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Te first thing I want you to understand is that your life is dictated by operant conditioning, so it will be easier for you to understand than classical conditioning.  Operant Conditioning is the concept hat you can change someone’s behavior by giving them rewards or punishing them.  Let’s pretend that you HATE cleaning your room (it’s a big stretch here I am sure).  Your parents give you $50 every time you clean your room.  Will this change your behavior?  Sure, you will have a REALLY clean room.  But will this change your feelings about cleaning the room?  Probably not, you may clean it more, but you will not enjoy it any more than before you received the money.  Thus, operant conditioning can change your behavior without changing the way you feel inside; a perfect fit for the behavioral school.

Operant conditioning is based on the idea that we make a conscious connection between our behaviors and rewards and punishments.  Unlike classical conditioning in which the learner is passive, in operant conditioning the learner plays an active part in the changes in behavior.  This field was started by a dude names Edwin Thorndike.  Thorndike discovered that cats learn faster if they are rewarded for their behavior (yeah- real genius concept).  He called this idea the law of effect that states if the consequences of a behavior are pleasant, the behavior will likely increase.  He also stated that is the consequences of a behavior are unpleasant, the behavior will not likely increase- and he called this whole idea, instrumental learning.  Now his ideas are important because they were the springboard for the big mac daddy warbucks of operant conditioning, B.F. Skinner.

B.F. Skinner actually coined the term operant conditioning and is started this whole school by inventing the first operant conditioning chamber, otherwise known as the Skinner Box.

 

  A Skinner box is used to train animals and usually has a way to deliver food to an animal and a lever to press or disk to peck in order to get the food.  The food is called a reinforcer, and the process of giving the food is called reinforcement.  A reinforcer is anything likely to increase a behavior.  There are two types of reinforcement; positive and negative.

• Positive Reinforcement: the addition of something pleasant to increase a behavior.  If I want to to study more and give you chocolate for studying, the chocolate is the positive reinforcement because it is pleasant and meant to increase your behavior.
• Negative Reinforcement: the removal of something unpleasant to increase a behavior.  If you have a headache and I want you to study, I may give you a Advil.  The Advil is the negative reinforcement because it is removal something unpleasant (headache) and increasing your behavior (studying).

We can also change behaviors by using unpleasant consequences called punishments.  It is important to realize that punishment work better to stop behaviors rather than increase them.  There are two types of punishment.

• Positive Punishment: the addition of something unpleasant to make a behavior less likely.  I want you to stop talking in class, so I flick you with a rubber band every time you open your mouth.
• Omission Training (or negative punishment): the removal of something pleasant to decrease a behavior.  Your Mom does not let you watch Gray’s Anatomy because you swore at the dinner table.

Punishment versus Reinforcement

Which one works better?  Well, they both kinda work, but in different ways.  If you guys come late to class I can either punish you for being late or give you a reward for coming on time.  But punishments can cause some problems.  First, punishments should be delivered immediately after the unwanted behavior and should be harsh.  But if they are too harsh there could be unwanted consequences like fear and anger.  Also, punishments often tell the learner what behavior should NOT be exhibited and not what behavior should be.

There are two types of learning that comes from punishment:

• Escape learning: allows one to terminate an aversive stimulus.  If you hate psychology class you will learn to make a ruckus and act like a schmoolie so I will kick your butt out.
• Avoidance learning:  You hate psychology class so you simply learn to cut it.

Ok, let’s get back to the other side of operant conditioning; reinforcements.  You should know that operant conditioning uses much of the same terminology as classical conditioning (acquisition, extinction, generalization, discrimination etc…).  For example, if I want my son to increase his bathing behavior (for a 5 year old it really can be a problem), I can give him an extra 30 minutes of TV time after he bathes.  The positive reinforcer I am using here is extra TV time and acquisition occurs when he links together the idea that bathing gives him more Noggin (his favorite TV channel).  Extinction would occur if I stop giving him TV time for bathing and he stops seeing the association.

Whether we are talking about positive or negative reinforcement, they both can fall into two main reinforcer categories; primary and secondary.

• Primary reinforcer: things that are in themselves rewarding.  Things like food, water and rest.
• Secondary reinforcer: things we have learned to value such as praise, video games or the big one MONEY.  Money can be traded in for anything and we constantly increase behaviors for money.  But if you think about it, do you really want money?  No, you want what money can buy (except Scrooge McDuck).  We have learned to value money, thus it is a major secondary reinforcer.

 

One other thing you should be aware of before you pick out a reinforcer, and that is the Premack principle.  The Premack principle basically states that when you are picking out a reinforcer, you must take into consideration the person who is receiving the reinforcer.  If Jose likes mac and cheese but hates practicing ballet, his mother can use mac and cheese  to reinforce his practicing ballet.  Let’s say his brother Jamal hates mac and cheese, but likes practicing ballet.  In this case ballet is the preferred activity, and his mother can use it to reinforce him for eating mac and cheese.

Let’s say I want my wife to lose weight and I am going to use operant conditioning to help her.  There are several ways I can give her the reinforcements and each may have a different affect on both the acquisition and extinction of her behaviors.

• Fixed-Ratio Schedule: provides the reinforcement after a set number of responses.  So I give my wife a massage for every pound that she loses.
• Variable–Ratio Schedule:  provide the reinforcement after a random number of responses.  So I give my wife a massage after 1 pound, then maybe 3, then I might wait for 6 pounds, then go back to one pound.  Here acquisition takes longer to set in, but it is also more resistant to extinction.  Can you think of why?
• Fixed-Interval Schedule: a fixed amount of time passes before the reinforcement is given.  So I give my wife a massage for every 24 hours she stays on her diet.
• Variable- Interval Schedule: a random amount of time passes before the reinforcement is given.  So I give my wife a massage after 24 hours and then 10 hours of dieting and then 5 and then 48 etc…. Once again the variable schedules (both ratio and interval) are more resistant to extinction but also more difficult to acquire acquisition.

Shaping Behaviors

BF Skinner used both positive and negative reinforcements (he was not really into punishments) to change the behavior of both pigeons and rats (they say he also developed a huge Skinner Box for his son- but that is another story altogether).  Now when Skinner tried to create a behavior in an animal it did not happen at one time.  He did it is small successive steps that he called shaping.  For example, let’s say you want to teach your dog to go fetch your slippers from the closet and you wanted to use positive reinforcement to do so.  You would first give your dog a treat when he goes to your closet (that may take a couple of days).  Then you would reinforce him again when he picks up your slippers.  Then you give him a treat once again when he brings them to your feet.  The idea is that reinforcing all of these small actions is more effective than doing the whole process at once; thus you are shaping the dogs behavior.  Each successive action is called shaping the dog’s behavior, but linking each action to each other, in a particular order is called chaining.

Observational learning, also known as modeling, was studied a great deal by a scientist named Albert Bandura.  Bandura believed that many of us learn through copying others.  Modeling is said to have two components, observation and imitation.  You watch somebody do something and then you attempt to copy it.  Bandura set up a very famous experiment called the Bobo Doll experiment to elucidate his ideas.

The Bobo Doll Experiment

Bandura had children witness a model (man who was working for Bandura) aggressively attacking a plastic clown called the Bobo doll. The children would watch a video where the man would aggressively hit a doll and pummel it on the head with a hammer, hurls it down, sits on it and punch it on the nose repeatedly, kick it across the room, flings it in the air, and bombard it with balls.  After the video, the children were placed in a room with attractive toys, but they could not touch them. Therefore, the children became angry and frustrated. Then the children were led to another room where there were identical toys used in the Bobo video (with Bobo dolls).  Bandura and many other researchers founded that 88% of the children imitated the aggressive behavior. Eight months later, 40% of the same children reproduce the violent behavior observed in the Bobo doll experiment.

Latent Learning Definition

Latent learning is a pretty weird concept.  Latent literally means hidden, and latent learning is learning that becomes obvious only once a reinforcement is given for demonstrating it, this is the latent learning definition.  Edward Toleman studied latent learning by using rats and showing us that learning can occur but may not be immediately evident.  Toleman had three groups of rats run through a maze on a series of trials.  One group (Group A) got a reward each time it completed the maze, and the performance of these rats improved steadily over time.  Another group of rats (Group B) never got a reward, and their performance improved only slightly over the course of the experiment.  A third group of rats (Group C) was not rewarded during the first half of the experiment, but was given a reward during the second half of the experiment.  Not surprisingly, during the first half of the trials, Group C was very similar to the group that never received a reward (Group B).  The interesting finding, however, was that Group C’s performance improved dramatically and suddenly once it began to be rewarded for finishing the maze.  In fact, Group C’s performance almost caught up to Group A’s performance even though Group A was rewarded through the whole experiment.

Latent Learning Example

In this latent learning example, Toleman came to the conclusion that these rats must have learned their way around the maze during the first half of the experiment.  Their performance did not improve because they had no reason to run the maze quickly.  Toleman believed that their dramatic improvement in maze-running time was due to latent learning.  He suggested they made a mental representation, or cognitive map, of the maze during the first half of the experiment and displayed this knowledge once they were rewarded.  What are the implications of latent learning on some students in school?

The whole idea of classical conditioning started with a Russian scientist that was studying the eating habits of dogs (exciting stuff).  His name was Ivan Pavlov and Pavlov’s dogs are like the Beatles of psychology.  Let me start by telling you how Pavlov discovered classical conditioning, then I will break it down (like MC Hammer- now where is he today?).

So Ivan Pdiddyavlov was examining the digestive habits of dogs when he noticed some pretty interesting (what we would think of as obvious) things.  Ivan knew that food in his dogs mouth caused the dogs to salivate.  Dogs can’t help but to salivate when they are eating, it is one of those unlearned or automatic responses (try eating a peanut butter and fluff sandwich without drooling).  Now every time Pavlov opened up his cabinet to get the dog’s food, the cabinet door made a creaking sound.  One day, Pavlov opened the cabinet (it made the sound) and he noticed that his dogs were salivating without the food.  Were the dogs learning?

Pavlov decided to test it out.  He had a tuning fork (but lets call it a bell because I have never actually seen a tuning fork up close) and he rang the bell for the dogs.  The dogs looked at him weirdly and did not salivate.  The bell, at this moment is a neutral stimulus, because it did nothing to the dogs.  Pavlov then rang the bell and then gave the dogs food (and they would salivate).  He did this many many times; rang the bell and gave the dogs food (and they would salivate).  One day he rang the bell but did not give the dogs food.  What do you think happened?  The dogs salivated.  The dogs have learned to link the sound of the bell with the food.  He kept ringing the bell and the dogs kept salivating.  But after awhile the dogs stopped salivating to the bell if they did not get any food over a long period of time (they have unlearned to associate food and the bell).  This is how classical conditioning was started.  Let’s delve into this….

OK, it is first important to know that classical conditioning is a form of passive learning, which means that the student (in Ivan’s case the dogs) have no clue and require no effort to learn- it happens automatically (unlike learning this chapter which requires some effort).  The first thing you need in order to classically condition someone is an unconditional stimulus (UCS) and unconditional response (UCR).  These words may seem complicated, but the idea is really simple.  A UCS is anything that automatically causes some kind of unlearned response.  The best example for a UCS is any type of drug.  If I give you a tranquilizer you are going to get tired.  You do not have to learn to get tired, your body does it automatically, without any learning at all.  A UCR is just the response to the UCS or in the case of the tranquilizer, the UCR is you getting tired.  Think of some UCS-UCR relationships- cocaine (UCS) alertness (UCR), alcohol (UCS) depressive effects (UCR), electric shock (UCS) pain (UCR), food (UCS) salivation (UCR).  Once you understand the concept of the UCS and UCR, the rest is easy (well not really- but I hope you feel good about yourself).

The whole object in classical conditioning is to get your subject to learn to associate something (it really could be anything) with the UCS.  In Pavlov’s experiment the UCS was the food and the UCR was the salivation.  Pavlov took a bell, which at first meant nothing to the dogs (neutral stimulus), and after many repetitions conditioned the dogs to associate the bell with the food.  Now here is the important part.  Each time Pavlov gives the dog food after the bell, the bell remains a neutral stimulus.  Once Pavlov rings the bell and does NOT give the food and the dogs salivate, the bell becomes what we call a conditioned stimulus (CS) and the salivation becomes a conditioned response (CR).  They are called conditioned because conditioned means learned and the dogs have learned to link the bell and the food together, it is NOT unlearned or unconditional.

Lets use a different example.  Lets say you wanted to become a vegetarian and no longer eat meat.  So you go buy some really powerful laxatives that cause abdominal pain and cramping.  The laxatives are the UCS and the cramping and pain are the UCR- think about it, do you have to learn to have diarrhea after taking a laxative- no, it is an unlearned response- it is unconditional.  Meat is a neutral stimulus to you at first.  Now you take some laxatives and then some meat and what’s going to happen?  You are going to cramp.  You do this everyday over a period of weeks.

Every time you do this, the laxative remains the UCS, the meat neutral and the cramping the UCR.  The VERY first time you eat meat WITHOUT the laxative, but still cramp- the meat becomes the CS and the cramping the CR.  If the laxative is given, the cramping must be the UCR because it is caused by the laxative.  But if the laxative is not present then the cramping is caused by the fact that we linked meat with the laxative and becomes the CR.

Now where does the learning/conditioning actually take place?  Pavlov knew that the moment that you link the laxative with the meat, the bell with the food or the UCS with the CS, learning has taken place.  He termed the linking of the UCS and the CS, acquisition, and is the goal of classical conditioning.  Now if I stop giving myself a laxative I will still feel the cramping effects for awhile when I eat meat, but will it last forever?  Probably not.  The moment I no longer cramp when eating meat, or no longer associate the UCS with the CS, I have experienced extinction.  Extinction will always occur if the UCS is not brought back into the equation every once and awhile.

Once I experience extinction, I will start eating meat a lot because I am no longer cramping (or associating the meat with the laxative).  However, Pavlov discovered that even after extinction, acquisition can come back at random times even years later; a term called spontaneous recovery.  Now let’s say I have linked together laxatives and meat (acquisition has occurred) and I eat a meat tasting soy product.  If the soy is really close to tasting like meat then I may experience what Pavlov called generalization, and cramp from the soy.  Generalization is when a stimuli is so close to the CS that it still causes the CR.  If I eat a peanut butter sandwich, which is really different than meat, I will probably not cramp because my body will not mistaken the sandwich for meat, a term Pavlov called discrimination.

Scheduling the CS and UCS

Ok, so now we kind of know what classical conditioning is, but how do you time the UCS and the CS, or in Pavlov’s example, the bell and the food.

• Delayed Conditioning: Present the CS (Bell) first and while the bell is still ringing give the UCS (food).  This is the fastest way to get acquisition.

• Trace Conditioning: Present the CS (Bell), followed by a short break, then present the UCS (food).

• Simultaneous Conditioning: CS (bell) and UCS (food) are presented at the same time.

• Backward Conditioning: UCS (food) is presented first and is followed by the CS (bell).  This methods kinda sucks.

Try conditioning your own dog and see what happens after numerous trials.  Look for when acquisition and extinction occur.

Classical Conditioning and Psychology

Pavlov was not a psychologist and limited his studies to animals.  It was not until American psychologist John Watson conducted his studies on a baby orphan named Albert that classical conditioning was used to actually change a human’s behavior.  Watson took a pudgy little orphan, Albert, and gave Albert a pet white rat.  Albert loved the rat and spent much of the day cuddling with it.  Then Watson banged some loud pots in back of Albert and the loud noise made Albert cry.  The loud noise in the UCS and Albert’s fear is the UCR.  Watson then brought out the rat and banged the pots as Albert reached for the rat.

After many trials Albert began to associate the rat with the loud banging (acquisition).  Then Watson would bring in the rat without the loud banging.  Predictable, Albert started to cry when he saw the white rat because he associated it with the loud noises.  Albert also cried when Watson brought in a white bunny or anything that resembled the rat (generalization).  Watson actually created a phobia in a human using classical conditioning techniques.  The sad part of this story is that Albert was adopted before Watson had a chance to recondition him.  Somewhere out there, there is a 88 year old man who is really scared of rats.

Classical Conditioning and Taste Aversions

When I was about twelve years old my Dad brought home a large jar of chocolate covered malt balls.  I loved those things and pretty much ate the whole jar.  A short time later I became incredible ill and threw up those malt balls and bile for about three days.  To this day I still gag when I think about chocolate covered balls of malt (commonly called Goobers).  A well know researcher, Garcia, discovered that taste aversions are a evolutionary example of classical conditioning that has helped us survive.  Unlike other forms of classical conditioning, when the UCS is nausea, it needs only one trial and can last for years.  Our bodies seem to have a knack for remembering really unusual tasting foods compiled with feeling nausea.

Classical Conditioning and Therapy

We use Classical Conditioning in modern day therapy in two very distinct ways.

1. Aversive Conditioning: Aversive conditioning is usually used to stop a particular behavior.  The process involves pairing a habit a person wishes to break, such as smoking or bed-wetting, with an unpleasant stimulus such as electric shock or nausea.  If I wanted to stop Shanikwa from smoking I could shock her every time she smokes.  The shock is the UCS and the pain is the UCR.  Once the smoking becomes associated with the electric shock (acquisition), Shanikwa will experience pain when she smokes, even without the shock.  Thus the smoking will become the CS and the pain the CR (but only if the shock is no longer given).

2. Systematic Desensitization: Systematic Desensitization was developed by Joseph Wolpe and is a process that involves teaching the client to replace feelings of anxiety with relaxation.  It works great with phobias.  If Akira has a horrific phobia of spiders, the therapist will teach Akira relaxation techniques (or give Akira a magical feel good drug).  Slowly spiders are introduced to Akira.  First maybe just a picture, then one in a cage, then one outside of a cage etc…  The goal is to get Akira to associate spiders with the drugs or relaxation techniques.  Eventually, seeing a spider will cause Akira to relax (in theory).

Most of the time, systematic desensitization occurs gradually, but some therapists use a technique called implosive therapy.  Here they throw Akira in a room with thousands of spiders with the idea that if they face their fear and survive, they will realize their fear is irrational.  This technique often produces a lot of anxiety.

Maybe the most controversial school of psychology, behaviorists are not necessarily concerned with your feelings.  Behaviorists focus on your behaviors (actions) and figure out ways to change them.  For example, lets say Billy is really depressed.  The depression causes Billy to stop sleeping and eating.  Billy is also drinking tequila as his only liquids.  A behaviorist would NOT analyze Billy’s childhood and look into his unconscious (like the psychoanalytic school).  A behaviorist would not look at Billy’s levels of serotonin and prescribe him medicine (like the biological school).

A behaviorist would only look at Billy’s behaviors, not his depression itself.  They would examine his lack of sleeping and eating and drinking of alcohol as Billy’s true problems.  Then they would use conditioning/learning strategies to change Billy’s behaviors.  They may give Billy $20 for every bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch he eats.  They may put diarrhea medicine in Billy’s tequila.  These techniques (both strategies from DIFFERENT behaviorist styles) will stop Billy’s behaviors around depression, but will they rid Billy of his depression.  You may think not, but to a behaviorist, if the behaviors are no longer maladaptive, then where’s the problem?

There are two major sub schools in the behaviorist school; classical conditioning and operant conditioning.  These two are by FAR the most important concepts to learn in this unit.  I have also included three other types of learning styles that may appear on the AP exam.

Somatoform Disorders

Somatoform disorders are when a person’s psychological problem manifests (comes out) as a physiological (bodily) symptom.  The two you must know for the AP are hypochondriasis and conversion disorders.

1. Hypochondriasis is when a person complains of frequent, usually small, physical problems but the doctor can find nothing wrong with the patient.  The person sometimes will also believe that their headache is a brain tumor or their sore throat, the Ebola virus.  In hypochondriasis, these physical symptoms have psychological roots.

2. Conversion Disorder will report the existence of a severe physical problem but no biological cause can be found.  Many people that suffer from conversion disorder become blind after witnessing a horrible tragedy or paralyzed from the waist down the death of a loved one.

 Once again- the issue is that a psychological issue takes root in the body as a physical problem.