WHS AP Psychology

Unit 5: Learning (Behaviorism)

Essential Task 5-6: Apply learning principles to explain phobias, taste aversion, superstitious behavior, learned helplessness, and biofeedback.

Learning The process by which experience or practice results in a relatively permanent change in behavior or potential behavior

Classical ConditioningThe type of learning in

which a response naturally elicited by one stimulus becomes to be

elicited by a different formally neutral stimulus

Operant ConditioningThe type of learning in which behaviors are emitted to earn rewards or avoid punishments

Social Cognitive Learning Theory

The type of learning in which behaviors are learned by observing a model

Pavlov and Watson B.F. Skinner Albert Bandura

UCS, UCR, CS, CRReinforcement and

PunishmentModeling and Vicarious

Learning

We are here

Essential Task 5-:

• Phobias• Taste aversion• Influences of Biological Predisposition• Superstitious behavior• Learned helplessness• Biofeedback.

Outline

Examples of Classical Conditioning

Phobias

After the attacks, cats become a warning stimulus for pain causing fear

when the child sees cats.

After this botched photo, 6 ft bunny becomes warning stimulus for

someone trying to capture you.

Systematic Desensitization

• This therapy aims to remove the fear response of a phobia, and substitute a relaxation response to the conditional stimulus gradually using counter conditioning.

• This is done by forming a hierarchy of fear, involving the conditioned stimulus (e.g. a spider), that are ranked from least fearful to most fearful. The patient works their way up starting at the least unpleasant and practicing their relaxation technique as they go. When they feel comfortable with this (they are no longer afraid) they move on to the next stage in the hierarchy.

Examples of Classical Conditioning

Taste Aversion

After throwing up a food, it becomes a warning stimulus

for getting sick.

Biological Predispositions

Pavlov and Watson believed that laws of learning were similar for all

animals. Therefore, a pigeon and a person do not differ in their learning.

However, behaviorists later suggested that learning is

constrained by an animal’s biology.Each species’ predispositions prepare it to learn the associations that enhance its

survival.

Biological Predisposition

Biological constraints predispose organisms to learn associations

that are naturally adaptive.

Breland and Breland (1961) showed that

animals drift towards their biologically

predisposed instinctive behaviors.Marian Breland Bailey

Ph

oto

: Bob

Baile

y

Biological Predispositions

John Garcia

Garcia showed that the duration between the CS and the US may be long (hours),

but yet result in conditioning. A biologically adaptive CS (taste) led to

conditioning and not to others (light or sound).

Taste Aversion

Courtesy of John G

arcia

Examples of operant conditioning

Superstitious Behavior

You do things you know have no real impact on

reality because that one time you did it, the team

won.

Learned Helplessness

• Learned helplessness is a mental state that arises in an organism that believes punishment is inescapable.

• The organism stops trying even when success can be obtained.

Seligman and Maier

• an animal is repeatedly exposed to an aversive stimulus which it cannot escape. Eventually, the animal stops trying to avoid the stimulus and behaves as if it is helpless to change the situation. When opportunities to escape become available, learned helplessness means the animal does not take any action.

Even when they can be successful, they won’ try.

Behavioral Change Using Biofeedback

• Biofeedback is an operant technique that teaches people to gain voluntary control over bodily processes like heart rate and blood pressure

• When used to control brain activity it is called neurofeedback