Download Learning Case Reading Analyses - Period 8

Rachel, Stephanie, Celine, Sam
Knock Wood
The psychologist behind this case study was B.F. Skinner, a radical behaviorist. Skinner
believed that if someone was rewarded for a certain behavior then that person would be more
likely to repeat that behavior and that if someone was punished for a certain behavior then that
person would be less likely to repeat that behavior. This was called operant conditioning. Using
this, Skinner was able to explain how a behavior was unlearned; the discontinuation of receiving
rewards caused the behavior to slowly decrease. Skinner’s radical behaviorist ideas were met
with a lot of controversy and he was determined to show that seemingly “human activities” could
be learned by simple creates such as rats and birds through his experiments. In this specific
experiment, Skinner wanted to prove that the human activity of having “superstitions” was not
actually due to human thinking and cognitive ability but could actually be explained through
operant conditioning.
Skinner believed that the reason people participate in superstitious behavior is that they
associate the behavior with some sort of reward, even though there is no reward. For example,
rolling a dice a specific way during a board game may be reinforced by a couple of random
good rolls. Skinner calls this “non-contingent reinforcement” because it does not coincide with
any particular behavior. In the experiment, Skinner placed several pigeons in Skinner boxes or
conditioning chambers in which food could be dispensed by the observer. For a specific
amount of time a day, Skinner would let a food pellet drop into each box every fifteen seconds
regardless of what the pigeon. The results coincided with Skinner’s idea of noncontingent
reinforcement. The birds in each of the cages learned specific and random behaviors that they
thought produced the food; for example, one of the birds would make pecking and scratching
motions directed at but not touching the floor while another bird would bob its head as if trying to
raise an invisible bar. None of these behaviors had been seen before the conditioning process
and none of them had anything to do with the birds receiving food. Next the behaviors were put
to extinction, but one of the pigeon’s behavior was recorded 10,000 times before it completely
disappeared.
Lindsey Knutzen, Nora Moran, Bella Freedberg
Little Albert & Little Peter
The scientist, Watson, wanted to study the conditioning of human fears. In order to do
this, he studied an infant who they named Albert B. They did some examinations before the
study to ensure that the boy was unaffected by white, small animals, and that he was afraid of
loud noises. They banged a metal pole above his head, out of sight, and this ignited fear in him.
In order to test if conditioned responses of fear exist, Watson presented Albert with a white rat.
Then, the moment the infant touched the rat, they banged the loud pole behind his head for the
next 2 times he tried to touch the rat. For a week this effect lasted on the white rat, but not on
any other toy. This proved that Albert was conditioned to be afraid of the white rat. Next, Watson
wanted to see if this conditioned fear can be generalised. He presented several white, furry
animals and objects to Albert, and the baby reacted with crying and running away from the
objects. This proved that a conditioned fear can be generalized. These reactions lasted for the
entirety of the remaining month that Albert was in the hospital, and there was no time for the boy
to attempt to have the conditioned response removed. Watson supervised experiments
conducted by Mary cover Jones. She studied the best methods for the elimination of children’s
fears. She studied on children who already have a fear of a certain situation. Mary used direct
conditioning as one of her methods. The child in her direct conditioning case was names “Little
Peter,” which is recognized as a sequel to the “Little Albert” case study. Watson and Jones
tested the principles of ‘re-conditioning’ together that he didn’t use on Albert. One fear that Peter
had was that he was afraid of rabbits. They would bring a rabbit closer and closer to him and
this was a positive effect and peter was able to pet him on the back.
The main problem from the Little Albert study is that it brought on many myths. The
confusion of this experiment was due to Watson’s numerous amounts of articles, which were
missing important details that were in the original. There are also many criticisms that are made
from this original study. The lack of detail regarding Albert’s behaviors brings questions about
the experimental techniques used. People questioned why Watson didn’t try the study on other
infants besides Albert since in the past, he tested animals and never solely worked with one
patient. Albert, fortunately, did not develop a phobia due to the experiment with the rat even
though he tried to crawl away. There is little doubt that at least one of today’s keys ethical rulesnamely, protection of the participant from both psychological and physical harm- was broken.
Albert suffered a great deal of distress that continued throughout the study. Watson and Rayner
wrote that it was unfortunate that Albert was removed from the hospital before they could
recondition him. The experiment relates to classical conditioning.
Ivy Li, Jessica Kaplowitz, Erik Bissell
See Aggression, Do Aggression
Aggression is a very vague idea that psychologists have been trying to study. The main
question that researchers are examining is why people engage in acts of aggression. There are
three main conclusions: either aggression is biologically pre programmed, an automatic response
to experience and situations, or, the most popular answer, it is learned. Albert Bandura and his
associates conducted an experiment called the “social learning theory”, or the “Bobo doll study”
to test if personality development was caused by learning.
In this experiment, researchers exposed kids to adults both aggressive and non-aggressive
to see if they would learn to act with similar levels of aggression to the adult they observed.
Some kids were assigned to a control group with no adult model, some kids were assigned to a
group with a non-aggressive adult, while others were assigned to an aggressive adult. In order to
minimize the confounding variable of aggressiveness in the children before the experiment was
conducted, researchers rated each child to distribute them in a way that the average aggression
level for all groups are relatively the same. Each child would be led into a playroom with toys
with their adult--the aggressive one would show violence and aggression towards the “Bobo
doll” by physically hitting it, verbally abusing it, and hitting it with a mallet while the nonaggressive adult would calmly play with the other toys.
The final evaluating factor was whether or not the children decided to play with
aggressive toys, like a mallet, dart guns, and a tether ball with a face on it, or non-aggressive toys
like crayons and a ball. Four most popular and generalizable responses were imitating the acts of
physical aggression, imitating the verbal aggression, imitating hitting the doll with a mallet, or
using aggression tactics that were not portrayed in the experiment.
This shows that the children in the aggression groups tended to imitate the behaviors the
adults did. There were a few gender differences, for example, that violent behaviors in boys were
more prevalent than in girls. Also, girls showed more verbal abuse while boys showed more
physical.
This explains that violence and aggression that a child is exposed to can influence their
actions. Also, it addresses that the socioculture belief that aggression is an accepted masculine
action, therefore, aggression was more prevalent in boys.
Television started to become very influential in the 1960s. The experimenters conducted
a similar aggression study to compare the influential effect that a real Bobo doll model had on
people versus the effect a Bobo doll cartoon of TV had. They found that the real-life model was,
in fact, more influential. Both models did influence aggression in children however.
Bandura tested whether or not a child who witnessed positive or negative reinforcement,
given to someone who was acting violently, would have an effect on how the child would imitate
the aggressive behavior. Bandura found that when a child saw someone who was rewarded for
acting out aggressively, the child would follow the bad behavior. However, when a child
witnessed someone being punished for aggressive behavior, the child would tend not to imitate
the violence.
Some criticized Bandura’s studied. They said that children know the difference between
attacking a fake doll and a real person.
Bandura conducted another study to test the influence that aggressive films have on
children. He had one group of children watch a violent show while a second group watched a
sports show. Afterwards, he gave all the children an opportunity to hurt one another by pressing
a ‘hurt’ button (which didn’t actually harm anyone). He found that those who watched the
violent show were more inclined to hurt others than those who saw the sports show.
Bandura, Ross, and Ross proved that adult behavior has a large influence on children.
They also started what is still today considered to be a very controversial topic: The influence
that real-life violence versus media violence has on children.
Pavlov Case Reading
Enoli:
IntroIvan Pavlov was a Russian, physiologist who accidently conducted a psychological
experiment and later on became a psychologist. In Pavlov’s experiment, he tested the role
salvation has in digestion using dogs. A tube was surgically placed in the dogs cheeks to collect
the saliva. He gave the dogs foods and nonfood substances such as marbles, and observed the
rate and amount of salivation when the items were in the dogs mouths. Pavlov found that the
dogs tended to salivate more with solid, dry inedible objects such as marbles and sand, than they
did with moist edible objects. He found that the saliva was produced to help the dogs eat the
items (at least try to) and found that saliva was an automatic reflex that's produced to aid dogs
with digestion.
Pavlov began to further experiment and found that the dogs began to salivate even before
the food reached their mouths and when they heard footsteps. Pavlov later discovered that
digestion was not only a physical process, but also a psychological as well. He discovered that
there are two reflexes which control salivation: the unconditioned reflexes, ones that occur
naturally such as salivation when food enters the mouth and the conditioned reflex, which is the
dog salivating once they hear footsteps. Each reflex also produced a different response,
an unconditioned response, which is when the dogs naturally salivate in response to food and a
conditioned response (salivation when hearing the footsteps), which was once a neutral stimulus
(one that did not provoke any response). Pavlov later tested this experiment and instead of using
the sound of footsteps as the neutral and conditioned stimulus , he used a bell that was once a
neutral stimuli to provoke the conditioned response which was the salivation.
Jeremy:
Significance:
This was the discovery of classical conditioning, which has revolutionized psychology.
Classical conditioning can explain how past experience can shape future emotions, behavior, and
reflexes. Classical conditioning can help explain phobias, taste aversion, fears, emotions,
anxiety, and advertising. Although psychologists would have likely discovered these concepts
without Pavlov’s work, Pavlov was able to create a theory that connected all of these concepts
into one psychological behavior.
Logan:
Conclusion:
Pavlov's findings have had some of the biggest influence on the field of psychology. As classical
conditioning is considered one of the fundamental features on which modern psychology rests.
Without his contributions the theory of classical conditioning would not have been as coherent ,
elegant, and as well articulated as Pavlov's was and it would have taken decades for behavioral
scientist to discovers these principles.
Little Emotional Albert
Jess C. & (possibly?) others
When Albert was 9 months old, researchers at the hospital where he was living
(because he was an orphan) asked the staff members to include him in a study that determined
if he was afraid of certain stimuli. He was initially presented with a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey,
a dog, masks with and without hair, and white cotton wool. Albert’s reactions to the stimuli were
observed, and the researchers concluded that he had no fear of any of the objects presented
because he would often try and interact with them. The next phase of the experiment involved
the researchers adding elements that could invoke a fear reaction. The researchers added the
loud noise of a steel pipe being hit by a hammer behind his as an unconditioned stimulus. This
noise almost immediately frightened Albert and made him cry. Now, the researchers wanted to
combine both elements to test the idea that the emotion of fear could be conditioned in Albert.
Watson had two main goals in this study; 1. To demonstrate that all human behavior
stems from learning and conditioning. 2. To demonstrate the Freudian conception of
psychology, that our behavior stems from unconscious processes, was wrong. Although this
study was unbelievably unethical and had some flaws, it succeeded at convincing a large
portion of the psychology community that emotional behavior could be conditioned through
stimulus-response techniques. This study is responsible for the birth of behaviorism. This
means the reason you associate a feeling with something like a song is because you have
developed an association in your brain between these stimuli and specific emotions through
conditioning. Another point they made was that emotional disturbances in adults cannot always
be attributed to sexual traumas in childhood.
This relates to what we have been learning. We learned about classical conditioning and
what unconditioned stimulus and responses are. An unconditioned stimulus is a status that
naturally and automatically causes a specific response in an organism. In this case the
unconditioned stimulus is a steel pipe being hit by a hammer. Which causes the unconditioned
response. An unconditioned response is a response that is automatic and unlearned to the
unconditioned stimulus. The unconditioned response in this case is Albert being frightened by
the loud noise and crying.