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Learning
Take a few moments…
• Do you associate any food/smells with being
sick? What happened?
• How do you learn “right/wrong” behaviors?
• When you were little, did you copy your
mom/dad/brother/sister/friends? In what
ways?
Behaviorism
• Psychology should be an objective science that
studies behavior without reference to mental
processes
▫ Most current behavioral psychologists would
argue that mental processes should be studied
Learning
• A relatively permanent change in behavior
• Acquired from experience or observation
Classical
Conditioning
Learning
Operant
Conditioning
Observational
Learning
PAVLOV
WATSON
Classical Conditioning
• Learning in which an organism comes to
associate stimuli
Classical Conditioning
Unconditioned Stimulus
(US)
a stimulus that naturally triggers a
response
Unconditioned Response
(UR)
the naturally occurring response to the
unconditioned stimulus (US)
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
stimulus that was originally meaningless
but comes to trigger a response
Conditioned Response (CR) the learned response to a previously
neutral, but now conditioned, stimulus
(CS)
Ivan Pavlov
• Studied how dogs associate salivation with food by ringing
a tuning fork/bell with the presentation of food. The dog
eventually salivated at the sound of the tuning fork/bell.
Another Example…
• An experimenter sounds a tone just before
delivering an air puff to your eye.
▫ Unconditioned stimulus
 Air puff
▫ Unconditioned response
 Eye blink to air puff
▫ Conditioned stimulus
 Tone
▫ Conditioned Response
 Eye blink to tone
Another Example…
• The Office… Jim classically conditions Dwight
▫ Unconditioned stimulus
 Jim offers mint
▫ Unconditioned response
 Accepts mint
▫ Conditioned stimulus
 Computer sound
▫ Conditioned Response
 Expects mint
Learning Processes
Process
Description
Example
Extinction
The disappearance of
a CR
Pavlov found that when he rang the
fork repeatedly without presenting
the food, the dogs salivated less and
less
Spontaneous
Recovery
the reappearance,
after a pause, of an
extinguished CR
Pavlov found that if he waited a few
hours before ringing the fork again,
the dogs would salivate to the ringing
after the pause
Generalization
The tendency for
stimuli similar to the
CS to elicit a similar
response.
Pavlov found that dogs would
salivate to tones of different pitches
that they had not previously
associated with food
Discrimination The ability to
distinguish between
stimuli
Pavlov’s dogs also learned to respond
to certain tones and not to others
John B. Watson
• Conditioned “Little Albert” to fear white rats,
later all white, fluffy animals
▫ Previously not afraid of white rats, Watson
presented a loud banging sound when Albert saw a
white rat  conditioned fear of rats.
• US
▫ Loud noise
• UR
▫ Crying at noise
• CS
▫ Rat
• CR
▫ Crying at rat
SKINNER
Operant Conditioning
• Learning in which behaviors are strengthened
or diminished by consequence
• Controlled rats’, and later pigeons’, behaviors
with an operant chamber (Skinner box)
▫ contained a bar or key that an animal can
manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforce,
with attached devices to record the animal’s rate
of bar pressing or key pecking
Shaping
• Skinner used shaping –reinforcers guide
behavior toward closer and closer
approximations of the desired behavior.
• Reinforcement – anything that
STRENGTHENS behaviors
• Punishment – anything that DIMINISHES
behavior
Positive
Reinforcement Adding a desired
stimulus
Punishment
Negative
Removing an
undesired stimulus
Adding an
Removing a desired
undesired stimulus stimulus
 Positive… Adding/+
 Negative… Removing/ Big Bang Theory – Sheldon trains Penny
Operant Conditioning Examples
• Receiving praise for A+ in Psych/Soc.
▫ Positive reinforcement – addition of something
good
• Lunch detention for being late to class.
▫ Positive punishment – addition of something bad
• No homework in class because everyone’s
behavior was on point!
▫ Negative reinforcement – removal of something bad
• You get your phone taken away for Snapchatting
in class…
▫ Negative punishment – removal of something good
Motivation
• The type of motivation can affect the
effectiveness of reinforcements and
punishments
▫ Intrinsic motivation – the desire to perform a
behavior for its own sake.
▫ Extrinsic motivation – the desire to perform a
behavior due to promised rewards or threats of
punishment.
▫ Children who were normally avid readers
(intrinsically motivated) were paid for reading
and their reading amount decreased  positive
reinforcement backfired
BANDURA
Observational Learning
• Learning by observing others
▫ Learning does not always happen as a byproduct
of experience
• Modeling – the process of observing and
imitating a specific behavior
Albert Bandura's Experiment
• Experimental group of
preschoolers was exposed to an
adult beating a blow-up (Bobo)
doll for 10 minutes and then left
to see if they would do the same
▫ children exposed to aggressive
adult models were more likely to
be aggressive towards the doll
when alone with the toys
Applications of Observational Learning
• Antisocial (destructive, inconsiderate) models may
have antisocial effects
▫ family, TV, movies, friends
• Prosocial (positive, constructive, helpful) models
can have prosocial effects
• Violent viewing correlates with violent play/actions
▫ Violent TV/movies can desensitize children and adults
to pain, death, and punishment.