

Classical Conditioning leads to the
development of a phobia or some other
contingency
Operant Conditioning explains the behavior
that maintains this fear
PHOBIA
FETISH

classical Conditioning

Operant Conditioning
CS
One possible account!!!
(Some fears are more
likely than others)
SCARY/
UPSETTING
EXPERIENCE
CR

Sight of pickles produces fear (unpleasant state)

Running away reduces fear (removes unpleasant
state)

Running away is negatively reinforcing

Can easily lead to more extreme ways to reduce
fear that significantly hamper normal
functioning

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and
my own special world to bring them up in, and I’ll
guarantee to take any one at random and train him to
be any type of specialist I might select - doctor,
lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, beggar-man
and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his
ancestors.” (1928)





Complex behaviors, even fears, can be
conditioned
Neutral stimuli: white rat, masks, rabbit, etc.
Steel rod (noise)  emotional reaction
Noise + stimuli
Stimuli  emotional reaction


A phenomenon in which a conditioned
response is elicited by stimuli that are similar,
but not identical, to the conditioned stimulus
Example: “Little Albert”




S.O.R.
Latent
Insight
Observational



Behaviorists: your learning history (how you were
trained to react) dictated your response
Moving away from simple Stimulus-Response (S-R)
approach to allow a place for thoughts
Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) accounts for
the impact of the individual’s thoughts,
interpretations and emotions


Cognitive conditioning: thoughts can change learning
S-O-R theorists: your interpretation (based on your thought
process) dictated your response
•
•
•
•
•
Edward Toleman
Three rat
experiment.
Latent means hidden.
Sometimes learning
is not immediately
evident.
Rats needed a reason
to display what they
have learned.

Latent learning: learning occurs but isn’t
apparent until incentive to demonstrate

Rats explored maze for 17 days
 Control
 Reinforced group
 Control then reinforced

Evidence of cognition

Learning that is not directly observable


No reinforcement  no motivation
Reinforcement  motivation


Mental representation of the environment
A cognitive map is latent learning stored as a
mental image


Sudden understanding about what is required
to solve a problem
Recognizing that similar problems have similar
solutions


Insight is when learning seems to occur in a sudden
“flash” as elements of a situation come together
Learning sets refer to increasing effectiveness at
problem solving through experience, i.e., organisms
“learn how to learn”


Wolfgang Kohler and his
Chimpanzees.
Some animals learn
through the “ah ha”
experience.
Click pic to see insight learning.



Albert Bandura and his BoBo Doll
We learn through modeling behavior from others.
Observational learning + Operant Conditioning = Social
Learning Theory
Click pic to see some observational learning.


Motor Reproduction
STAGES TO BANDURA**
 Rewarded
aggressive
model led to most
aggressive behavior
 Punished aggressive
model led to least
aggressive behavior


Learning takes place by watching others’
behavior
 Modeling: process of observing & imitating
specific behaviors
 Learn morals from stories
 Learn from others’ mistakes
Mirror neurons: fire when animals performs
action & when animals sees another animal
performing action

Cells in prefrontal cortex that become activated
by specific motions when an animal both
performs and observes that action
Near motor cortex
 Only activated when seeing another perform an
action
 Similar system observed in humans, but individual
mirror neurons only identified in monkeys so far.



Learning by watching others; imitation
Modeling

Media violence and aggression?
 Correlational designs
 Longitudinal designs
 Laboratory studies
 Violent vs. nonviolent presentations and
observe subsequent behavior
 Field studies
 Boxing matches
Learning by
observation begins
early in life. This
14-month-old child
imitates the adult
on TV in pulling a
toy apart.

Animals tend to revert to instinctive behavior
that can interfere with the learning process.

Keller and Breland’s misbehaving pigs and raccoons
 Preparedness
 Evolutionary predisposition to learn certain pairings of feared
stimuli
 Ex: infants can’t be conditioned to fear most inanimate objects (e.g.
blocks)
 Ex: monkeys learn to fear toy snakes and crocodiles - not flowers

Evolutionary predisposition to fear some things
more than others
Consider:
 Cars vs. snakes?
 Guns vs. lightning?

Classical Conditioning


UCS, UCR, CS, CR
Operant Conditioning
Reinforcement vs. Punishment
 Positive (ADD) and Negative (SUBTRACT)


Cognitive Models of Learning
S-O-R
 Latent, Insight, Observational


Biological Influences on Learning