individual differences

Question 1

describe how classical conditioning explains why people acquire different phobias

Answer 1

One child may experience a negative situation paired with a clown and so may become frightened of clowns, whereas another child may only experience positive situations with clowns and so would not become frightened.

Question 2

describe how operant conditioning explains how people learn differently

Answer 2

• patterns of rewards can be used to shape differences in behaviours
• a token economy in a prison would have different reward patterns for different prisoners depending on their circumstances

Question 3

describe how social learning theory explains why people learn differently

Answer 3

Different individuals might be exposed to different role models and may relate to different role models due to differences in gender, age and status. Therefore they would model different behaviours to each other.

Question 4

how can social learning theory be used to explain gender differences in learning?

Answer 4

A daughter may idolise her mother more than her father due to relating to her more and so behaviours of the mother would be replicated more than behaviours of the father.

Question 5

how can operant conditioning be used to explain gender differences in learning?

Answer 5

A son may imitate the behaviour of their mother by putting on makeup and dressing up, this may be punished by the father as it is not seen as gender appropriate behaviour and so this would shape the behaviour of a boy in contrast to a girl who would be reinforced for that behaviour.

Question 6

Give an example of supporting evidence for gender differences and operant conditioning.

Answer 6

Fagot (1978) found that boys were reinforced for playing with gender appropriate toys (e.g. bricks) and punished for playing with dolls. Girls were reinforced for staying close to a parent and punished for rough and tumble play.

Question 7

Give an example of supporting evidence for gender differences and SLT.

Answer 7

Bandura (1961) found that boys watching aggressive male model imitated 25.8 of the actions compared to girls watching aggressive female model imitating 5.5 of the actions.

Question 8

give examples of individual differences which may affect social learning

Answer 8

• self esteem
• self efficacy
• prior experience