Week 3

Question 1

Defining learning

Answer 1

• Learning is any enduring change in the way an
organism responds, based on its experiences.

Learning cannot be observed directly. It is
inferred from behaviour that is observed.

Question 2

Classical Conditioning

Answer 2

• Associating a neutral stimulus with a stimulus
that leads to a reflexive response
• In classical conditioning, all responses are
reflexes or autonomic responses – involuntary.

Question 3

Classical Conditioning of Emotional

Responses

Answer 3

• Emotional responses (e.g., phobias) can be learned

* Little Albert experiment

Question 4

Some Principles of Classical

Conditioning

Answer 4

• Acquisition

• Extinction – the weakening of the conditioned response
when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the
unconditioned stimulus.
- Extinction is not an unlearning of the conditioned response. It is a
learned inhibition of responding.
- Important implications for treatment of phobia’s.

• Spontaneous recovery – the re-emergence of a
previously extinguished conditioned response

Question 5

Operant Conditioning

Answer 5

• The learning of a new association between
behaviour and its consequences.
• It is learning through reinforcement and
punishment.
• Behaviour (response) is voluntary and emitted
not elicited.
• Behaviour is modified according to its
consequences.

Question 6

Cognitive-Social theory

Answer 6

• Cognitive revolution in psychology in 1960s
• Behaviourism + cognition and social learning
• Cognitive-social theory argues
that we form expectancies about
the consequences of our
behaviours.

Question 7

Locus of control

Answer 7

• Internal locus: Believe that their
actions determine their fate
• External locus: Believe that their
lives are governed by forces
outside their control

Question 8

Learned helplessness

Answer 8

• The expectancy that one cannot escape aversive events