Frustration Theory: An Analysis of Dispositional Learning and Memory (Problems in the Behavioural Sciences)
Cambridge University Press, 7/31/1992
EAN 9780521247849, ISBN10: 0521247845
Hardcover, 296 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
We live in a world in which inconsistency is the rule rather than the exception and this is particularly true for rewards and frustrations. In some cases, rewards and frustrative non-rewards appear randomly for what seems to be the same behaviour; in others a sequence of rewards is suddenly followed by non-rewards, or large rewards by small rewards. The important common factor in these and other cases is frustration - how we learn about it and how we respond to it. This book provides a basis in learning theory and particularly in frustration theory, for a comprehension not only of the mechanisms controlling these dispositions, but also of their order of appearance in early development and, to an approximation at least, their neural underpinnings.
Preface
List of abbreviations
1. Introduction
reward-schedule effects and dispositional learning
2. Motivational and associative mechanisms of behavior
3. Frustration theory
an overview of its experimental basis
4. Survival, durability, and transfer of persistence
5. Discrimination learning and prediscrimination effects
6. Alternatives and additions to frustration theory
7. Ontogeny of dispositional learning and the reward-schedule effects
8. Toward a developmental psychobiology of dispositional learning and memory
9. Summing up
steps in the psychobiological study of related behavioral effects
10. Application to humans
a recapitulation and an addendum
Appendix
References
Indexes.