Ch. 8 - Learning

Classical conditioning

• Ivan Pavlov (Respondent Behavior)

Classical Conditioning

• Unconditioned Stimulus(UCS) = Meat

• Unconditioned Response (UCR)=Salivation

• Neutral Stimulus = Tone

• Conditioned Stimulus (CS) = Tone When paired with the unconditioned stimulus

• Conditioned response (CR) = Salivation to tone

Example

Example

Example

• Father spanks son for swearing.

• Son develops a strong fear of his father. Father is a(n) _____________? Conditioned stimulus

Classical Conditioning

• Acquisition

• Extinction Patient riding elevators to extinguish fear of

elevators

Spontaneous recovery

Generalization

Operant Conditioning

• B.F. Skinner (Operant behavior)

• Associating behavior with its consequences

• E.g. Seals in an aquarium doing a trick to receive a fish.

Reinforcement

• Positive reinforcement Give something a person wants Increases behavior

• E.g. Mother picking up a crying baby (Increases crying because of reinforcement)

• Negative reinforcement Remove an unwanted stimulus

• E.g. Sally has a drink after work to relieve (remove) her anxiety

Pos. & Neg. Reinforcement

Primary & Secondary reinforcers

• Primary = Innately reinforcing Food & Sex

• Secondary reinforcers (Conditioned reinforcer)

Associated with a primary reinforcer E.g. Money

Immediate Reinforcement

• Sally is more influenced by the current thrill on having sex, than by the future prospect of pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease.

• As opposed to delayed reinforcement A Paycheck at the end of the month.

Reinforcement schedules

• Continuous Every time

• Partial (Intermittent) Fixed ratio

• $15 for every 3 pages you write Variable ratio

• $15 after varying # of pages • (You do not know how many pages you will need to do before you

get paid again) Fixed Interval

• $15 for every hour you work Variable interval

• $15 given at various times during the day

Reinforcement Schedules

Overjustification effect

• Rewarding someone for doing something they already enjoy may cause them to lose their intrinsic interest in the task. Rewarding an already justifiable activity becomes “overjustified”

because of the additional reward.

Punishment

• Positive punishment Get something you don’t want ( a spanking)

• Negative punishment What you do want is taken away ( Television time)

• Problem with punishment Creates anger, fear, resistance Less effective than positive reinforcers to promote desirable

behavior.

Punishment

Shaping

• Cookies to reinforce quiet play

• M&M therapy

Observational Learning

• Albert Bandura

• E.g. Child turning the key to start the car (without explicit training)

• Matt using the ATM machine after watching Dad

• Modeling