1. Thorndike introduced his Law of Effect to explain how cats learn to escape from his puzzle boxes. It was met with wide-spread rejection by people trained in reflex analysis. What is the issue? How would you teach students about the difference in these viewpoints in analyzing a situation?

2.  Both John B. Watson (famous Behaviorist) and Edwin Guthrie (not so famous Behaviorist to people outside of Learning) objected strongly to the Law of Effect.  What was their objection?  How would you apply their thinking to your area of professional or personal interest.

3.Describe Paul Meehl's approach to the Law of Effect. Describe B. F. Skinner's approach to the Law of Effect. In your area of interest, describe a situation where it makes more sense to use Meehl's approach and where it makes more sense to use Skinner's approach. In each case, explain why the other approach is less useful in that situation.

4. Skinner is very precise about applying a Law of Effect label to an operant. Using the 3-step sequence we used in class, develop an example that teaches a parent or a friend how to correctly use the sequence in a specific situation where  you want to change a behavior.  Where do people often make mistakes.

5.  Skinner originally described his apparatus as a tool for investigating the "free operant" and differentiated it from Thorndike's Puzzle Box approach.  Technically, what is an operant and how does it differ from Thorndike's and Hull's approach to the definition of a response?  Practically, what is the effect on how you assess a situation?

6.  Skinner also introduced the concept of the discriminative stimulus.  How does that concept of a stimulus differ from that of Thorndike and Hull?

7.  Skinner introduced the concept of shaping as a way to think about behavior.  You have a nephew with severe intellectual deficits that makes it difficult to understand verbal instructions.  As a Xmas present, you want the nephew to draw a simple Walmart-style smile-face for your aunt because it would make her so happy.  How would you shape that result?  Begin at the beginning.  The nephew has never painted before.

8. Describe David Premack's approach to the Law of Effect. How is it similar to and different from the approach of Meehl and Skinner? In your area of interest, describe the application of all 3 approaches to a concrete situation.

9. Imagine that you wanted to use the Premack Principle to improve completion of math homework by Sally, a 14 year-old girl. You observe her and see that she spends most of her time reading books, next is watching TV, and least is drawing pictures. Now you want to measure how much time she spends in the activities over an afternoon in order to construct the baseline. Describe a possible duration measure of each of the four activities and a concern about each measure when constructing your baseline.

10.  This tale is no lie.  I went to a school where they used spanking as a punisher.  Each demerit earned you a whack.  Each whack was painful (trust me, I know) and administered by a guy, who had been in the Marine Corps, using a wooden frat paddle.  But it was not as effective a punisher compared to having to attend "Saturday School" where you had to sit in an empty classroom, doing nothing, for an hour per demerit.  (Trust me, I know.)  What would be Premack's analysis?

11. A parent comes to you for help to get her 14 year-old son, Tim, to complete his math homework.  Everybody (from advice columns in the newspaper to her church pastor) tells her that she needs to reward Tim for doing his homework; but she is unsure about how to pick a reward.  What advice would Hull, Meehl, Skinner, Premack, and Guthrie give about picking a reward for Tim?