Week 04: Reaction Paper – Animal Learning and Morality Summary Learning is one of the basis of survival and is strongly featured in evolution and natural selection, it affects the way animals behave and the actions they undertake. Starting with Individual Learning which seems to have a strong base in Conditioning whereby one learns to associate a certain stimulus with a specific result. Blocking, Overshadowing and Latent Inhibition are just some of the factors that can affect the conditioning of an animal (Dugatkin, 2014, pp. 134-138). Cultural Transmission takes place when animals learn from each other; rats sniffing one another to find out what foods are safe to eat, this enables multiple rats to increase their chances of survival by being …show more content…
As seen in a monkey who receives cucumber while another receives better tasting grapes for the same task of passing rocks to a researcher has shown that monkeys do have understand the concept of fairness, with the monkey receiving cucumber protesting and showing signs of frustration (TED, 2012). This is also seen in dogs in an experiment where a pair of dogs were rewarded differently for the same action, the dog in the unfair treatment condition refused to cooperate after realising that it was not being rewarded. In animal cooperation, we have seen rats helping their kin out from a plastic tube even in the presence of food which the rat would share with its freed companion (Documentary Films, 2014). As altruistic as this may seem, we have to take into account that the rats were in a lab setting with no threat of predators, this might make them more inclined to free their kin as they simply have nothing else to do aside from that. That or the rat was motivated by the evolutionary instinct that there is safety in numbers and that the continued survival of another rat would mean greater survival for their species as a whole, this is in line with the concept of Indirect Fitness (Dugatkin, 2014, p.
In chapter 7, I found the concept of punishment to be most intriguing. Punishment is a part of operant conditioning which was theorized by B.F. Skinner. Punishment is often confused with negative reinforcement. However, the main difference between the two is: while the goal of reinforcement is to increase the likelihood of a behavior, the primary goal of punishment is to reduce the chances of the behavior it follows. In 1938, Skinner concluded that punishment produces only temporary suppression of behavior but later research found that effects may be permanent.
Summary: Chapter 2 Chapter two dives into the concept of learning. As mentioned in the previous chapter, learning is the study of changes in behavior produced by experience, so when studying learning it is vital to examine how events in the environment change an individual’s behavior. Many scientists consider learning to be a natural phenomenon, they make their case based on four assumptions. The first assumption being that natural phenomena’s do not just happen, but instead they are caused as the result of some other event. The second assumption is that causes precede effects.
The Omlec and the Maya were similar and different in many ways. One way they were similar is they both wrote in Hieroglyphics. Another similarity is they both build pyramids and were both deeply religious. Although they were very similar they are different too. One difference is unlike the Omlec, the Mayan practiced human sacrifice to satisfy there god.
Cultural diffusion is the spread of cultural beliefs, social activities, and items from one group to another. Cultural diffusion has played an enormous role in societies throughout history, as civilizations have thrived and grown on the spread of ideas throughout early nomadic times, medieval times, and even today in modern times. Cultural diffusion allows cultures to mix together in order to create a superior culture which improves society. Cultural diffusion played an enormous role in the creation and booming of civilizations, most importantly in the 1200’s to 1600’s. Throughout history, cultural diffusion has played an enormous role in societies as a result of trading and conquest for the better and for the worst.
Primatologist Frans de Waal, author of The Bonobo and the Atheist, argues that human morality is not imposed from above but instead comes from within. Moral behavior doesn’t begin and then end with religion, but is a product of evolution. What that means, is that de Waal believes that human morality is not something you are born with but something you develop according to the environment around you, socially, economically and educationally. Primates and even non-primates are an example of this. When an infant is born, they are raised by their mothers for many years.
And the three perspectives i would be discussing in the paper will be: What is Behaviorism? this perspective mostly differs from other approaches because it views that both people and animals are controlled by their environment and specifically that we are the result of what we have learned from our environment. in other words, that it is shaped by our experience. Behaviorism is
One of the primary examples that reinforce this ideology is the character of the Creature. He is continuously disregarded and abandoned by everyone, including his own creator, Victor Frankenstein. Due to these conditions, the Creature develops beliefs and portrays actions that support the validity of morals being conditioned by the surrounding influences. Morals have been a concept that has been developed since many generations ago. Patently, there has been a continuous debate about whether moral judgement is innate or developed by an individual’s experiences.
Introduction Learning enables you as an individual, to gain more knowledge about something which you have never learned about. Learning also has to do with past experiences which are influenced by behavioural changes (Weiten, 2016). There are different types of ways to learn; through, classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning which will be discussed and analysed in the essay. Behaviourism Behaviourism is considered one of the main subjects in psychology and the two main people who founded behaviourism were, Burrhus Frederic Skinner, also known as B.F Skinner and Ivan Pavlov who were famous for the work they did on classical and operant conditioning (Moderato & Presti, 2006). According to Moderato and Presti
For my I.S., I am interested in how and when social movements that are based on the interests and needs of a particular race-based identity group are able to build alliances and mobilize support from the larger population. Specifically, under what conditions will Black social movements in the U.S. gain support from the White American population? Previous literature tells us that grievances, access to resources, and identity all play a significant role in an individual choice to join/support a movement. However, these previous studies do not explain why a person outside of the racial group around which the movement is organized would choose to join/support it. The concept of moral shock, a sense of outrage triggered by a specific situation that causes a person to seek political action, can be created and manipulated by social movement leaders in order to mobilize support from those who do not have a stake in the issues and who otherwise would be unaffected by the issues and events the movements are discussing.
A group of teenagers stole a puppy from his owners garden and abused him for hours. According to an RSPCA inspector, this is one of the worst cases the inspector had ever seen. The tiny chihuahua yorkshire terrier mix, named Chunky, was kicked, burned, hit, fed drugs, and had his neck squeezed before being left for dead. The eight month dog was eventually found and taken to a vet immediately. After four months, Chunky has fully recovered physically and is nice and playful.
Nevertheless, Skinner points out that children learn nothing from the punishment. Instead, they may start to work out how to avoid it (Nolan & Raban, 2015). Another concept is classical conditioning (classical behaviorism) that emphasizes on the relation between stimuli and response. This concept embodies in a famous experiment, in which the food is presented to the dog when the bell rings, and the bell becomes a conditioned stimulus for the dog (Nolan & Raban, 2015). Likewise, if children receive toys in the condition that they behave well, then they will probably repeat this behavior to get the toys.
Paper 1: BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION Becky Templin Clovis Community College February 17, 2018 Introduction The theory behind behavior modification ethics has a reputation for its accomplishments and disappointments. In addition to this, there are many dangers in using physical punishment as behavior modification with the two primary modifiers of behavior being Classical conditioning and Operant conditioning. The outcome of using negative reinforcement has its share of benefits and downfalls in human behavior whereas; positive reinforcement seems to win over.
In this essay, I shall contend that there are two components which are key to determining the moral status of animals – both human and non-human. Firstly, sentience, which is the capacity to experience things such as pain and pleasure. And Secondly, self-consciousness, which is having the mental ability to conceive of oneself as a distinct, individual entity, who existed in the past and who will exist in the future. It is these two capacities, and the distinction between them, that are significant when considering the moral status of an animal. Importantly, this cuts across species lines, and does not, due to fact of species membership, automatically accord humans a higher moral status over all other species of animal.
INTRODUCTION Have you ever thought on how people explain about behaviour? How do we know when learning process has occurred? Learning is permanent change that happened in the way of your behaviour acts, arises from experience one’s had gone through. This kind of learning and experience are beneficial for us to adapt with new environment or surrounding (Surbhi, 2018). The most simple form of learning is conditioning which is divided into two categories which are operant conditioning and classical conditioning.
Instinct theories talks about how humans are programmed to act violently in certain circumstances (Louw, Van Ede, & Louw, 1998). These theories believes that violence is an inherent characteristics of mankind and to explain this better it is necessary look at ethological theory of Korand Lorenz and psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud (Louw, Van Ede, & Louw, 1998). One of the most influential psychologist who has studied the concept of ethology as a key biological discipline was Konrad Lorenz (Brigandt, 2004).Konrad Lorenz was the son of an international orthopedic surgeon called Adolf Lorenz (Brigandt, 2004). It is however interesting to notice that Konrad Lorenz’s family were full of individuals who loved the medical profession and his dad also