Psychology Chapter on Learning Types

Types of Learning

• Habituation: Responding less strongly to a stimulus over time (e.g., itchy sweater, subway noise, uncomfortable chair).
• Sensitization: Responding more strongly and intensely to a stimulus over time.

Classical Conditioning (CC)

• Ivan Pavlov: Russian psychologist famous for his work on digestion in dogs, leading to the discovery of classical conditioning.
• Acquisition: The initial stage where a conditioned response (CR) is established (e.g., drooling to a bell) through repeated pairings of a conditioned stimulus (CS) with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS).
• Extinction: The reduction and eventual disappearance of the CR after the CS is presented repeatedly without the UCS.
• Stimulus Generalization: When similar CSs elicit CRs (e.g., response to wind chimes or church bells similar to a bell).
• Stimulus Discrimination: Exhibiting a CR only to specific stimuli, not similar ones.
• Second-order conditioning: A NS becomes a CS through association with a previous CS (e.g., light switch + bell = salivation; light switch = salivation).
• Applications of CC: Advertisers pair products with positive stimuli to create positive associations.
• CC & Taste Aversions: Learned aversions to specific tastes after a single pairing with illness (long delay possible), showing little generalization. Useful in treating patients undergoing chemotherapy (scapegoat food). This contradicts the idea of equipotentiality (not all CSs are equally likely to be conditioned).
• CC and Fears: Explains acquisition of fears and phobias, like the Little Albert experiment, demonstrating stimulus generation to similar stimuli (rabbit, dog, coat, masks) and stimulus discrimination to other stimuli (cotton balls). Also applicable in treating phobias through methods like counter-conditioning (Mary Cover Jones, Little Peter).

Operant Conditioning

• Definition: Learning controlled by the consequences of an organism's behavior.
• Instrumental Conditioning: Another name for operant conditioning.
• Thorndike's Law of Effect: Responses followed by positive outcomes are more likely to be repeated; those followed by unpleasant outcomes are less likely to be repeated. This was demonstrated using the "puzzle box" experiment with cats.
• Reinforcement: Outcomes that strengthen the probability of a response.
  • Positive Reinforcement: Adding a pleasant stimulus to increase the likelihood of a behavior.
  • Negative Reinforcement: Removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase the likelihood of a behavior.
• Punishment: Outcomes that weaken the probability of a response.
  • Positive Punishment: Adding an unpleasant stimulus to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.
  • Negative Punishment: Removing a pleasant stimulus to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.
• Discriminative Stimulus: Signals the presence of reinforcement (e.g., snapping fingers for attention or treats).
• Schedules of Reinforcement: Patterns of delivering reinforcers.
  • Continuous reinforcement: Reinforcing a response every time it occurs.
  • Partial reinforcement: Reinforcing a response only some of the time (leads to greater resistance to extinction).

Effectiveness of Punishment

• Punishment is generally less effective than reinforcement.
• It has disadvantages, including:
  • Focusing on what not to do, rather than what to do.
  • Creating anxiety.
  • Potentially encouraging subversive behavior.
  • Modeling aggressive behavior.
• Studies often show a positive correlation between parental physical punishment and child aggression.

Explore the different types of learning including habituation and sensitization. Dive into classical conditioning concepts pioneered by Ivan Pavlov, and understand how acquisition, extinction, and stimulus responses interact. Test your knowledge on fundamental psychological learning principles.