TOPIC: LEARNING APPROACH Flashcards

Question

NEGATIVE PUNISHIMENT: What is negative punishment?

Answer 1

Involves taking away something immediately after the behaviour has happened The thing taken away is often something that that repondent enjoys or likes

Answer 2

POSITIVE PUNISHMENT: Adding something to decrease something POSITIVE REINFORCEMMENT: Adding to something to decrease behaviour NEGATIVE PUNSHMENT: Substracting something to decrease behaviour POSITIVE PUNISHMENT: Substracting something to decrease behaviour

Answer 3

Behaviourist approach is scientific The behaviourist approach uses the experimental method to examine observable behaviour in highly controlled laborator conditions This means psychologists can establish cause and effect An example of a controlled experiment conduced by behaviourists is: Skinners Rats, Watson and Rayner Therefore the behaviourist approach has scientific credibility and can be replicated Principles of conditioning are high in external validity because they can be applied to real life situations For example, toke/economy is used in prisons and works as secondary reinforcers These work by rewarding appropraite behaviour worth the token which can be exchanged for privledges Therefore principles of conditioning have many uses, which are generalisable and high in ecological validity Principles of conditioning can also be applied to psychopathology I.E. in the case of phobias systematic desentiasation replaces the feeling of fear with relaxation to the patient is no longer frightened when ijn the presece of the fear stimulus. Therefore the patient is conditioned to associate their phobia with relaxation instead of fear This means that because of conditioning tests what it aims to, it is high in construct validity However, the behaviouris approach relies heavily on research with animals Human beings are more complex than animals and have higher cognitive abilities. It is difficult to generalise findings from animal studies to humans. One example of an animal study in behaviourism is : Skinner 1948 This means that sometimes the behaviourist approach is reductionist because it ignores the complexity of humans, and their though processes

Answer 4

It is a learning theory because it argues that people learn through imitation, identification, modelling and vicarious reinforcement And it falls under the learning approach because SLT involves people learning a new behaviour based on their environment and people within it. However, contary to the behaviourist approach, SLT says we do have some free will

Answer 5

= A person with whom the observer identifies with. The role model is usually attractive, has high social status, is of a similar age and the same gender to the observer. This model can exert influence indirectly by not being physically present in the environment but, for example, seen in the media. = The process by which an observer relates to/ associates themselves with a role model and aspires to become more like that role model.

Answer 6

1. Attention - in order to learn from someone else you need to pay attention 2. Retention - when you remember the behaviour 3. Motor reproduction - the things that give you the ability to do something physically 4. Motivated - Reward and reinforcement ( you repeat the behaviour )

Answer 7

= A type of indirect learning which occurs when an observer sees their role model being rewarded for displaying a certain behaviour. The observer is then motivated to imitate this behaviour, in an effort to receive the same reward

Answer 8

AIM: OVERALL AIM: To investigate observational learning approach AIM 1: To see whether children would reproduce aggressive behaviour when the model has no longer AIM 2: To look for gender differences in the learning of agression IV : 1. Role model - when non-agressive model - agressive model - no model ( control group ) 2. IV sex of the role model - male role model - female role model 3. IV sex of ppts - male - female DV: - Imitative aggression repsonse both physical and verbal - Particially imitative responses e.g mallet agression, sitting/bouncing Bobo doll - Non- imitative agressive response e.g slapping / punching Bobo doll, non-imitative physically and verbal agression, agressive gun play

Answer 9

PROCEDURE: OBSERVATION: watched the child for 20 mins through a one-way mirror male models and independent-observer watched recorded categories every 5 seconds (240 obserations for each child) Stage 1: children individually shown into a room with toys spent 10 minutes playing with toys while being exposed to the condtion they had been alloted: watching aggressive male or female role model watching non-aggressive male or female role model who played quietly/ no role model present Stage 2: Agression Arousal children needed to become angry so all group in the sample were exposed to mild agression each child was taken into a room with nice toys the child began to play with the toys but was then told by the experimenter that these toys were the best ones and reserved for the other children Stage 3: Test for delayed Imitation children entered a room which contained some agressive toys and some non-agressive toys the non-agressive toys included a tea set, crayons, three bears, and a plastic farm animals the aggresive toys included a mallet and peg board, dart guns, and a 3 foot Bobo Doll the child was in the room for 20 minutes, and their behaviour was observal and rated through a one-way mirror Observations were made at 5 second intervals, therfore giving 240 response units for each child other behaviours that didn't imitate that of the model were also recorded e.g. punching the bobo doll on the nose

Answer 10

Results: children who observed the agressive model made far more agressive responses than the other 2 groups this was found for all 3 measures ( imitative, partial, and non-imitative ) boys showed more physical aggression, girls showed more verbal aggression Demonstrates interactionist approach of testerone and how this interacts with social learning boys were more likely to imitate some - sex models but both sexes tended to imitate the same- sex model Conclusion: Witnessing aggression in a model can be enough to produce aggression by an observer children selectivity imitate gender - specific behaviours

Answer 11

- the social learing theory has a scientific credibility because it uses the experimental method to examine observable behaviour in highly controlled laboratory condtions. This means that psychologists can establish cause and effect and the studies can be easily replicated (STRENGTH) - the results of many studies into social learing theory may be influenced by demand characteristics. The artificiality of the task and environment may not reflect the way people learn in everyday life - they lack external validity ( WEAKNESS ) - The principles of social learning theory help us to understand many aspects of human behaviour, e.g. criminal behaviour. Ulrich (2003) found that the strongest cause of violent behaviour in adolescence was association with peer groups where violence was both modelled and rewarded ( STRENGTH ) - social learning theory does not take into, account the influence of biological factors, for example, the role of serotonin on depression and the role of testosterone on aggression. It may be that many of the aggressie boys in Bandura's research had high levels of testosterone that lead to their violent behaviour towards the bobo doll ( WEAKNESS )

Answer 12

We have fears, but not all of us have phobias a phobia is an irrational fear which interferes with the person's life freud believed that phobias are due to conflicts within the unconscious mind

Answer 13

well- know behavioural therapy to learn a new, relaxing response to the phobic, ( conditioned ) stimulus and replace the old one it involves counter-conditioning. Bandura investigated this through fears of snake. Patients with a phobia are exposed to their phobia using an anxiety heirarchy

Answer 14

Fear heirarchy where they rank the phobic situation from least to most terrifying Relaxation training: when an individual is taught relaxtion techniques e.g. breathing techniques, mental imagery techniques Reciprocal inhibition exposing the patient to their phobic situation, while relaxed according to systematic desensitsation, two emotional states cannot exist at the same time e.g. a person cannot be able to be both anxious and relaxed at the same time and the relaxation should overtake the fear

Answer 15

no anxiety heirarchy people exposed to phobic stimulus straight away so there is no opportunity for avoidance. Ideally means fear is nothing to be afraid of this process is called extinction because the controlled stimulus ( the object of fear ) is met without the unconditioned stimulus ( the fear ) can last 2 or more hours only one long session is needed to cure the phobia idea is that there is no opportunity for avoidance, thus removing reinforcement. The client learns the fear is not anything to be afraid of this process is called extinction because the controlled stimulus ( the object of fear ) is met without the unconditioned stimulus ( the fear ) informed consent is needed before this sort of treatment can begin due to its intensity and sensitivity

Answer 16

Imitation is copying or reproducing behaviour that has been learned through observation. When they do this, learners make a judgement about whether it is the right situation in which to reproduce it and whether they are likely to be successful in performing the action. They are also actively testing whether they should reproduce the behaviour again by evaluating the reinforcement they receive.

Answer 17

When a person performs a behaviour and is seen by another person, they are modelling the behaviour for them. If the people who are observing the behaviour judge that the other person should be their role model, they identify with them.

Answer 18

— Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment ignores the biological differences between boys and girls = Social learning theory suggests that we learn from experience, and so ignores other biological or psychological factors, thus adopting environmental determinism. > However, Bandura ignored the finding that “boys, in relation to girls, exhibited 4 significantly more imitative aggression, more aggressive gun play, and more nonimitative aggressive behaviour”. > This may be explained due to boys having higher levels of the hormone testosterone, which has been linked to increased aggressiveness. > Therefore, this suggests that SLT may not be a complete explanation for gender differences in behaviour, due to not accounting for the biological and hormonal differences between the sexes. — Demand characteristics in Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment = Bandura’s study may lack internal validity, due to not entirely investigating the effect of aggressive role models because the Bobo doll is specifically designed to be hit. > The study may also lack mundane realism because it may not represent or measure how children would be aggressive in day-to-day situations, perhaps towards objects or people that are not meant to be struck. > Therefore, participants may have deliberately acted more aggressively towards the doll in order to please the experimenter (the ‘Please-U effect’). This reduces the generalisability of the findings. + Acknowledges the role of human cognition = Human cognitive and decision-making processes may be considered as more complex than that of animals. > SLT has the advantage, over behaviourism, that it recognises the role of mediational processes as the conscious and cognitive insight that humans have into their behaviour. > Therefore, SLT may be a better explanation of human behaviour, compared to behaviourism.

Answer 19

POINT: One strength of SLT is it emphasises the importance of cognitive factors EVIDENCE: Neither classical nor operant conditioning can offer a fully comprehensive account of human learning on their own because cognitive factors are not taken into account. Humans and animals store information about the behaviour of others and use this to make judgements about when it is appropriate to perform certain actions. EVALUATION: This shows that SLT provides a more complete explanation of human learning than the behaviourist approach by recognising the role of meditational processes.

Answer 20

POINT: However, the SLT does not take any biology into account. EVIDENCE: For example, recent research suggests that observational learning is controlled by mirror neurons in the brain, which allow us to empathise with and imitate other people. EVALUATION: This suggests that SLT may make too little reference to the influence of biological factors on social learning.

Answer 21

POINT: Another strength of the SLT is that it has real-world application. EVIDENCE: Social learning principles can account for how children learn from other people around them, as well as through the media, and this can explain how cultural norms are transmitted. Therefore, SLT has proved useful in understanding a range of behaviours such as how children came to understand their gender role by imitating role models in the media. EVALUATION: This increases the value of SLT as it can account for real-world behaviour.

Answer 22

POINT: One limitation of the SLT is that it relies too heavily on evidence from contrived lab studies. EVIDENCE: Many of Bandura's ideas were developed through observation of children's behaviour in lab settings. This raises the problem of demand characteristics as the artificial setting may have encouraged the children to behave as they believe was expected of them therefore reducing the study's internal validity. EVALUATION: This suggests that Bandura's research actually tells us little about how children actually learn aggression in everyday life.

TOPIC: LEARNING APPROACH Flashcards

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