Module 2 Part 2: Learning
Social learning theory, developed by Albert Bandura, posits that people learn behaviors, attitudes, and values through observing and imitating others. It emphasizes the importance of observational learning, imitation, and modeling in the acquisition of new behaviors.
Observational Learning: Individuals can learn new behaviors by watching others, without direct experience or reinforcement. This type of learning can occur in various settings, including family, school, and media.
Modeling: The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior. Models can be real people, such as parents or peers, or symbolic figures, such as characters in books or on television.
Attention: For observational learning to occur, an individual must pay attention to the model. Factors influencing attention include the attractiveness, competence, and relevance of the model.
Retention: The observer must be able to remember the behavior that has been observed. This involves encoding and storing the information in memory.
Reproduction: The observer must have the physical and mental ability to reproduce the observed behavior. This may involve practice and refinement of the behavior.
Motivation: There must be a reason or motivation for the individual to imitate the behavior. This motivation can come from external reinforcement, vicarious reinforcement (observing others being rewarded for the behavior), or intrinsic motivation.
Vicarious Reinforcement: Learning that occurs by observing the consequences of others' behaviors. If a model is rewarded for a behavior, the observer is more likely to imitate that behavior.
Self-Efficacy: An individual's belief in their own ability to successfully perform a behavior. Higher self-efficacy increases the likelihood of adopting and performing observed behaviors.
Example
Bobo Doll Experiment: One of Bandura's most famous experiments involved children observing an adult model behaving aggressively towards a Bobo doll. The children who observed the aggressive model were more likely to imitate the aggressive actions when given the opportunity, demonstrating the impact of observational learning.
Applications
Education: Teachers can use modeling to demonstrate desired behaviors and skills, encouraging students to imitate them.
Therapy: Therapists can use role-playing and modeling to teach clients new coping skills and behaviors.
Media Influence: Understanding the impact of media on behavior, such as the influence of television and video games on aggression and social behaviors.
Summary: Social learning theory highlights the powerful role of observation and imitation in learning new behaviors. It integrates cognitive, behavioral, and environmental factors, explaining how people can acquire behaviors without direct reinforcement, simply by watching others. This theory has broad applications in education, therapy, and understanding the influence of media on behavior.
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach to psychology that examines psychological traits—such as memory, perception, and language—from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to understand how natural selection has shaped human behavior and mental processes over time.
Natural Selection: Just as physical traits have evolved to enhance survival and reproduction, evolutionary psychologists believe that certain psychological traits have also evolved for these purposes.
Adaptation: Psychological traits are seen as adaptations—solutions to problems faced by our ancestors in their environments. These adaptations helped our ancestors survive and reproduce, thereby passing on these advantageous traits to future generations.
Universal Behaviors: Many human behaviors are thought to be universal and innate, meaning they are found across different cultures and are hardwired into our brains due to their evolutionary significance.
Mate Selection: Evolutionary psychology often examines mating behaviors, suggesting that traits considered attractive are those that enhance reproductive success. For instance, men might be attracted to signs of fertility in women, while women might seek men with resources or high status.
Parental Investment: The theory posits that differences in the amount of investment males and females put into offspring can explain differences in behavior and preferences between the sexes. For example, females typically invest more in offspring and may be choosier in selecting mates.
Social Behavior: Many social behaviors, such as altruism and aggression, are studied within an evolutionary framework. Theories such as kin selection (helping relatives) and reciprocal altruism (helping others with the expectation of future help) are used to explain these behaviors.
Cognitive Processes: Evolutionary psychology also explores how cognitive processes have developed to solve specific problems our ancestors faced, such as finding food, avoiding predators, and navigating social hierarchies.
Applications
Understanding Phobias: Some fears, such as those of snakes or heights, might be explained as evolutionary adaptations to threats faced by our ancestors.
Language Development: The capacity for language is considered an evolved trait that enabled more effective communication and social cohesion.
Social Dynamics: Investigates how evolutionary pressures have shaped social behaviors and relationships, including cooperation, competition, and conflict.
Example
Fear of Spiders: An evolutionary psychologist might argue that a fear of spiders developed because those who were wary of potentially venomous creatures were more likely to survive and reproduce.
Summary: Evolutionary psychology provides a framework for understanding the origins and functions of human behavior and mental processes by considering the evolutionary pressures that shaped them. It integrates principles from evolutionary biology with psychological research to explain why we think and behave the way we do.
Learning is the process of acquiring new knowledge, skills, attitudes, or behaviors through experience, practice, or study.
Example: A child learns to ride a bicycle by practicing repeatedly until they can balance and pedal without falling.
Latent learning is learning that occurs without any obvious reinforcement or immediate demonstration of the behavior learned. The knowledge is not immediately expressed but can be used later when needed.
Example: A rat learns the layout of a maze without being rewarded. When food is placed at the end of the maze, the rat quickly finds its way, indicating it had learned the maze layout earlier.
Observational learning, also known as social learning, is learning by observing and imitating the behaviors of others.
Example: A child learns to tie their shoes by watching their older sibling do it and then mimicking the steps.
Modeling is the process of learning behaviors by observing and imitating others. It is a key component of observational learning.
Example: A person learns how to cook a new recipe by watching a cooking show and then replicating the steps in their own kitchen.
A stimulus is any object, event, or situation that elicits a response from an organism.
Example: The sound of a bell ringing can be a stimulus that causes students to leave their classroom.
An unconditioned stimulus (US) is a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without prior conditioning.
Example: The smell of food is an unconditioned stimulus that naturally causes salivation.
A conditioned stimulus (CS) is a previously neutral stimulus that, after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response.
Example: In Pavlov’s experiment, the sound of a bell became a conditioned stimulus after being paired with the presentation of food.
Unconditioned Response (UR). An unconditioned response is an automatic and natural response to an unconditioned stimulus.
Example: Salivating in response to the smell of food is an unconditioned response.
A conditioned response (CR) is a learned response to a previously neutral stimulus that has become a conditioned stimulus.
Example: In Pavlov’s experiment, salivating in response to the sound of the bell is a conditioned response.
Cognitive learning involves the use of mental processes to acquire knowledge and solve problems. It emphasizes the role of thinking and understanding.
Example: A student learns mathematical concepts by understanding the underlying principles and applying them to solve problems.
Classical Conditioning.
Classical conditioning is a learning process in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus, eliciting a conditioned response.
Example. In Pavlov’s experiment, dogs learned to associate the sound of a bell (neutral stimulus) with food (unconditioned stimulus), causing them to salivate (conditioned response).
Operant conditioning is a learning process in which behaviors are influenced by the consequences that follow them, such as rewards or punishments.
Example. A rat learns to press a lever to receive food. The food acts as a reward, reinforcing the lever-pressing behavior.
Garcia and Koelling's study on taste aversion in rats is a classic experiment in the field of learning and behavior.
In the 1960s, John Garcia and Robert Koelling conducted experiments to explore how rats develop aversions to certain tastes. They discovered that rats could develop a strong aversion to a taste if it was paired with a negative consequence, such as illness, even if the illness occurred several hours after tasting the substance.
In their experiment, Garcia and Koelling exposed rats to a novel taste (e.g., sweetened water) and then induced nausea by administering a substance like lithium chloride. They also exposed rats to other stimuli, such as lights and sounds, paired with a mild shock.
The rats developed an aversion to the sweetened water but not to the lights or sounds associated with the shock. This finding demonstrated that taste aversion learning is highly specific and does not require the close temporal pairing typical of other forms of classical conditioning. The rats were biologically predisposed to associate taste with illness but not other stimuli with sickness.
Example. If a rat drank sweetened water and then felt ill several hours later, it would avoid drinking that sweetened water in the future, even though the sickness came long after the consumption.
Garcia and Koelling’s findings challenged traditional theories of classical conditioning, which held that the association between stimuli must occur close together in time. Their work showed that some associations are more readily formed than others due to evolutionary adaptations, highlighting the importance of biological predispositions in learning.