Heather Tomlin

Chapter 7 Notes

Learning and conditioning

This chapter deals with understanding the laws of learning, and realizing that
behavior, whether it is our own or other people’s can change for the better and why
often it does not.

1. Classical Conditioning
• Learning is a mostly permanent change in behaviors due to or own
experience.\
• Behaviorism psychological stud that study observable behavior and how the
environment plays a role as a determinant of our behavior.
• Conditioning kind of learning that involves associations between
environmental stimuli and our responses.
a) New reflexes from old.
• Unconditioned -stimulus (US) thing or event that draws out a
response automatically.
• Unconditioned response (UR) Response that is automatically
produced.
• Conditioned-Stimulus (CS) a neutral stimulus that comes to that
comes to elicit a conditioned response after being associated
with an unconditioned stimulus.
• Conditioned response (CR) response from conditional stimulus.
• Classical conditioning when a neutral stimulus becomes a
condititioned stimulus.

b) Principles of classical conditioning.

• Occurs in all species.
• In extinction, the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented
without the unconditioned stimulus, and the conditioned response
eventually disappears—although later it may reappear.
• Higher-order conditioning, a neutral stimulus becomes a
conditioned stimulus by being paired with an already
established conditioned stimulus.
• Stimulus generalization, after a stimulus becomes a
conditioned stimulus for some response, other similar stimuli
may produce the same reaction.

• Stimulus discrimination, different responses are made to

stimuli that resemble the conditioned stimulus in some way.
 • Evolutionary adaptation that allows an organism to prepare for a
biologically important event.

c) Classical Conditioning in Real Life.

• Classical conditioning helps account for positive emotional
responses to particular objects and events, fears and phobias, the
acquisition of likes and dislikes, and reactions to medical
treatments and placebos.
• Counter conditioning how fears may be learned and then may be
unlearned through a process.

• Because of evolutionary adaptations, human beings (and many

other species) are biologically primed to acquire some adaptive
responses easily, such as conditioned taste aversions and certain
fears.
• Classical conditioning is now integrating findings on motivation,
learning, and biology.
d) Operant Conditioning
• Operant conditioning, behavior becomes more likely to occur or
less so depending on its consequences.
• Responses in operant conditioning are generally not reflexive and
are more complex than in classical conditioning.

• Research in this area is closely associated with 13 F Skinner, who

called his approach "radical behaviorism."
• Reinforcement strengthens or increases the probability of a
response and punishment weakens or decreases the probability
of a response...

• Immediate consequences usually have a greater effect on a

response than do delayed consequences.
• Reinforces are called primary when they are naturally
reinforcing (because they satisfy a biological need).
• Reinforces are called secondary when they have acquired their
ability to strengthen a response through association with other
reinforces. A similar distinction is made for punishers.
In positive reinforcement, something pleasant follows a
response.
• In negative reinforcement, something unpleasant is removed.

• A discriminative stimulus signals that a response is likely to be

followed by a certain type of consequence.
 • Continuous reinforcement leads to the most rapid learning.
• Intermittent (partial) reinforcement makes a response resistant
to extinction.
• Different intermittent patterns of reinforcement produce different
patterns of responding.
• Shaping is used to train behaviors with a low probability of
occurring spontaneously.

• Reinforcers are given for successive approximations to the

desired response until the desired response is achieved.
e) Opperant Conditioning in real life.
• Behavior modification is the application of reinforcement and
punishment.

• Punishment, when used properly, can discourage undesirable

behavior.

• It is often administered inappropriately because of the emotion of

the moment.
• It may produce rage and fear.
• It conveys little information about the kind of behavior that is
desired.
• Extinction of undesirable behavior, combined with reinforcement
of desired behavior, is generally preferable to the use of
punishment.
f) Learning and the Mind
• Latent learning is learning that is not immediately expressed in
an over response, it occurs without obvious reinforcement.
• Social cognitive theories of learning, which focus on
observational learning and the role played by beliefs,
interpretations of events, and other cognitions.
• Because people differ in their perceptions and beliefs, they may
learn different lessons from the same event or situation.

In this chapter I learned about how to understand the

learning processes and how in summary reinforcers and
punishers can modify are behaviors and thought
processes.