about animal intelligence never about animal stupidity.” (Animal Intelligence pg. 3) I like this quote because it opened the discussion and challenged the status quo about previous animal research that had been done. Animals are so like human, and yet up to that point researchers had overlooked the possibility of them having human faults.
I as curious as to why they used such a wide range of animals for testing. To me it seems like it might be better to focus solely on one species at a time to get isolated date. They used cats, dogs, and chicks in their study. And why did they use a box that was 20 in by 15 in by 12 in? Would the animals have reacted differently had a larger or smaller box been used for the experiments?
From the cognitive development article there is a quote I found particularly interesting that goes “In contrast, the deductive and organizing activity of the mind is unlimited and leads, in the realm of space, precisely to generalizations which surpass intuition.” (Origins pg. 2) It makes sense that the brain makes shortcuts to understand the environment it is put into, as the brain is very lazy after all. Understanding a situation as fast ads possible allows individuals to then exist and interact without the feel of awkwardness or fear.
I do question why in their fourth stage of research (where they begin implementing coordination of secondary schema) why they did not place more emphasis what the children already knew before taking part in the tests. I believe if they did some naturalistic observations to see what the children would do unprompted and then compare it to the results of the tests.
- Find one more piece of research online that is related to your concept/theory. Describe how it supports or does not support the first research you cited. Add a URL link to the new article.
Operant conditioning:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1473025/pdf/nihms-2125.pdf (Staddon, J. E. R., & D. T. Cerutti 2003)
Cognitive development:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yue-Liang-Guo/publication/21721478_Cognitive_development_of_Yu-Cheng_%27Oil_Disease%27_children_prenatally_exposed_to_heat-degraded_PCBs/links/553bb0550cf2c415bb0b133a/Cognitive-development-of-Yu-Cheng-Oil-Disease-children-prenatally-exposed-to-heat-degraded-PCBs.pdf (Yung-Cheng Joseph Chen, MD, MPH., & others 1992)
- Evaluate the research from the textbook and online as best you can.
- Do you believe the results?
Yes, I would have to agree with the finding in both internet articles, though their methods of research are different from the approach I would have taken.
- Why or Why not?
When comparing the cognitive development study to previous studies done under similar circumstances that I have read in the past, it is the data collection that confirms the accuracy of the research. Often, studies will be done to help an agenda (whether for politics or views) that end up with severely skewed results. The plot points in data will be so far apart or displayed in a way that makes them appear worse than they are. In this article, it states multiple times in several different paragraphs that there is a small, yet distinct difference in the children who are affected and the control group. The closeness in data helps me understand that even though the difference in numbers may not be that drastically different, cognitive development is still being seriously affected.
- What do you think they did well?
In the operant conditioning article, the researchers did well to focus on the effects of time and expand on that concept deeper. The textbook covers a broader view on conditioning from several different psychologists with differing theories. This can cause the research and meaning behind said studies to become muddled from the vast amount of information being shared with the reader. In this online article, however, they did good to keep your focus on one main subject and then split into small subcategories without straying too far from their original testing intentions.
In the cognitive development article, the IQ tests and data graphs used to represent their findings really helped to illustrate the differences between those affect by PCBs and the control group. Though the numbers are close, there is still a clear distinction in the affected children that showcases negative correlations between their exposure and cognitive development. The collection of the data spans over several years but remains consistent in when the check ups were to ensure proper documentation of cognitive development.
- Is there any potential bias or things they did poorly?
There was an emphasis placed on the correlation between self-control and operant conditioning. Yet it would seem self-control is a matter that heavily depends on personal experience. Everyone’s definition of self-control is different, as is the application into real life situations. They used a cookie experiment where if the participants would be given a not-so-good cookie to eat right then and there or if they waited a certain amount of time would be given a very good cookie to eat. This type of experiment has been used in numerous other studies because it works as a basis for typical reward/response systems in humans. Despite that, there are other areas where individuals may have more self-control over their actions because of their relationship to the stimuli. An individual who hates cookies could easily wait the allotted time before being given the good cookie while a child with a sweet tooth will more than likely devour the first cookie immediately.
With the oil disease article, I believe there may be some bias stemming from the group of participants and their background demographics affecting the results. There were far more participants who were categorized as “unskilled” and “semi-skilled” than those who were deemed as professionals in their field. With a 9:1 ratio, the data tends to lean more towards the poorer grouping of participants whose living situations may have caused them to be overly exposed to PCBs, therefore increasing their children exposure as well. A way they could have fixed this is to ensure there were an even number of affected individuals in each working category, or at least closer in numbers.
- What parts of the reading/research did not make sense to you and you would need to review or learn more about to be able to understand it?
With the nature of the operant conditioning and time, there are a lot of math problems involved in the process. Most of the basic formulas and equations are quite simple to follow and process, given the helpful cures in the text itself to define what each variable is. However, I seem to get lost the further down the rabbit hole we go. Once there are cross examinations between separate data sets comparing animals and humans’ reactions and schedules I find it hard to comprehend.
I feel that I would need to dive deeper not into the research itself per say, but into the culture of the participants. This would help me to better understand the environment these participants came from and how that may also affect the levels of cognitive development. Some families may treat their children differently if they show signs of less intellect in comparison to their other children, baby them if you will. These family dynamics could severely alter the results because of the intervention, or lack thereof, from the parents towards the affected children.
- How would you redesign the study to make it better or what would you do next as the researcher?
I would make the study sample of the article smaller and not so broad so it would be easier to understand without having to read through an avalanche of data. Make some tests that place emphasis on the causal factors in operant conditioning to better understand them as induvial data sets first.
Like mentioned above, I would ensure the control and test groups have a more equal distribution of participants in all categories to ensure nothing was too heavily biased to a subcategory. Perhaps testing just one specific demographic of people would yield different test results if the same steps were taken from the online study.
- What questions or hypotheses do you have after reading the research?
Why would a larger emphasis be placed on time in one study than in the one in the textbook? Both used the same base theories and laws to carry out their tests, so why change that one variable?
Are the articles I found outliers in relation to their topics? Are the textbook studies the outliers here?
Sources Cited
- Skinner, B. F. (1938) the behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts
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