Learning Theories Flashcards
Describe social learning theory.
- Social learning is based on the fact that you are more likely to immitate behaviour if the other person is rewarded for that behaviour and less likely if they’re punnished. It proposed an idea of observation learning- people observe others and immitate. Vicarious learning.
- Internal mental states are an important part of the process. Intrinsic reinforcement is a form of internal reward such as pride satisfaction, a sense of acomplishement ect
- A role model is someone who is often the same sex, older than you, has an element of power/authority
- We often do not need direct reinforcement to reproduce behaviour. If a child is praised for eating with a spoon, the younger sibling may copy in the hope of also being rewarded. If the child is punnished for eating with their hands, the younger may avoid this behaviour to avoid punnishment. We learn through others mistakes or successes. Vicarious reinforcement, vicarious punnishment and vicarious extinction.
- Attention: in order to learn, you need to pay attention. Anything that distracts your attention will have a negative effect on observational learning. If the model is interesting or there is a novel aspect to the situation, you are more likely to dedicate full attention to learning.
- Retention: the ability to store information. Retention can be affected by a number of factors, but the ability to pull up information later and act on it is vital to observational learning.
- Reproduction: actually performing the behaviour you observed. Further practice of the learned behaviour leads to improvement and skill advancement.
- Motivation: you have to have motivation to imitate the behaviour that has been modelled. Reinforcement and punishment play an important role in motivation.
Evaluate social learning theory in terms of supporting research.
There is support from Cook and Mineka (1988). They studies Rhesus monkeys that initially had no fear of snakes but who displayed alarm after watching the anxious reactions of wild monkeys to the presence of snakes. This demonstrates how the monkeys who had no previous fear of snakes observed the older role model monkeys and imitated the fear of snakes.
Further research is by Boyatzis et al (1995). Two groups of children were used. One group was exposed to short clips of powerrangers whilst the other was not. The children were then led to the playground to play. Those who watched the clips were 7 times more aggressive than the other group. This shows how children imitate aggression from the media.
Evaluate social learning theory in terms of criticisms of the supporting research.
Many of the supporting studies are lab based experiments. This makes the study low in mundane realism and ecological validity. However it allows for a cause and effect relationship to be established which makes the research more valid and therefore more credible.
Some research uses correlations. For example, the more violent the media is that you’re exposed to, the more likely you are to become a violent criminal. This means that the research is unable to infer a cause and effect.
Evaluate social learning theory in terms of an alternative theory.
Social learning theory suggests that behaviour is learnt through the environment (nature). Whereas, the nature argument would say that behaviour is a result of hormones, genes or brain development.
Evaluate social learning theory in terms of applications.
An application of the theory is how it can be used in therapy for those with OCD. If you can observe someone you respect doing the behaviour and being okay after, it may help the individual to recover.
Describe operant conditioning.
- Operant conditioning suggests that reinfrocement is a better learning tool than punnishment as it teaches the child the correct way to behave
- Skinner conducted lab experiments with rats. He placed the rats in to a ‘Skinner box’ that contained electric speakers, levers, lights, electric shock grids and buzzors. If the rats pressed the correct button they were rewarded with a food pellet and if they pressed the wrong button, tehy recieved a punishment. He proposed an ABC model. A is the anticedent for example a green light, B is the behaviour shown for example pressing the button and C represents the concequence, either a reward or punnishment.
- Thorndike conducted research using his puzzle box. Cats were placed inside the box and they had to press a level to open the box and get a reward of food. This was a trial and error process but once the cat had learnt what to do, it immediately knew how to get the reward. He then proposed his law of effect- by rewarding a behaviour it was more likely to be shown again.
- a primary enforcer is a basic need and includes food, water, love and affection. A secondary enforcer is something that helps us to get a primary enforcer. For example money. This is most often seen in a token enconomy programme that is used in schools or prisons. In a school a child may recieve stamps/stickers and when they have collected a designated amount, they might be exchanged for a prize.
- Reinforcement can be unintentional, for example a hungary rat in the skinner box will engage in a series of undesired behaviours. For example scratching. If the reinforcement is delayed this unintentional behaviour may be rewarded. For exmple, wearing lucky socks and scoring a goal.
- Behaviour shaping is a way of getting someone to perform a complex behaviour by breakng it down in to smaller more manageable steps and rewarding each one. For example teaching a young child to write their name.
Evaluate operant conditioning in terms of supporting research.
- Skinner conducted lab experiments with rats. He placed the rats in to a ‘Skinner box’ that contained electric speakers, levers, lights, electric shock grids and buzzors. If the rats pressed the correct button they were rewarded with a food pellet and if they pressed the wrong button, tehy recieved a punishment. He proposed an ABC model. A is the anticedent for example a green light, B is the behaviour shown for example pressing the button and C represents the concequence, either a reward or punnishment.
- Thorndike conducted research using his puzzle box. Cats were placed inside the box and they had to press a level to open the box and get a reward of food. This was a trial and error process but once the cat had learnt what to do, it immediately knew how to get the reward. He then proposed his law of effect- by rewarding a behaviour it was more likely to be shown again.
Evaluate operant conditioning in terms of criticisms of the supporting research.
Many of the supporting studies are lab based. Therefore research is high is validity and there are high levels of control. It is also high in reliability due to the standardised procedure. This makes the research more credible however, as most of the studies are animal studies there is low generalisability meaning that the results can’t be applied to humans whcih imits its usefulness.
Evaluate operant conditioning in terms of opposing research.
Kohler (1924) found that primates often seem to solve problems in a flash of insight rather than trial and error learning. This opposes operant conditioning as it shows behaviours learnt without reinforcement.
Evaluate operant conditioning in terms of a different theory.
An alternative theory for how people learn is social learning theory. This is learning through observation and imitation of a role model.
Describe classical conditioning.
- In stage one of classical conditioning, an unconditioned stimulus leads to an unconditioned response. This means that a stimulus in the environment, for example food, produces a response that is unlearned, for example, salivation.
- A neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus in stage two. A neutral stimulus is something taht is completely unrelated to unconditioned stuimuli or response. For example a metronone, neutra stimulus, is paired with food, unconditioned stimulus until it becomes a conditioned stimulus. Often this stage requires several pairings of the NS and UCR.
- In stage three the conditioned stimulus (food) has been associated with the unconditioned stimulus to crate a new conditioned response, salivation.
- Extinction is the disappearance of a previously learned conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus is no longer presented. The behaviour lies dormant until the response can be reassociated. Spontaneous recovery is when the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned response needs to be paired only once to see the conditioned response.
- Stimulus generalisation is when the conditionedresponse occurs to other similar things to the conditioned response. For example, bells or a chime instead of a metronone. Discrimination is the ability to differentiate between the conditioned stimulus and other similar stimuli. This is the opposite of generalisation.
Evaluate classical conditioning in term of supporting research.
Support for this theory has been found by Ivan Pavlov who conducted a lab experiment using dogs that looked at natural associations between stimuli and reflecx responses. HE found that the dogs began to produce the unconditioned response of salivation to a metronome after multiple pairings. This provides strong, credible research to support the theory of classical conditioning.
Evaluate classical conditioning in term of criticisms of the supporting research.
The research has been criticised as it was an animal study using dogs. In comparison to humans, dogs have a much less complex brain structure and humans have a greater emotional capacity. Humans also have more language and reasoning skills. This means that the research isnt generalisable to humans and therefore the research is lacking in validity.
Evaluate classical conditioning in term of a different theory.
A different theory as to how we learn is called operant conditioning. This theory says that we learn through being rewarded or punnished. This is something that classical conditioning doesnt address.
Evaluate classical conditioning in term of applications.
An application of this theory as a treatment for phobias is called systematic desensitisation. This treatment aims to gradually replace the fear response with relaxation by gradually using counter conditioning. This would help a huge number of patients who suffer from phobias to overcome them.
