MCAT Behavioral Sciences Question 200: Answer and Explanation

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Question: 200

4. Jay joins a social media website to lose weight, and he receives points based on the intensity of his daily exercise and praise from fellow website users for each workout he logs on the website. This increases his exercise frequency and intensity. Eventually he stops logging onto the website, but continues to exercise with increased frequency. This is an example of:

  • A. vicarious reinforcement.
  • B. operant conditioning.
  • C. innate behavior.
  • D. classical conditioning.

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

Operant conditioning is accomplished when someone receives a reward after performing a task; after the person has performed the task and received the reward enough times, they will perform the task without the reward (choice B is correct). Vicarious reinforcement involves watching another person receive a reward for his or her behavior; there is no mention of Jay being motived by other people getting rewarded (choice A is wrong). An innate behavior is one that does not need to be conditioned, and therefore not what is being described in the question stem (choice C is wrong). Classical conditioning is accomplished by pairing two stimuli, one that is neutral with another that is unconditioned. Over time, the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus. Since the question is not describing the pairing of two stimuli, nor is a stimulus presented before the behavior, classical conditioning does not explain the behavior described in the question stem (choice D is wrong).

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