The Learning Perspective

Objectives of the Unit:

Describe and evaluate the cultural context and development, the conceptual framework, the methodology, and the application of the learning model.

Describe and evaluate theories and empirical studies within this perspective.

Explain how cultural, ethical, gender, and methodological considerations affect the interpretation of behaviour from a learning perspective.

Compare theories, empirical studies and the conceptual framework of this model with the other perspectives.

Identify and explain the strengths and limitations of learning theory explanations of behaviour.

Explain the extent to which free will and determinism are integral in this perspective.

Explain the extent to which learning can be explained by alternatives to traditional behaviourist approaches.

Assess the extent to which cognitive, biological, and environmental factors contribute to explanations of behaviour within the learning perspective.

Learning Perspective

Objectives

Describe and evaluate the cultural context and development, the conceptual framework, the methodology, and the application of the learning model.

It was developed in the United States in the ‘50s. It was a firm contrast to Freud’s psychoanalytical concepts because it relied solely, utterly, and firmly on empiricism (experimental method). See “Key concepts/Ideas” and “Key theorists and their contributions”

Describe and evaluate theories and empirical studies within this perspective.

See “Key theorists and their contributions”

Explain how cultural, ethical, gender, and methodological considerations affect the interpretation of behavior from a learning perspective.

The different learning styles of people, cultures, and genders can affect interpretation of a behavior as some might not respond to the reward or punishment.  Genders and cultures could also respond differently to a stimulus or have a different reaction to the stimulus making the outcome of a generalized public unclear. Also the fact that different cultures value and fear different things. If a culture or a certain gender is taught to fear something, it will probably be easier to develop a phobia to it and be harder to rid a person of that phobia.

Compare theories, empirical studies and the conceptual framework of this model with the other perspectives.

Identify and explain the strengths and limitations of learning theory explanations of behavior. See “Strengths and weaknesses”

Explain the extent to which free will and determinism are integral in this perspective.

The learning perspective is a very deterministic science.  Actually, this is one of the main assumptions of behaviorism.  Behaviorists believe that all behavior is trained, conditioned, reinforced, and essentially reflexive.  Hence, free will is basically impossible if looked at through the lenses of an extreme behaviorist.  This is because behaviorists decide to be reductionist, reducing everything down to only observable behavior.  Is this a strength or a weakness? (See also “Strength and weakness” section)

Explain the extent to which learning can be explained by alternatives to traditional behaviorist approaches.

Assess the extent to which cognitive, biological, and environmental factors contribute to explanations of behavior within the learning perspective.

Assumptions

• Empiricism (The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge.)
• Determinism (The philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs.)
• Parsimony (In learning perspective they are all the things that can be seen, behaviorists do not infer, they observe.)

Key Concepts/Ideas

• Animals can be conditioned to be in anyway
• Operant conditioning, and classical conditioning.
• Social learning theory introduced insight, latent learning, and models
• Insight:  When, after encountering a problem for some time, new ideas arise in order to solve it
• Latent Learning:  Concepts may be learned but not used until reinforcer is added.
• Models: Subjects learn from watching other people and copying the ways they behave.

Key Theorists and Their Contributions

Ivan Pavlov was the first experimenter to research classical conditioning.  In what started as a simple, physiological experiment with a dog, turned out to be the discovery of what came to be known as conditioning, more specifically, classical conditioning.

            -He was performing some experiments on a dog, and found that he could “condition” the dog to salivate on the sound of a bell. After repeatedly ringing the bell, and introducing food.  Eventually, the bell alone was sufficient to make the poor pup drip.

James Watson was the pioneer psychology theorist that translated the ideas of Pavlov’s classical conditioning to humans. 

            -His famous work is little Albert.  He conditioned poor little Albert to reject white fluffy things by continually including LOUD NOISES upon the introduction of the white fluffy thing.  Soon enough, the fluffy white thing alone would make little Albert upset.  This research introduced the idea of stimulus generalization.  Not only the white bunny (for example) would scare the poor baby.  White fluffy pillows, etc could also raise fear from Al.  Watson was confident that if you gave him a child, he could make him into anything (criminal, business man, etc.)

B.F. Skinner brought a new face into the world of behaviorism.  Operant Conditioning is very similar to classical conditioning.  But in include reinforces.  After a response occurs, due to a certain stimulus, reinforces (positive or negative) are inserted that will increase or diminish the probability that the behavior may occur again. 

            -His famous work is the Skinner box where he would condition, pigeons, mice, and even his own daughter to learn anything he wanted them to.

Bandura gave us the concepts of Social Learning.  With the help of the bobo doll experiment he showed us how there can be latent learning that is not seen until a reinforcer is included.  Little babies learned to either hit, or not hit a bobo doll, but only the ones that saw the “model” receive no reinforcement or positive reinforcement for beating up the doll actually engaged in that activity.  He also came up with the concept of insight learning, which dealt with monkeys finding ingenious ways to arrive to a solution (getting a banana).

Attitude Towards Determinism

Behaviorism thoroughly embraced the idea of determinism.  Key researchers such as Watson, and Skinner believed that the environment could be changed to mold an individual to behave in any way they please.  In the rough words of James Watson “Give me 5 babies and I’ll make one a businessman, a cook, a football star, an actor, and a criminal.  The definition of determinism is: The philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs.  Behaviorism states that everything is learned due to the environment.  Thus, determinism is a key idea.  It happens to be one of the learning perspective’s main assumptions.

Methods Used

• Experimental – scientific method
• Observation – direct and effect
• Interview – surveys etc.
• Verbal Protocol – thinking aloud

Applications

Application of classical learning

One example of classical conditioning in use is in animal training.  Pet trainers today mostly use classical conditioning to train animals, as it is more humane than previous methods.  Many trainers use a small clicking device that they click while giving the animal a treat. That animal then associates the clicking sound with the treat, much like Pavlov’s dogs.

http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/

Advertising serves as another example of classical conditioning.  In most cigarette and beer advertisements, you see young people having a good time at a party or half dressed on a beach.  The potential customers began to associate the happy feeling with the product.  This also works with happy jingles and songs in commercials. (I love fishes cause they’re so delicious...  Didn’t that make you want to go eat some goldfish? I thought so)

Another example of classical conditioning is a personal experience from the author this web site.  The writer was robbed at gunpoint while in college.  This was a traumatic experience for him/her (a name isn’t given).  As a result, the writer began to associate the feelings of the moment with the time it occurred, at dusk. He/She wasn’t able to feel safe during the late hours of the afternoon no matter how safe they were because they were reliving the incident when the light started to fade.  This could also be evidenced in victims of spousal abuse or any traumatic violence from a man, some develop a distrust of all men because of the pain caused by one of them

(This is also the web site where I got the stuff on k-mart.)

http://www.as.wvu.edu/~sbb/comm221/chapters/pavlov.htm

 Application of operant learning conditions

These Websites mostly just explain what operant conditioning is and use that as an example, (using it for positive or negative reinforcement, etc.).

http://chd.gse.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase/strategies/behaviorist/OperantConditioning.htm

http://www.dushkin.com/connectext/psy/ch06/appofoc.mhtml

Both

 http://www.uwm.edu/People/vaishali/psych205/environ4.html

Ethical Considerations

·        Their choice of method - especially verbal protocol

·        Confusion of the participant

·        Cultural difference between participant and observer

·        Behavior that the participant’s culture may deem as normal, might be considered unusual by the observer’s, or vice versa.

·        Gender issues

·        Learning styles

·        Maybe you're not a social person

·        Right to withdrawal

·        Experiments that require intrusive devices, like the cutting of the corpus callosum, make it difficult for the participant withdrawal afterwards

·        Deceiving the participant

            “The researcher must decide what can be published without consent and must be aware that the people studied will not be able to recall everything they have divulged or done during the experiment” (purple book pg.77)

Terms to know/Vocabulary with definitions

Stimulus – Anything in the environment, which an organism can detect and respond to

Response - A reaction, as that of an organism or a mechanism, to a specific stimulus

Classical Conditioning - A process of behavior modification by which a subject comes to respond in a desired manner to a previously neutral stimulus that has been repeatedly presented along with an unconditioned stimulus that elicits the desired response.

Conditioned Response - A new or modified response elicited by a stimulus after conditioning. Also called conditioned reflex.

Operant Conditioning - A process of behavior modification in which the likelihood of a specific behavior is increased or decreased through positive or negative reinforcement each time the behavior is exhibited, so that the subject comes to associate the pleasure or displeasure of the reinforcement with the behavior. Also called instrumental conditioning.

Reinforcement – a positive outcome of a behavior that is more likely to be repeated

Shaping - a behavior that is changed gradually

Modeling – imitating the behavior of a person

Observational Learning – learning behaviors because of what is observed

Evaluation of Strengths and Weaknesses

Weaknesses

• Does not account for acquisition of first language
• Does not account for random behavior
• Does not account for interaction between people

Strengths

• Strictly empirical using scientific method as means of information
• Applicable to training simple animal and human behaviors  
• Gave information about insight in all animals
• Methods could be used in school to teach students

Web Links

http://www.revision-notes.co.uk/revision/66.html

http://www.revision-notes.co.uk/IB/Psychology/

http://web.isp.cz/jcrane/Psych1/LearningRev.html

See also web links throughout notes

Annotated Review

Third Edition Psychology – Gleitman

Learning – pg 122

Classical Conditioning – pg A116

Cognitive Development – pg A116

Cognitive Learning – pg A116

Instrumental (operant) conditioning – pg A121

Approaches to Psychology – Glassman

Behaviorist Approach – pg 494

Classical Conditioning – pg 496

Cognitive and learning – pgs 151-2, 155-7

Operant Conditioning – pg 504

Further notes by Gonzo:

Methods:

Method used in this perspective can include experimental, and observational. The methods show the role of the environment on behavior.

Pavlov’s dogs (Ivan Pavlov): Pavlov found that by ringing a bell and then immediately giving the dog some food, the bell came to evoke the same response as the food itself-salivation. First the unconditioned stimulus was presented to the dogs (Food). This would then be followed by an unconditioned response (salivation). Pavlov then noted that learning is based on forming a connection between stimuli. In this case he added a neutral stimulus (bell). At the beginning the bell had no effect on salivation. After the dog associated the bell with the food, the bell became the conditioned stimulus, and the salivation of the dog became the conditioned response.    

http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/feldman4/chapter1/destinations1/deluxe-content.html#

This link goes to a page that offers a slide show review about classical conditioning.

Watson and Rayner (1920) (Little Albert): Taught a young boy named Albert to become afraid of a gentle white rat. At the beginning of the study, Albert was unafraid of the white rat and played freely with the animal. While he was playing with the rat he would make a loud noise behind the child’s head (smashing two bars together). Albert was startled and began to cry. Thereafter, he avoided the rat and would cry whenever it was brought close to him. In Pavlovian terms, a bond had been established between the sight of the rat (CS) and the arousal of Albert's autonomic nervous system (CR). Once this Stimulus-Respond bond was fixed, fear could also be elicited by showing Albert any furry object. This is called stimulus generalization. Stimulus generalization is defined as the tendency to make the same response to two similar stimuli.

http://web.umr.edu/~psyworld/classical_conditioning.htm

Applications:

·         One special and very powerful example of classical conditioning is taste aversion. Taste aversion is a case where an organism learns to have an aversion to the taste or smell or other characteristics of some food or drink. For example, after consuming too much alcohol, it’s not unusual for someone to associate the smell or even sight of the alcohol with the sickness that resulted from consuming the alcohol.

·         Another application of classical conditioning works with advertising. For example, many beer ads prominently feature attractive young women wearing bikinis. The young women (Unconditioned Stimulus) naturally elicit a favorable, mildly aroused feeling (Unconditioned Response) in most men. The beer is simply associated with this effect. The same thing applies with the jingles and music that accompany many advertisements.

Ethical issues about methodology:

There are several ethical issues that are brought up with the methodologies used in this perspective. The use of human subjects in certain experiments is one of them. Two examples of this are:

·         John B, Watson: “ Little Albert” Classical conditioning. He conditioned Albert to be afraid of whit fluffy stoof. He wasn’t recovered from this phobia.

·         Skinner used his own daughters in some of her methods.

Strengths

·         Scientific method used. Validity of results. Falsifiable data.

·         This perspective explains simple behaviors present in organisms.

·         This perspective can be properly applied, to humans, animals, to alter or change unwanted behaviors.

The learning perspective

Historical back grounds:

            As most of the approaches in psychology we can also argue that we can find the origins of the learning perspective back from the ancient Greece times. The environmentalism / nurture, which is one of the basic thoughts expressed in the learning perspective. This discussion about nature vs nurture continues in to all times in Europe and it confronts with the idea of dualism (a man consists of a soul and a body that can be studied separately) which was brought up by the French philosopher Descartes .But more recently we can say that at the turn of the 20^th century is where we can find what most influenced the learning perspective. At this time psychologist tended to use either the experimental study or the introspective analysis to study their approaches. But both of them had many limitations due to the fact that at this time they didn’t had X-rays, or EEGs and all of those advanced researched methods. This pushed William James to come out with the idea of functionalism (psychologists should focus on how behavior relates to its purpose). Which leads us up to parsimony, one of the basic assumptions of the learning perspective. What parsimony basically says is that researcher should seek the simplest possible explanation for any event. If we look from this point of view we can also say that the learning perspective was a reaction to introspection making it also a reaction to psychodynamic.

Basic assumptions

            The main idea of the learning perspective is to focus on the relationship between the environment and behavior. The learning perspective mainly does not pay much attention to internal invents such as biological or cognitive processes. Because of the idea of Parsimony, as I explained above this principle only seeks for processes that can be observe directly and simply. Also because the learning perspective concentrates on the explanation of how human learns, this perspective particularly focuses on the idea of associationism. Which supports the idea that human learns by associating and making connections between ideas and events. Learning: changes in behavior as a result of experience.

Key researchers:

Based on the assumptions above the following 3 approaches are presented in the learning perspective.

l        Classical conditioning (mainly represented by Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson)

l        Operant conditioning (mainly represented by B.F Skinner and Edwin Lynn Thorndike)

l        Social learning (mainly represented by Albert Bandura)

Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1936)

            A Russian physiologist　who got the novel prize in 1950 with his main work of digestion. But his empirical study of reflexes and conditioning are what became influential for behaviorism (the leaning perspective). His works describes the basic rules of what is called the classical conditioning (the approach that explain learning as being a reflex response to a stimulus). In his main studies he used dogs, but he originally was paying more attention on salivation which is a reflex involved in the dog’s digestion process.

            In his studies he called unconditioned response, those reflexes that already exist in all organisms, and unconditioned stimulus the specific stimulus that elicits a specific response. (e.g. a dog salivates (UR) when food is presented (US)). But what Pavlov discovered was that by conditioning he could condition his dogs to salivate when a neutral stimulus such as a bell sound was presented. This is because when the NS is presented with the US the dog learns an association between the bell sound and the food. So eventually the dog will salivate whenever it hears the bell sound because he would associate the sound of the bell with being fed. In this case the NS (the bell sound) will become a conditioned stimulus (CS) and the salivation will be the conditioned response (CR). And with some further studies he led in to higher-order conditioning. In which he explains that he could use the CS to condition the dog to respond to another stimulus that had nothing to do with the food (US) in the beginning.

            From all of this studies Pavlov concluded that the UR are innate whereas the CR are learned through experience. And this process in which a NS becomes a CS through conditioning has become known as classical conditioning.

http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/misc/pavlov.html

John B. Watson (1878 – 1958)

            Watson is known as the founder of behaviorism. He was both gifted and provocative. He initially studied in introspectionism, but he ends up finding this approach being excessively vague for psychology, especially for his works of mental processes. He began working with animals, and completes his PhD in only three years. He often restricted theoretical descriptions to factors, in such a way that it could be observed and measured directly. In one of his major works (Behaviorism (1930)) he promotes his ideas, which he was willing to tests them even using his own children. He also focus on child rearing, one of his famous quotes is “give me a dozen healthy infants, well formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type pf specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and yes even beggar man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocation and race of his ancestors.”

http://www.redeemer.on.ca/~psychist/behavioral_psych/Watson/Watson.htm

Edwin Lynn Thorndike (1874-1949)

He studied psychology at Harvard University under William James, but he was forced to transfer to Columbia University because of financial difficulties. He mainly studied problem solving on animals using a series of puzzles-like tasks. One of his famous experiments on problem solving was using a cat and confining it in a box from which it could release it self by pressing against a lever. From all of these studies he published in 1898 the book “animal intelligence”. He also came out with the law of effect (meaning that any response which leads to an outcome that is satisfying to the organism is likely to be repeated). This was a form of learning close to associationism, because it focuses on the fact that response and consequence must be closely linked together.

muskingum.edu/~psychology/psycweb/history/thorndike.htm

B.F Skinner (1904-1990

            He can be classified as the best known American behaviorist, and the founder of operant conditioning. He studied at Hamilton college and then Harvard university, he taught at the university of Minnesota and Indiana during the second world war. He did research with military flavor, including a program designed to teach pigeons to direct missiles to targets while flying in the nosecone. He developed operant conditioning. He did many animal studies similar to Thorndike but influenced by Watson. After he becomes famous with the studies that he did with rats in a box which eventually becomes known as the Skinner Box. In which he finds out that for learning to occur its required an extensive behavior. This leads him to the conclusion that frequency of response becomes the standard measure of operant learning. Which can be criticized in many ways, operant conditioning evolves a unique set of assumptions. Based on the reinforces and reinforcement.

http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/skinner.html

Albert Bandura (1973)

He was one of the theorists who concentrated more on social learning theory rather than cognitive psych or other learning perspective theories. He received his bachelors’ degree in Psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1949. He mainly worked with aggression on children’s behaviors. And he focuses more on his idea that environment can affect the behavior but also the behavior can also affect or cause the environment as well. His worked strongly represent what is model learning, and how the children can learn their behaviors by just watching adult’s behaviors. One of his famous works done on this is the booboo-doll experiment, where aggressive behavior of adults were shown to the children and it was tested to see if whether or not it is more likely for the children to repeat the behavior when the adult was priced or punished from his behavior. All of his works made him one of the pioneers of the social learning theory. Which gives him a place on the learning perspective, from the fact that he supported some how the idea that learning happens from the experience in life.

http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/bandura.html

Attitude towards determinism

            The learning perspective view towards behavior does not support determinism. As we already know determinism is the idea that our behavior is innate, and in most of the cases it is believed that it is something that we are born with so it is not able to learn it but just it develops inside of us. One example of a perspective that supports this idea will be the biological perspective, since it focus more on how the organisms of the humans dictates our behavior. But in the learning perspective, we can argue that it does not supports the idea of determinism in anyways since it focus on how we learn our behaviors. One of the basic assumptions that we looked at in the beginning of the paper, states Learning: changes in behavior as a result of experience. Also the learning perspective focuses on how the environment takes control over our learning. We can see this on Banduras social learning theory as well as the classical conditioning and operant conditioning.

            In social learning theory we looked at how children learn their behavior by modeling the adults or social models. In classical conditioning we looked at how the stimulus from the outside can dictate our behaviors. And in operant conditioning we saw how we are likely to do certain behaviors depending on its outcomes.

            Therefore we can see and conclude that the social learning theory does not support at all the determinism idea of the human’s behaviors.

Weaknesses

As we can see from all the description of the perspective, we can understand that the learning perspective is manly based on the de idea of looking at the interactions between an organism and its environment. But because this perspective concentrates too much on analyzing what we can see from the outside it lacks to study consciousness and internal subjective states. Some critics say that treating the organism like a black box means that one ignores the mental processes that are central to human behavior. But many behaviorist responded to this by simply saying that such events are scientifically unknowable, and in case do not cause behavior. But today we know that those things are not scientifically unknowable because today we have many technologies such as the CAT scan etc. to investigate what is happening inside the organism which dictates some of our behaviors. Also the learning perspective does not believe that behavior is determined, but by ignoring some stuff that are going inside our body just because we are not able to see them does not necessary mean that it doesn’t exist. Also in cases where the root of the problem is a brain damage or some damage in an organism, the cause of the abnormal behavior can’t be fully describe by the learning perspective. On the other hand we can also argue that many of the experimental methods that are used in the research of the learning perspective are based on animal research so we can’t generalize the same results that we get for a rat the same for a human. Many of the weaknesses of this perspective is based on the fact that the learning perspective focuses too much in the idea of parsimony.