Emotions (Video)

 

We have strong feelings that can greatly enhance or disrupt our lives. Combined with our cognitive abilities, emotions help round out our experience of reality. Here is a brief introduction to emotions and how we process them.

Emotions (part 1)

B.F. Skinner (Video)

B.F. Skinner was the founder of operant conditioning. He showed how rewards and punishments impact the behavior of virtually everyone.

According to Skinner, rewards should be given appropriately. Parents should reward behaviors they want and ignore (extinguish) behaviors they don’t want. Giving attention to a child (such as when giving a punishment) actually rewards the child with your presence and sends a mixed message. Behavior can be shaped by rewarding successive approximations but practice without reinforcement doesn’t improve performance.

Take a look at Skinner’s Theory.

Ivan Pavlov (Video)

Although he won a Nobel prize for his work in explaining the processes of digestion, Ivan Pavlov is best remembered for his discovery of classical conditioning.

He showed that the presence of an unconditioned stimulus (food) produces an unconditioned response (saliva of a given amount; varying somewhat between trials and between dogs). After sufficient pairings of the food with another, previously unused stimulus (e.g., light), the conditioned stimulus (light) could bring about a response (conditioned response). The conditioned response was weaker than the unconditioned response (i.e., less saliva) and forgettable (if repeated too often without food being presented).

If you want to understand why lightning storms are scary, check out Ivan Pavlov.