Learning: Instincts, Reflexes, and Conditioning in Psychology

Learning in Psychology

Unlearned Behaviour: Instincts and Reflexes

Unlearned behaviours are automatic responses to stimuli, including reflexes and instincts. These behaviours are present without prior learning and are essential for survival.

• Reflexes: Automatic, involuntary responses to specific stimuli.

  • Protective (e.g., withdrawal from pain)

  • Essential for survival

  • Involve primitive parts of the Central Nervous System

  • Examples: Pupillary light reflex, startle reflex, withdrawal reflex, scratch reflex

  • Adaptive

• Instincts: Innate drives or tendencies leading to particular patterns of behaviour.

  • Involve complex movement

  • Involve most of the organism as a whole

  • Examples: Migration in birds, hibernation in animals

Learning

Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour or knowledge resulting from experience. It involves acquiring skills and knowledge through experience, practice, or observation.

• Three main processes: Associative learning, Non-associative learning, Observational learning

Types of Learning

Habituation

Habituation is a non-associative, early type of learning where an organism's response to a stimulus decreases after repeated exposure.

• Example: Tuning out background noise

Sensitization

Sensitization is an increased response to a stimulus due to repeated exposure, often because of a negative consequence.

• Example: Heightened sensitivity to a loud alarm

Classical Conditioning

Overview

Classical conditioning is a process that associates stimuli and leads to anticipatory behaviour. It was first described by Ivan Pavlov in his experiments with dogs.

• Pavlov's research: Dogs salivated in response to a bell after repeated pairings with food.

• 2 types of responses to be examined: Neutral stimulus and Unconditioned stimulus

Key Terms

• Neutral Stimulus (NS): A stimulus that does not elicit a specific response.

• Unconditioned Stimulus (US): A stimulus that naturally triggers a response (e.g., food).

• Unconditioned Response (UR): A natural automatic reaction to the unconditioned stimulus.

Processes in Classical Conditioning

• Extinction: A conditioned response that decreases and eventually disappears.

• Spontaneous Recovery: Conditioned response reappears after extinction.

• Renewal Effect: Response reappears when brought back to the original environment/context.

Additional info: Classical conditioning is widely used in marketing to associate products with positive emotions.

Examples and Applications

• Little Albert: A famous study in which a child was conditioned to fear a white rat.

• Stimulus Generalization: After conditioning, stimuli similar to the original conditioned stimulus can elicit the conditioned response (e.g., fear of all dogs after being bitten by one).

• Stimulus Discrimination: Ability to distinguish between different stimuli and respond only to the conditioned stimulus.

Conditioned Taste Aversion

Learning to avoid a certain food or drink because it once caused illness. This form of learning can occur after a single trial and is highly adaptive.

Operant Conditioning

Overview

Operant conditioning involves learning to associate behaviour with consequences, either reinforcement or punishment. This process was extensively studied by B.F. Skinner.

• Law of Effect: Behaviours followed by positive outcomes are more likely to be repeated.

Reinforcement and Punishment

• Reinforcement: Increases likelihood of behaviour.

  • Positive Reinforcement: Adding something to increase behaviour (e.g., praise, high grades).

  • Negative Reinforcement: Removing something to increase behaviour (e.g., removing pain).

• Punishment: Decreases likelihood of behaviour.

  • Positive Punishment: Adding something to decrease behaviour (e.g., scolding).

  • Negative Punishment: Removing something to decrease behaviour (e.g., taking away privileges).

Effects of Punishment

• Creates anxiety

• Encourages avoidance behaviour

• Suppresses behaviour but does not teach new behaviour

• Limits effectiveness for long-term learning

Schedules of Reinforcement

Reinforcement can be delivered according to different schedules, affecting the rate and strength of learning.

• Continuous Reinforcement: Every response is reinforced.

• Partial Reinforcement: Only some responses are reinforced.

Partial Reinforcement Schedules

Schedule Type	Description	Example
Fixed Interval	Reinforcement delivered at predictable time intervals	Patient receives pain relief every 4 hours
Variable Interval	Reinforcement delivered at unpredictable time intervals	Checking for emails
Fixed Ratio	Reinforcement delivered after a set number of responses	Factory worker paid for every 10 items manufactured
Variable Ratio	Reinforcement delivered after an unpredictable number of responses	Slot machine payout

Other Learning Phenomena

Superstitious Behaviour

Behaviour is accidentally reinforced by coincidence, creating patterns that do not actually lead to reward.

Latent Learning

Learning that occurs without immediate reinforcement and becomes apparent when there is motivation to demonstrate it.

• Example: Learning a route through observation, only using it when needed

Observational Learning

Learning by watching others, also known as social learning. This process involves modeling and imitation.

• Attention

• Retention

• Reproduction

• Motivation

Example: Children learning aggressive behaviour by observing adults (Bandura's Bobo doll experiment).

Additional info: Violence can be learned through observational learning from media.