Learning Psychology

• Reinforcement: when the desired behaviour is rewarded. This makes it more likely to be repeated.
• Positive reinforcement: rewards the desired behaviour by adding something pleasant - food, affection, a compliment, money.
• Negative reinforcement: rewards the desired behaviour by removing something unpleasant - taking away pain or distress, stopping criticism.
• Punishment: when undesirable behaviour produces unpleasant consequences. Can either be positive, where something is added such as writing lines, or negative where something is removed.
• Primary reinforcement: the reward is something we want naturally, a basic need such as food, warmth or protection.
• Secondary reinforcement: a reward we have learned to value such as money.

Skinner performed an experiment using rats placed in a box with an electric grid at their feet. He provided evidence for operant conditioning by showing that rats learnt to pull a lever to gain access to food, and also pull a lever to turn of the electrical grid hurting them.

• Attention: you must be attending to the behaviour
• Retention: you must retain it in your memory
• Reproduction: you must be capable of carrying out the behaviour
• Motivation: you must have a reason to carry out the behaviour (eg a reward

Supported by Bandura, Ross & Ross and their 1960s experiments.

A: To find out if children would show more aggressive behaviour if exposed to an aggressive role model and less aggressive behaviour if exposed to non-aggressive role models.

P: 72 children, 36 boys and 36 girls aged 3-5 from Stanford University Nursery School.

Half saw a same-sex role model, half saw an opposite-sex role model.

F:

• Males physical aggression after a male role model was an average of 26 acts compared to after a female role model of 6.
• The girls were more verbally aggressive than boys with same-sex role models by 1 act.
• Even in the control group, non-imitative aggression is higher for boys, 25, than girls, 6.

C: Behaviour can be imitatively learned even if it hasn't been reinforced.

A: To find out if children would become more aggressive if exposed to an aggressive role model in film or in a less-realistic cartoon compared to watching a live model.

P: 96 children, 48 boys and 48 girls, aged 3-5, recruited from Stanford University Nursery School (an opportunity sample).

The same procedure as above, except the children were shown the aggressive acts on the TV either via real-life or cartoon.

R:

• Live model=83
• Filmed model=92
• Cartoon model=99
• Control=54

C: children will imitate filmed aggression in the same way they'd replicate live aggression.

A: To find out if children would be more likely to imitate a role model they see being rewarded (vicarious reinforcement) and less likely to imitate a role model they see being punished (vicarious punishment). 

• P: 66 children, 33 boys and 33 girls, aged 3-5, recruited from Stanford University Nursery School (an opportunity sample).
• In the Reward condition, the experimenter arrived a praised Rocky for his "superb aggressive performance" and gave Rocky sweets, which he ate. 
• In in the Punishment condition, the experimenter called Rocky “a big bully” and hit him with a rolled-up newspaper.
• R: You can see that the Model Reward condition produced about the same imitation from girls (mean 2.8) and boys (3.5) as the No Consequences condition.
• The Model Punished condition produced much less imitation, especially among the girls (mean 0.5).
• After Positive Incentive, the imitation increased significantly for girls and boys and is very similar across all conditions of the model, with the girls’ scores much closer to the boys’ (all >3).

C: children will be less likely to imitate role models they see being punished.

Classical Conditioning:

1. At first, the feared object was a neutral stimulus (NS)
2. Something naturally scary (a UCS) happened, producing ordinary alarm (UCR) while the NS was present
3. The sufferer learned to associate the NS with the UCS
4. The NS became a conditioned stimulus (CS) and the sufferer learned to respond to it with fear (CR) just like the original scary event
5. Stimulus generalisation occurs, meaning the phobia gets attached to things that are similar to the original NS.

Social Learning Theory explains how people might see role models reacting to feared objects with great panic and imitate that reaction.

Operant conditioning: might reinforce the phobia, because panicking might attract attention and concern from other people or just make the feared thing go away.

SLT: Shows if a role model is continuously witnessed to be afraid the child/learner will continue to also be afraid.

Systematic Desensitisation: Joseph Wolpe

Systematic desensitisation is based on classical conditioning and has two components:

1. Counter-conditioning: this involves learning to associate the thing you fear with something relaxing or pleasant
2. Graduated exposure: this involves introducing you to the thing you fear in stages, starting with brief and remote encounters (a photograph, at a distance, for a second) and building up to longer, closer and more immediate encounters

Sometimes there's a third component:

• Participant modelling: a role model demonstrates being relaxed and calm in the presence of the feared object

Capafons et al. (1998) recruited 41 aerophobia sufferers for a media campaign in Spain and treated 20 of them with SD, and had 21 members of a control group.

Joseph Wolpe (1970) took a girl who was scared of cars and drove her around for 4 hours. At first, the girl was hysterical but she calmed down when she realised that she was in no danger. Afterwards, her phobia disappeared: she learned to enjoy car rides.

Flooding is based on classical conditioning and has two components:

1. Unavoidable exposure: this involves introducing you to the thing you fear in the most immediate and unavoidable way.
2. Extinction: this involves learning to associate the thing you fear with something neutral

Different behaviours may develop as a person will have different experiences in life, e.g. different role models presenting different behaviours to imitate in the SLT.

Same goes for experiencing different punishments, operant conditioning, so don't display certain behaviours or enhance others based on parental or model reward.

Social learning theory's idea is that development is through observation of others, and therefore - as everyone's environments differ - development will differ.

Little Albert: Conditioned emotional reactions.

P: One baby boy, named Little Albert, 9 months when the study began. His mother was paid $1 for participation.Albert was tested with a white rat, a rabbit, cotton wool and other stimuli to see if he had a fear reaction. He didn't; this shows these were neutral stimuli.

The researchers also checked his fear response by banging an iron bar. Albert cried at the loud noise; this shows the noise was an unconditioned stimulus and the crying was an unconditioned response. 

At 11 months, Albert was conditioned He was shown the white rat 3 times. Each time the rat was paired with striking the iron bar. 

R: When the rat was later presented alone, Albert cried. This suggests that the NS is now a conditioned response and Alberts crying is a conditioned response. This was moved so that Albert feared all small and white fluffy things.

C: G: No, one boy from America. R: One sample. A: Yes, acquisition of phobias. V: high internal, low ecological. E: No, psychological harm.

A: To find out if the introduction of Western TV into a community that has not previously experienced it would lead to an increase in unhealthy eating behaviour.

P: Age 17 on average. There were 63 participants in 1995 and 65 in 1998. completed the EAT-26 questionnaire.

The girls also received a semi-structured interview. 1998 group asked more detailed questions about their weight.

30 girls were chosen from the 1998 sample because they scored higher than 20 on EAT-26. They were interviewed in more detail about their habits and attitudes.

F: only 12.7% reported an EAT-26 score over 20 in 1995, compared to 29.2% in 1998. None of the girls reported using purging (induced vomiting) to control weight in 1995, but 11.3% reported this in 1998

C: the characters on Western TV shows act as role models for Fijian girls

C: G: No, only girls from Fiji. R: standardised procedure. A: Yes, eating disorders. V: high ecological, low internal. E: Perhaps induced eating disorders.

Is the influence of role models and celebrities something that causes anorexia?

The Problem:

Symptoms: extreme weight loss, ritualistic food habits, denying hunger, exercising excessively and being thin but seeing themselves as overweight.

The average age on onset is 16. 90% of cases are female.

Psychology:

• Operant conditioning: may be given a reward through compliments for losing weight, punishment through bullying for gaining weight.
• SLT: see a role model in the media, see their weight and how they are praised and look up to them, wanting to be that weight.
• Vicarious reinforcement: see others, such as celebs or friends, being complimented on their weight and wanting to replicate their behaviour consequently.
  

A: Looking into whether there is an association between gender and the car someone chooses to drive.

P: opportunity observation down at the bottom of a local road, tallying the gender of the driver and whether they are in a 4x4 or saloon type estate car.

F: women were more likely to be in a 4x4 than saloon estate, whilst men were the opposite.

C: women may be more likely to drive 4x4 because it is the role model norm showing status.

A Chi2 was completed but found to be insignificant, so the null hypothesis stating there was no difference was accepted.

C: G: No, one area at one time of day. R: No, easily misidentify genders and classifications of cars. V: high ecological, covert. E: PPs didn't volunteer.

In the first room, children were shown aggressive acts in multiple ways depending on the investigation, where the aggressive model would push the doll over and punch it. The non-aggressive model ignored the doll.

The Arousal Room:

Taken to another room with many toys, then told after a few minutes they were for other children - meant to create frustration so they were more likely to display aggression.

The Observation Room:

The children were placed in a room for 20 minutes.

There was a mixture of aggressive and non-aggressive toys, including a tall Bobo Doll, a plastic mallet and a gun that fired suckers.

A One-way mirror enables 2 experimenters to observe the children and tally behaviours in a checklist of aggressive behaviours, recorded every 5 seconds.