Learning Notes

The learning approach

Define the learning approach

Assumption 1

• Assumes behaviour is determined by experiences within the environment (nurture) rather than genetically or by the biochemistry of the brain or hormones within the body (nature)

• Individuals behaviour is shaped by his or her ‘reinforcement history’ or past experiences of reward or punishment

• The philosopher john Locke used the term ‘tabula rasa’ to describe a new-born baby, like a ‘blank slate, waiting for experience to leave its mark and write the script for future behaviour and interaction

• This philosophy was adopted by behaviourists or learning theorists such as john Watson who started the approach in 1913

Assumption 2

• More objective and scientific to study observable behaviour and that the idea of mental events and emotions should not be studied as part of psychology

• This is an example of empiricism; gathering data that can be directly observed through the senses rather than making inferences about abstract ideas, in an attempts to make general laws or principles which govern behaviour

• Systematic desensitisation is an example of the way in which learning theorists have successfully applied the importance of focusing on behaviour rather than cognition and emotion

• Here psychologists use the principles of classical conditioning to help people overcome their phobias. This is a highly effective treatment which demonstrates that it is not necessary to focus on cognition or emotion in order to create positive outcomes for people who are suffering

• Another example of this is the use of behaviourist principles in the management of children’s behaviour, where the focus is explaining what function their behaviour serves (i.e. what is the rewarding consequence which maintains their behaviour) without concentrating on what the child is thinking or feeling

• Again, this can be highly successful although many psychologists would argue that ignoring of a child’s cognition and his or her interpretation of what is happening to them may not be helpful

Terms and definitions

Classical conditioning

• Also known as associative learning and refers to the way in which an individual can learn new triggers (stimuli) for existing involuntary behaviours, (reflexes). Pavlov discovered that when dogs anticipate that their food is coming they begin to salivate.

• This is a conditioned response as they have learnt to associate certain aspects of their environment (the stimulus, e.g. his lab assistants walking toward the food cupboard) with the coming of food (the unconditioned stimulus).

• He tested this idea and was able to elicit salivation (conditioned response) to the sound of a bell (a neutral stimulus which became a conditioned stimulus).

• In real life classical conditioning provides a clear explanation of how apparently irrational fears may develop. All the behaviour elicited in classical conditioning are involuntary (reflexes) over which we have no control. For example, when a dentist’s drill hits a nerve (UCS) this causes pain and discomfort (UCR). As this happens in a dental clinic which has a distinct smell (NS), this smell becomes associated with the pain (UCS) and in the future the smell alone (CS) may be enough to trigger a bodily response such as the increased heart rate, associated with anxiety (CR).

Extinction in classical conditioning

• Extinction is one of Pavlov’s principles of learning and it means that a conditioned stimulus no longer elicits a conditioned response.

• This happens when the individuals has experienced the conditioned stimulus several times without the unconditioned stimulus; gradually the association becomes unlearnt and the conditioned response disappears.

• Certain songs often elicit physiological and emotional reactions because at some point they have been played when the person was experiencing those feelings. For example, if a song was played at a funeral, whenever that song is played in the future, the person may suddenly become upset without necessarily even remembering the funeral. Gradually as the person hears the song over and over again in neutral situations, such as on the car radio, the response will become extinct as the song is no longer associated with bereavement, indeed new associations may have been made which have over-written previous learning.

Spontaneous recovery in classical conditioning

• Spontaneous recovery refers to the way in which a conditioned response which was thought to have become extinct may suddenly reappear.

• This can happen ‘out of the blue’ and could be quite distressing if the response if a negative one since the person may have thought that response had long disappeared.

• For example, following a car accident, a person may have suffered from distressing flashbacks and physiological stress reactions wherever they saw stimuli present at the time of the accident, e.g. red traffic lights, similar vehicle etc. As time progressed the reactions may have decreased and the person thinks that they have been cured of their trauma. One day they experience a panic attack triggered by some minor aspect associated with the original experience.

• Spontaneous recovery demonstrates that stimulus-response units may never be broken completely but that the bond between them becomes weaker but not eliminated completely.

Stimulus (in classical conditioning)

• Some aspect of the environment which triggers a specific response.

• Some stimuli are unconditioned meaning that they require no specific learning in order to trigger a response, they are innate. An example of this is the red spot on the beak of a herring gull. In comparative psychology, this is called an ‘innate releasing mechanism’; baby herring gulls are born with an innate reflex to peck at red spots (this has survival value as the mother gull will regurgitate food into the chick’s mouth and so pecking her beak encourages her to feed her chick).

• Some stimuli only trigger responses because they have been presented immediately before an unconditioned...

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