4: LEARNING THEORIES Flashcards
Explain classical conditioning.
(look at textbook and notes and YouTube for this one)
How can we apply classical conditioning?
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Aversion Therapy
This is a therapy for dysfunctional behaviour based on Classical Conditioning. It is no longer used on homosexuals but is still applied to alcoholics. If they agree to it, an alcoholic may be treated with a drug called Antabuse which reacts with alcohol in the blood stream; the drug causes the drinker to feel violent nausea. Although alcohol is a UCS that normally produces a pleasant UCR (getting drunk), if it is paired with Antabuse it becomes a CS instead and leads to a CR (feeling sick at the sight or thought of alcohol).
The famous footballer George Best was treated with Antabuse – twice. However, he persevered with his drinking and forced himself to ignore the nausea. He died of organ failure brought on by alcohol poisoning in 2005. This is another example of human willpower and personality overcoming conditioning.
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Aversion therapy today tends to use aversive imagery rather than drugs or electric shocks. This is known as covert sensitisation and a study by Kraft & Kraft (2005) found aversive imagery to be effective in curing addictions, including a nail biter, a cannabis smoker, an over-eater, a cigarette smoker, a chocoholic and an alcoholic.
You can see this at work in the old parenting technique of making sure a child who was caught smoking never smokes again by forcing them to smoke an entire packet in one sitting. The smoking was a NS but it gets associated with a UCR (nausea) until the sight or smell of cigarettes becomes a CS and produces a nauseous CR.
Phobias & Systematic Desensitisation
This therapy is a bit more subtle than aversion therapy. It is often used to treat phobias. The therapy treats phobias as conditioned responses (CR) to a conditioned stimulus (CS) and tries to turn the terrifying creature, object or situation back into a neutral stimulus (NS) that produces no response.
A phobia is an irrational fear that might be learned when a NS (say, a spider) is paired with a UCS that is naturally frightening, like a thunderstorm. The spider becomes a CS and produces the same CR as the thunderstorm – fright. Stimulus generalisation means that the CR is extended to all spiders, not just the one you saw in your room when the thunderstorm woke you. It may even be generalised to any sort of “creepy crawlie”.
Systematic desensitisation involves introducing the phobia-sufferer to the thing they fear, but at a safe distance – first a drawing of one at a distance, then a drawing that is held in the hand, then a photo, then a film clip, then the real thing. These stages are in a “hierarchy” that the sufferer themselves draws up.
At each stage the sufferer learns to associate the spider with a harmless, relaxed experience. This is counterconditioning, because the relaxation cancels out the anxiety the phobia produces.
Eventually, the sufferer can pick up and handle a spider and learn that this too is harmless and relaxing. The spider is now a NS again.
SHORTENED VERSION
Classical Conditioning has always had huge applications for therapy, especially the treatment of “irrational” or “instinctive” problems like phobias and addictions.
Aversion therapy works by associating a dysfunctional behaviour (like drinking) with a UCR (like vomiting) to produce a new CS. If successful, the CS will produce a nauseous CR whenever drink is present. This sort of therapy works best when the patient is willing and wants the therapy to succeed. Many of Barlow’s gay men where in prison, because their homosexuality was then a crime, and they were forced to undergo the treatment.
Systematic desensitisation works by associating a troubling CR (like a phobia) with the CS (like a spider) in a relaxing, safe environment. Gradually, the patient stops associating fear with the spider. The spider goes back to being a NS, producing no reaction. This is extinction.
What research supports classical conditioning?
There’s a lot of research in support of the Classical Conditioning, including the studies by Pavlov (1927) and Watson & Rayner (1920) that you will meet in this course. This research isn’t just from the start of the 20th century; it continues to the present day, with brain scanning revealing “reward centres” in the brain that activate when pleasant associations are formed.
Moreover, a lot of this research is strictly scientific, being carried out on animals in lab conditions or using brain imaging techniques like MRI. Because the theory only looks at behaviours (rather than cognitions), every step in the conditioning process is observable. This adds to the credibility of the theory, since you can see it happen with your own eyes.
What objections are there to classical conditioning?
Although research on dogs and other animals shows conditioning taking place, generalising the conclusions to human learning is not so clear-cut. For one thing, there are other learning theories – Operant Conditioning and Social Learning Theory – and it is usually difficult to tell whether one or the other is largely responsible when something is learned. For example, even when associations are formed, the person is usually being rewarded or punished at the same time: George Best learned to associate drinking with nausea, but drinking was still rewarding for him because it was pleasurable.
The theory focuses entirely on the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate. It is possible some people are born with predispositions towards behaviours, rather than learning them through conditioning. Many critics of Barlow’s ‘gay cures’ would say that people are born with their sexual orientation; they don’t learn it and cannot be expected to un-learn it.
The theory also focuses entirely on behaviours and ignores cognitions. Cognitions are thought-processes and include things like personality, willpower and motivation. Sigmund Freud argued that a lot of self-destructive behaviour comes from hidden thought-processes in the unconscious mind and are not learned and cannot be un-learned so easily.
Evaluate Classical Conditioning as a theory of learning. (8 marks)
Description
Ivan Pavlov proposed that learning is done through association. Repeated association leads to conditioning in his studies involving dogs.
In conditioning, a neutral stimulus (NS) is paired with a unconditioned stimulus (UCS) until it turns into a Conditioned Stimulus (CS). The CS produces a Conditioned Response (CR).
Not only that, but the CR can be generalised to other stimuli that are similar to the CS. This is stimulus generalisation and it explains things like phobias.
Classical Conditioning is on the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate because it suggests that all behaviour comes from learned associations rather than innate predispositions.
Evaluation
Classical Conditioning is supported by lab research on animals, such as Pavlov’s studies on dogs that learned to salivate when a bell rang.
However, this research may not generalise to humans, who have more complex behaviour. Attempts to condition homosexuals out of their sexual orientation have failed, according to Seligman (1993).
The theory also ignores the nature side of the nature/nurture debate, since people may be born with certain essential behaviours (like homosexuality) which cannot be un-learned.
Classical Conditioning might also be too simplistic since it ignores motives and personality. George Best was able to keep drinking in spite of aversion therapy, which suggests that there is more to human behaviour than just stimulus-response.
Conclusion
Classical Conditioning explains a lot of involuntary behaviour and it has led to therapies like aversion therapy that have helped people with addictions. However, it’s not a complete explanation of why people behave the way that they do.
Trevor thinks his dog loves Eastenders. He says that he feeds the dog just as the TV show is starting. Now, whenever Trevor’s dog hears the Eastenders theme tune on an advert, it gets excited and starts running in circles.
Using your knowledge of Classical Conditioning, explain why Trevor is wrong. (4 marks)
Trevor’s dog has been conditioned to react this way. Eastenders is a neutral stimulus (NS) to dogs – they don’t respond to it normally.
Trevor has been pairing the Eastenders theme with an Unconditioned Stimulus (US) which is the dog’s mealtime and the dog has made an association between the two.
Over time, the NS has become a Conditioned Stimulus (CS). The dog’s excitement is a Conditioned Response (CR).
Because of stimulus generalisation, the dog behaves with the CR whenever it hears a snippet of the Eastenders theme, even if it isn’t the start of the show.
What was the aim of Pavlov’s 1927 study?
To find out if a reflexive behaviour can be produced in new situations through learning. In particular, to see if associating a reflex with a neutral stimulus (a sound) causes learning to take place, producing a conditioned reflex in new situations.
What was the IV of Pavlov’s 1927 study?
This is a Repeated Measures design, since it studies the same dogs before and after their conditioning
One condition of the IV is the dogs’ natural reflexive behaviour: salivating when food is in their mouths. Other condition of the IV is the dogs’ behaviour after they have been conditioned to associate food with a different stimulus.
What was the DV of Pavlov’s 1927 study?
Pavlov’s careful set-up enabled him to count how many drops of saliva the dogs produced.
What was the sample of Pavlov’s 1927 study?
35 dogs of a variety of breeds, raised in kennels in the lab
What was the procedure of Pavlov’s 1927 study?
Pavlov placed each dog in a sealed room that didn’t allow the dog to see, smell or hear anything outside. This was to prevent other stimuli (extraneous variables) from making the dog salivate.
The dog was strapped into a harness to stop it moving about and its mouth was linked to a tube that drained saliva away into a measuring bottle.
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In the Control Condition, Pavlov presented the dog with food (meat powder) through a hatch. The dog salivated.
As an experimental Control, Pavlov presented the dog with the Neutral Stimulus sound. The dog did not salivate at this, showing that it was indeed a Neutral Stimulus.
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For a Neutral Stimulus, Pavlov used a tuning fork, an electric buzzer or a metronome (a machine producing regular ticking).
To condition the dog, Pavlov paired the sound with the presentation of food. He usually did this 20 times, but it depended on how attentive the dog was.
After it was conditioned, Pavlov presented the dog with the sound but no meat.
What were the results of Pavlov’s 1927 study?
Pavlov found that the conditioned dog started to salivate 9 seconds after hearing the sound and, by 45 seconds, had produced 11 drops of saliva
What was the conclusion drawn from Pavlov’s 1927 study?
Pavlov had discovered Classical Conditioning. The Neutral Stimulus, after being repeatedly paired with an Unconditioned Stimulus (the meat), turned into a Conditioned Stimulus, producing the Conditioned Response (salivation) all by itself.
Pavlov explains how the brain learns to see the new sound as a “signal” and links the reflex to it. This is how animals in the wild learn to hunt or escape being hunted: they learn to apply their reflexes to new situations based on experiences they’ve had before
What was the generalisability of Pavlov’s 1927 study?
The main problem here is generalising from dogs to humans.
On the one hand, the Theory of Evolution supports the idea that humans will learn through association (Pavlov calls it “signalisation”) in the same way as other animals. There is some evidence for this in the success of programmes to treat alcoholics with aversion therapy.
On the other hand, humans have different brains from dogs and much more complicated thoughts and motives. They’re not strongly motivated by finding food all the time, for example. But perhaps humans have other motives that drive them just as strongly and they can be conditioned by those.
What was the reliability of Pavlov’s 1927 study?
This is a good example of a reliable study because it has standardised procedures and it was carefully documented. In fact, Pavlov did repeat the study many times over 25 years, with different dogs and different Neutral Stimuli (but never with a bell!). He even got different researchers to observe the dog and measure the saliva. This gives the research inter-rater reliability and test-retest reliability.
