Chapter 14: Classic Single-n Experiments

Chapter 14

There are several classic single-n and small-n experiments you could assign. Watson’s“ Little Albert” experiment is available at

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm

A less controversial—and more data-oriented— study would be Mary Cover Jones’ class “Infant Peter study” available at

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jones/

You might assign students Skinner’s small-n experiment described on page 481 of Research design explained. The complete article is online at

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/

Students will not have trouble with the results of Skinner’s (1948) study: There are no statistics. However, the vocabulary may challenge some students. Therefore, you may want to hand out the glossary below.

Table 1. Glossary for helping you understand Skinner’s (1948) classic article on superstition
Term	Rough Translation or Example
contingent	dependent
Mechanical connection	Example: After you press a button on a coke machine, the machine gives you a can of coke.
Mediation of another organism	Example: After you ask for a coke, a friend brings you a coke.
the temporal relation	The timing of the reinforcement
solenoid	electrical device
adaptation	Getting used to
the intervening interval	The time between reinforcements
magazine	a container that holds food
intervening responses emitted	Behaviors produced between reinforcements
drift in topography	Gradual change in the way the behavior was performed.
predominant	main
tambour	round stage (like the top of a snare drum)
temporal discrimination	Behaving differently depending on how much time had passed (after getting the reinforcement)
elapsed	passed
extinction	Previously reinforced behavior ending because reinforcement stopped.
‘extinction’	Behavior ending because of lack of reinforcement—even though the original response was not really reinforced.
periodic presentation	In this case, presenting every 15 seconds
horizontal	Flat (indicating no superstitious behavior)
positive acceleration	rapidly increasing
prevailed	Was most common, typical
causal	Cause-effect (the behavior triggered the reinforcement)
suffice	Are enough
Induction from	following from
Discriminative stimulus	Cue that, when present, indicates that a certain response will be rewarded (e.g., a green traffic light means the driver can go).
locus	place
correlations	pairings

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