Individual Differences in Learning

Question 1

Demonstrate how a child would acquire a phobia through classical conditioning, using the formula.

Answer 1

1) Before
Clown (UCS) --> No response
Balloon popping (NS) --> Fear (UCR)
2) During
Clown (UCS) + balloon popping (NS) --> Fear (UCR)
3) After
Clown (CS) --> Fear (CR)

Question 2

Describe how classical conditioning can explain why people acquire different phobias and how they got them.

Answer 2

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 3

Describe how operant conditioning can explain why people learn differently.

Answer 3

Patterns of rewards can be used to shape differences in behaviours.

Question 4

How might operant conditioning using a token economy lead to people learning and behaving differently?

Answer 4

A token economy in a prison would have different reward patterns for different prisoners depending on their circumstances, e.g. one prisoner gets rewarded for every day they don’t fight, whereas another would get reward every day they make their bed.

Question 5

Describe how social learning theory can explain why people learn differently.

Answer 5

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 6

How might one child become a thief and another child does not based on SLT?

Answer 6

A - A child may idolise and so pay attention to the actions of one of their friends
R - They may see their friend steal something and receive no consequence and so retain the information for later
R - They later reproduce this behaviour if they have low self-esteem and high self-efficacy
M - Motivation may occur through no positive reinforcements from friends, no punishment, and an internal satisfaction

Question 7

How might one child become afraid of dogs and another child does not based on SLT?

Answer 7

The child may idolise their sibling and see that they are afraid of dogs and when the sibling comes into contact with a dog and runs away scared, then facing positive reinforcement for avoiding their phobia, the child may reproduce this behaviour.

Question 8

How can SLT be used to explain gender differences in learning?

Answer 8

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 9

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

Answer 9

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 10

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

Answer 10

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 11

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

Answer 11

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 12

How might differences in how we learn occur in social learning theory too?

Answer 12

Extraneous variables such as self efficacy, self-esteem, prior experiences, etc will play a part in whether or not a behaviour of a role model will be reproduced.

Question 13

Give examples for supporting evidence for the 3 learning theories.

Answer 13

CC - Pavlov
OC - Thorndike’s cat
SLT - Bandura

Question 14

Is the supporting evidence reliable?

Answer 14

P - Yes
E - They follow a standardised procedure (e.g. Pavlov ringing a bell then producing food, Bandura going into different rooms in the same order)
E - This makes the studies easy to replicate and so test for consistency

Question 15

Is the supporting evidence valid?

Answer 15

P - Yes
E - Studies take place in lab environment where conditions are controlled
E - Control over EVs allows for cause and effect
P - No
E - Studies take place in a lab environment where conditions are artificial
E - They are not natural to the ppt and so behaviour would be unnatural and would not reflect the real world

Question 16

Is the supporting evidence generalisable?

Answer 16

P - No
E - Much research uses animals (e.g. Pavlov’s dogs)
E - Due to the qualitative differences in the brain animals may act differently to humans and so research cannot be fully generalisable to humans

Question 17

Is it deterministic?

Answer 17

P - Yes
E - They all argue that someone else shapes your behaviour and that the way you learn is not in your control
E - Therefore it ignores the fact that people have free will and can make their own decisions

Question 18

Are there other explanations? How does it make this reductionist?

Answer 18

P - Yes
E - Biological research suggests that differences in behaviour can be down to differences in the brain (e.g. brain damage to structure, hormone levels, etc)
E - Therefore research is reductionist as it ignores factors that are due to nature