Download CX Learning Approach

The Learning
Approach
History and Context
•Behaviourism arose from the dissatisfaction
with the psychodynamic approach to
psychology.
•The psychodynamic approach had emphasis
on the invisible and untestable unconscious,
and lacked the scientific rigor of physics and
chemistry at the start of the 20th Century.
•John B. Watson said the methods used by
Freud and Wundt were unscientific
•In 1913 Watson published ‘Psychology as
the Behaviourist Views It’
•Watson said we should observe and
measure behaviour instead of mental states
– too much emphasis on instincts, but he
didn’t deny that these existed
Classical Conditioning
Classical Conditioning: association between a neutral stimulus and an
unconditioned stimulus to produce a response
Key Study: Ivan Pavlov (1927)
When Pavlov presented the dogs with food they began to salivate – an
unconditioned response.
Pavlov presented a neutral stimulus
to dogs (a bell or buzzer) and it
produced no response.
Pavlov presented the two together
several times, and eventually the
sound of the bell alone made the
dogs salivate – a conditioned
response.
Pavlov was awarded a Nobel Prize
for his work in 1904.
Watson and his colleague Rayner also carried out an experiment
investigating classical conditioning using an infant ‘Little Albert’. Albert
was 10 months old and showed little fear, the only thing that frightened
him and made him cry was loud noises. Watson conditioned Albert to be
afraid of his pet rat by pairing it with a loud noise. After a while, Albert
would cry whenever he saw the rat.
Operant
Conditioning
Operant Conditioning: learning through consequences such as reward
and punishment
Key Study: Skinner (1953)
Skinner created a box (Skinner box) in which a hungry animal could be
put inside and which contained a button that could be pressed to release
food.
A rat was placed inside the box and allowed to roam freely
(so its actions were operant – not reflexive) Eventually it would press the
lever and receive food. The rat learned that pressing the button gave it
the reward (positive reinforcement) of food and thus the lever was
pressed more often.
Skinner also changed the lever
to make it stop an unpleasant stimulus,
(negative reinforcement) which also led
to a increase in leverpressing, and made the lever deliver
a punishment, which led to a decrease.
Social Learning Theory
Albert Bandura et al. conducted a
study which identified a third kind of
learning – social learning. This is
learning through imitation and
modelling.
Key Study: Bandura, Ross and Ross
(1961/63)
Bandura et al. studied 72 children, half
boys, half girls aged 4 and split them
into three conditions.
Condition 1: Children were taken into
a room with crayons and paper to play
with. An experimenter came in and
kicked, punched and hit an inflatable
“Bobo doll” with a mallet for 10
minutes.
Condition 2: The experimenter just played
with other toys and did not show
aggression towards the doll.
Condition 3: A control group, no
experimenter came in.
The children were then taken to a room
with attractive toys and were told they
couldn’t play with them. They were then
taken to a third room with ordinary toys
and a Bobo doll. They were filmed for 20
minutes.
When analysing the film, Bandura et al.
found that the children in condition 1,
who had seen the adult model be violent
towards the doll, showed higher levels of
aggressive behaviour than any other
children.
Contribution of the learning
approach
•Classical conditioning can help explain phobias, and can also help treat
them using systematic desensitisation
•Systematic desensitisation is a method used to treat phobias based on
counter-conditioning – the phobia is paired with something relaxing
•Siegel (1984) found that drug addicts are much more likely to die of an
overdose in an unfamiliar environment. This is because your body does
not associate that environment with drugs, and therefore does not
prepare.
•Social learning theory is used to explain many things such as food
preferences, eating disorders, addictions, and gender roles.