Chapter 6: Learning

I. Learning Theory in Context:

- Through learning we adjust or adapt to our environment.
- Contrast learning with instinct.
à Human can learn and change behavior by learning. Differently, animal often live with instinct.
Instinct means doing exactly the same, and instinct is not related to experience. For human, most of what
we are doing are influence by learning and experiences.
- When situation change – instinct is not adaptive

II. Learning:
- Learning means relatively permanent change in behavior or mental process due to experience.
- What is learned can be unlearned. à Learned: fear st; Unlearned: by treating. Often by classical
conditioning for treatment.
à Not all changes in behavior undo the learning. Sometimes, change behavior just because we get
older, or the use of drug; or brain damage.
Ex: If a child stops sucking his thump, is that learning? Not necessary.
à Learning: Someone stops him sucking their thumps by taking his thumps from his mouth over and
over again; Or Put something his thumbs that taste bad; Or they keep said Stop, Stop, Stop over and over
again.
Not be learning- Maturation: The child just stops because of growing, no one teaches him, or he doesn’t
learn by himself.

III. Historical Context:

1. Behaviorism:
- Behaviorism is developed by John Watson. It was the most important school of thought in American
Psychology in 1920s-1960s.
- Behaviorism focuses on observable behavior and relationship between immediate environment and
behavior.
- “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own special world to bring them up in and I will
guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select –
doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of this talent,
penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and race of his ancestors.”
 à Basically he means that if we give him an infant, he will control the environment where the child
growing up, so then, he can guarantee to make him become any type of people: lawyers, doctors, or even
thief.
à Watson left out genetic, the differences between people when we were born and human choice.
- Behaviorism is continued to develop by B. F. Skinner (1940s-1960s)
- Skinner developed the idea of consequences (reinforcement and punishments) of behavior control
learning. He talks about the influences of consequences over behavior.
- Free will is an illusion.
- Behaviorism – strong explanatory power. The rule of learning is powerful, but limited, because it left
our human mind. Behaviorism focus on behavior and study on rat and animal, but it forgot human’s
thinking.

2. Cognitive Revolution:
Cognitive Revolution is developed in 1950s-1960s in the U.S.
To study Cognitive Revolution, Psychologists began to question whether behaviorism explained all
learning.
Began to focus on the role of mind as an intermediary.

IV. Basic Forms of Learning:

1. Associational learning (conditioning)
- Pavlop: Spent the 1890s studying the digestive system of dogs. Accidentally discovered classical
conditioning through his work on salivation with dogs.
- Classical conditioning (Pavlop): Classical conditioning occurs when we learn that two types of even go
together.
à Something happens to us and we learn from that experiences.
- Learn to give a response that is naturally associated with one event to another event.
- New terms:
o Neutral Stimulus (neutral S): A stimulus that, before conditioning, does not naturally bring
about the response of interest. (Bell)
o Unconditioned Stimulus (US): In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits (create) an
unconditioned response (UR) without previous conditioning. (Food)
o Unconditioned Response (UR): In classical conditioning, an unlearned reaction to an
unconditioned stimulus (US) that occurs without previous conditioning. (Salivation)
 o Conditioned Stimulus (CS): In classical conditioning, a previously neutral stimulus (NS)
becomes conditioned through repeated pairings with an unconditioned stimulus (US), and it now
elicits a conditioned response (CR). (Bell + Food = Salivation)
o Conditioned Respond (CR): In classical conditioning, a learned reaction to a conditioned
stimulus (CS) that occurs because previous repeated pairings with an unconditioned stimulus
(US). (Bell à Salivation)
- Ex:
1.
Bell (neutral S) à No respond
2.
Food powder (US) à Salivation (UR) (Unlearned, reflex or instinctive response)
3.
Bell + food powder à Salivation
4.
Bell (CS) à Salivation (CR) (learned)
5.
Bell acts as a predictor for food.
- Watson Classic Study:
1.
Can fear be conditioned? Can we condition fear?
2.
“Little Albert” is an experiment that Watson did the research with an 11-month-old boy name Little
Albert. Before the research, Albert didn’t scare animal at all. When he saw rats, he even looked at it
and try to touch it curiously. Then, Watson whenever the kid sees and tries to touch the rats, Watson
frighten the kid by making a lousy noise which is the naturally fear of kids. Gradually, after 7 times
make the kids cry, the lousy noise is paired with the rats. And Albert learned fear, became classical
conditioned and demonstrated by rats even when he didn’t hear the lousy noise.
o White rat (neutral S) à No response
o Noise (US) à Crying, fear (UR)
o Rat + Noise à Fear
o Rat (CS) à Fear (CR)

- 6 principles of Classical Conditioning:

o Acquisition
o Generalization
o Discrimination
o Extinction
o Spontaneous Recovery
o Higher-order Conditioning
- Generalization: The condition response (CR) is elicited not only by the conditioned stimulus (CS) but
also by stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus (CS)
Little Albert began to show fear to other animals, fur coats, fur hats, and men with beards.
à Albert not only learned fear with animals, but also learned fear with other things similar to animal.
- Giving a Conditioned Response not only to the Conditioned Stimulus but to a similar stimulus.

- Extinction: The diminishing of a response when the unconditioned stimulus (US) is withheld or
removed.
Suppose after Albert has learned to be afraid of the rat, the rat is presented without the loud noise. What
happens?
à After seeing the animal without the noisy, Albert probably doesn’t show fear with animal. The
learned response with rats was disappears (Extinction)
- The weakening of a learned response (CR) when the neutral stimulus and US are no longer paired.

- Spontaneous Recovery: The sudden reappearance, after a period of rest, of a previously extinguished
conditioned response (CR) to a conditioned stimulus (CS).
Imagine that after several days of showing Albert the rat without the noise, the fear is extinguished but
on the day 3 the fear spontaneously returns.
à Spontaneous Response is the re-appear response after extinction.
- After a Conditioned Response has been extinguished, it reappears with no further conditioning.
à Connection in the brain after conditioned learned maybe weaker, but still there. This is why we have
spontaneous response.
à Why the research with dogs and Little Albert is important?
Because: is that one of the way people learn the anxiety response like phobias – classical conditioning.
- Phobias is an irrational fear; an acquired fear out of proportion to the real threat. People know that it is
irrational, but they cannot control their fear.
Ex: Fear on drive on the bell wayà Couldn’t drive on the bell way à Generalization à Stop driving.
- Sometimes learned through classical conditioning.

- Biological Preparedness:
à Classical conditioning for st like fear can occur to some special kind of events. This is because we are
biological build to learn prepare to learn something are more /revelate/ to other.
- Preparedness to learn: We much more likely to develop the phobia of animal, noisy, thunder than
develop the phobia of table or a chair. This is because the evolutionary /revelate/ develop for response to
these kind of association.
- Phobias to some stimuli are learned more readily than to others.
- Seligman:
- Organisms are genetically prepared to fear certain objects

- Special Cases:
o Drugs:
§ Cues – lead to cravings and physiological response.
§ Siegel – compensatory response with heroin.
à Inject heroin slow your heart rate and slow your breathing. People used heroin in a short period of
time, that before they take the heroin, they have begun have a push back a heart and breath. à If
they used drug in the same particular place, whenever they go to that place, their heart race goes up,
their breath goes up. That is compensatory response. à When they use heroin in different place,
they don’t have compensatory response. à Easy to overdose because use in new place.
à After being addict with drug, the place where people often use drug or their arms where inject the
drug will be the conditioned stimulus (CS), so whenever they go to their places or look at their arms,
they will desire to use drug. They pair drug with these places, arms with the effects of the drugs.
o Food and tastes aversion: one short learning. (#209-210)
§ Garcia
à Eating something make us sick even only one time, we will not want these kind of food ever
anymore. We create aversion for that food. Sometimes, when we just think about this food, we still
feel sick and cannot stand for that food.
o Immune conditioning: This is an extraordinary idea. That a part of what happen with the
immune system may be learned, may be classical conditioning. (Purpose Immune system: fight
against diseases)
§ Robert Ader: Study taste aversion in rats. Pair in rats and immune systems with drugs
because it makes rats sick with sugar water. He basically looking to he can make rats
aversive with drinking sugar water. Make them not want to take sugar water. à Then
after study, he gives rats sugar water and some of them die.
 à Unknowingly, we can be conditioning immune system. A woman had lupus à Pair
taking medicine with smell roses. à Don’t need to taking medicine, just smell the roses.
But, it doesn’t last long because instinction can discover the different.
o Chemotherapy:
§ Bernstein
à Before a patient go to a chemo therapy, if they eat some food, they will remember the food as the
feeling of chemo (they pair the taste of food with the feeling of sick). This is why doctor recommend
that patients should not eat their favorite food before go to a chemo.

2. Operant learning (conditioning): where learning is influences by consequences of behavior, what

follow of behavior.
- Consequences (events that follow behavior) affect learning
à We do something and we learn from the consequences.
- Classic research: Skinner put a rats on a box. He wanted the rat press the bar, so when the rat went
closer to the bar, he gave him food (reinforcement). Then when the rat pressed the bar, he continued to
give the rat food (reinforcement). After that, only when the rat pressed the bar, it would have food. That
is shaping.

- Shaping – reinforcing behaviors which approximate the behaviors you want to occur
à Ex.: (autism kids – eyes contact): To make the autism kids do the eye contact. They do shaping by
reinforcement. If the children look straight to the eyes, give them candies.

- Extinction: When a response is weakened when reinforcement is no longer delivered

àEx: When the research doesn’t give the rats food when they press the bar, they will no longer press
the bar. It means extinction.

- Spontaneous recovery: Reoccurrence of an extinguished response without a reinforcement.

There are different kinds of consequences: Reinforcement and Punishment

- Reinforcement: increases the probability of a behavior occurring in the future

- Two type of reinforcement:
Positive Reinforcement: Positive or pleasant stimulus which follows a behavior and increases behavior
(hug, good grade)
 à Ex: Study hard à Good grade ( + Reinforcement)
Someone do something you like à Give you a hug ( + Reinforcement)
Negative Reinforcement: Removal of an unpleasant stimulus and increases behavior (nagging)
à Ex: When waking up her kid, the teacher often nagged him by keeping calling his name: Steve,
Steve, Steve, … till his got up. Then he changed the behavior by getting up and go to school in order to
turn off the teacher voice.
à Ex: When going to the car, the buzzing sound is very annoyed. We have to put on the seat bell to turn
off the buzzing noise. The buzzing noise is the – reinforcement, so we can’t stand with it, we have to
remove this annoying noise.

- Punishment: decrease the probability of behavior occurring in the future

- Two type of punishment:
- Positive Punishment: The application of something aversive or noxious and decrease behavior (bad
grade, hot stone)
à Ex: Put your hand on the hot stone à hurt à don’t put your hand in the hot stone anymore.
- Negative Punishment: Removal of privilege or something pleasant and decreases behavior (Grounding,
time-out)
à Ex: Teenager take the car and go home late à Grounded for 2 weeks à Stop the teenager for staying
up too late. à Remove the privilege of driving.

Reinforcement Punishment

Possitive Negative Possitive Negative

Reinforcement Reinforcement Punishment Punishment

According to Skinner, reinforcement more useful in changing behavior than punishment.

à We use reinforcement and punishment all the time without noticing. We use in school, treatness people
with disorder. Before we punish people, we need to reinforce and reward for every appropriate behavior
they did.
- Acquisition and maintenance of behavior
- Skinner became interested in how to make behavior resistant to extinction
o Relate to timing and frequency of reinforcement
- Teaching a new response – continuous reinforcement à We reinforce every time we see the behavior.
- Maintaining responses – intermittent reinforcement (harder to extinguish) à If we want the behavior
to continue and to maintain the behavior. We will reinforce from time to time to maintain the behavior.
- Schedules of Reinforcement:
- Interval – refers to periods of time
- Ratio – refers to number of response
- Interval reinforcement: Refers to reinforcing after a certain interval of time
o Fixed interval – reinforce after a fixed period of time
§ Every minutes
§ Salary every two weeks
o Variable interval – reinforce after variable interval of time
§ After 2 mins, 5 mins, then 3 mins
§ Pop quiz

- Ratio reinforcement: Refer to number of responses

o Fixed ratio
§ Reinforcement after a fixed number of responses
§ Every 10 responses, we will give food or reward.
o Variable ratio
§ Reinforcement after a variable number of response
§ After 2 responses, 5 responses, 2 responses
§ Gambling
§ Hardest to extinguish

- Behavior Modification:
o The systematic or planned use of operant conditioning.
à We do reinforcement and punishment behavior all the time, but when we use the rules of
operant conditioning in a plan or systematic ways, we call that behavior modification. Behavior
modification where your reinforcement and punish certain behavior that occur. It is use by
psychologist for people who have metal disorder and they want to change the behavior; use in
school by teacher. (give check mark or stars)
 o Token economics: where if you give some small reinforcement, you can turn that in a larger
reward. Ex: For children in elementary school, the teacher said that collect 5 stars and trade that
into extra recess time or candy or something like that.

- Rules of Operant Conditioning:

o Reinforce directly after behavior.
à It will be too late to wait the parents to go home to reward the good behavior of the children.
Reinforcement and punishment need to be immediately after the behavior occur.
o Use appropriate reinforcement and punishments:
§ Appropriate intensity
à Ex: If you decrease the speech and get $2 ticket, this will not a big deal, and you might race
the speed again. If you get the $200 ticket, you might not want to raise the speed anymore.
o Consistent reinforcement is important
à Some parents say that this method is not work with their kids, then find out that they didn’t
constantly reward the appropriate behavior of the kids. Keep reward till the behavior totally
changed or learned.
o Take care not to reinforce when you think you are punishing.
à Ex: A teacher calls on the name of a student who is lazy and doesn’t follow the rules in
school. She thinks that “call on the name” will the punishment, but actually if the kid likes to get
attentions, and he likes to be call, so he doesn’t change the behavior at all. This will be
reinforcement.

- Limitations of radical or strict behavior modification

o Generally, assumes animals and humans the same to start with
à This is the biggest problem with behavior modification when treated people as animal being
reinforcement.
o Generally, assumes that mind does not act as a mediator
à We think that even little kids will smart to trying to figure out what we are doing as behavior
modification. What we know is that the thought processes, the perception, the activism mediator
between the reinforcement and punishment in your behavior.
§ Rewarding when person is intrinsically motivated may reduce motivation interest
• Lepper and Greene
• Dees
 à The two research shows that children were reinforce for doing things that they really
just enjoy doing.
à It also found out that rather than the reinforcing increase their behavior à actual
study.
Ex: Kids like to do puzzles. Researchers divide these two groups; one group just do the
puzzles for fun; these other do the puzzles for $1. What group will spend more time
working with the puzzles? (The groups that do for fun spend more time)
Why? Doing the puzzles for $1 become the jobs/the chores (don’t be a reward anymore);
and $1 is not that much…
à If you do something you like and you enjoy, you make extra work and longer and
harder than you are paid for doing it, depend on the situation.
§ Rewarding when person is not doing well may send the message that the person is
incompetent.
à If we reward kids with good grade although they didn’t do well in school. (in order to
improve self-esteem – Reward everything) à Kids will begin to questions, why they get
the reward. They will think that the teachers and the parents just reward them, and these
adults don’t think that they can do it, these adults don’t believe on me. à Come
complicated. This isn’t just about reinforcement and punishment. People think and they
modify the response to that reward and the punishment in the environment base on what
they were thinking.
o There is evidence for the mediating role of thoughts and emotions

- Issues related to inappropriate punishment

à Inappropriate punishment is extreme punishment. /Corpal/ punishment that psychology not to lie for
punishment. Corpal means hitting kids.
o Modeling of aggression: The kids learn to do what they experience. Kids will learn to hit
somebody violence is a way to solve problem instead of working to find out a solution.
o Anger, resentment:
o Behaviors going underground: Punisher come the child don’t do the behavior, but when the
punisher go, the child will do.
o Lowered self-esteem:
o Anxiety, depression: inappropriate punishment lead to stress disorder.
- Physical Punishment
 o Some researchers believe that physical punishment is harmless; some don’t.
o Physical punishment increases obedience temporarily, but may increase the possibility of later
aggression.
à Studies show that when kids were punishment physically, they often repeat that kind of
behavior.

3. Comparing Classical and Operant Conditioning:

4. Cognitive – Social Learning:

Learning that acknowledge mental process
The way an animal understands, perceives the environment is as important as environmental
contingencies (outcomes)
- Insight – Kohler
A sudden understanding or realization of how a problem can be solved without rewards and
punishments (Ah-ha Thinking Moment)
Ex: A monkey sudden figure out how to take the bananas in height by put the boxes over each other.
- Mental maps and latern learning – Tolman
Hidden learning that exists without behavioral sights. Learning that occurs in the absence of
reinforcement.
o Mental Map
Ex: There are two groups of rats which were put on experiments to find ways out of the maze. One
group will give reinforcement in the very first day when they find ways out. The other group doesn’t get
food until the eleven day. But then, the second group still find ways out of the maze without
reinforcement. They just create a mental map inside by curiosity.

- Observational learning – Bandura

• Observational Learning: The learning of new behaviors or information by watching and imitating
others (also known as social learning or modeling).
• Bobo Dolls Experiment: This is a true experiment:
- Randomly assigned 3 years old to Experimental and Control groups.
- E group – watched movie with aggression in it
 - C group – watched a nature movie with no aggression
- Two group then observed for level of aggressions
à The children then was allowed to play in the same room with the same Bobo Doll, the kids in
E group were much more aggressive with the Bobo Doll than children who had not seen the modeled
aggression à “Monkey see, monkey do.”
• Vicarious Learning: (Vicarious Reinforcement) watching somebody else being reinforce. Another
factor that determines whether observers imitate a model is whether the model is reinforced or
punished for performing the behavior.
• Model: Imitation of observed behavior is commonly called modeling.
n More likely to imitate the actions of models who are attractive, high status, and somewhat
similar to ourselves.
n Typically, we are unaware of the influence of models on our behavior.
n Role Model: People who kids or even adults want to be like because they love and admire
their role model. Kids observe their role models and try to act like them and do whatever
like their models. Role model : Poor behavior à Kids: Poor Behavior.

• Violence in the media – The impact of media on certain kinds of behavior.

The American Academy of Pediatrics statement: “Extensive research evidence indicates that media
violence can contribute to aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares and fear of
being harmed” (desensitization: become normal)
• Media and Violence:
- Media violence has been found to increase the likelihood of short and long-term aggressive and violent
behaviors as well as lead to desensitization to violence.
- However, problems exist with interpreting these findings, including generalization, outside the
laboratory. Research about media violence should be multi-factorial. Much research about media
violence is quasi-experimental or correlational
à Overlook Media influence: Media doesn’t lead to violence 100%. There are many other factor that can
lead to violence, such as genes, home violence, playing video games. But there is one thing for sure is that
media will lead to normalize the violent behaviors. For example: Sexuality on TV.
Prosocial Behavior and Observational learning: Kids can learn positive behavior (prosocial behavior)
on TV. They can learn about sharing and caring more than violence, depend on what they watch on TV.