THEORIES OF LEARNING: Behaviorist Theory

Proponents & Principles:WatsonPavlov

Thorndike

John Broadus Watson • Early 20th century, "Father of

Behaviorism.”• The first person to use the term

behaviorism to study human behavior

• Watson was interested in taking Pavlov's research further to show that emotional reactions could be classically conditioned in people.

• Researched classical conditioning• Children are passive beings who

can be molded by controlling the stimulus-response associations.

• “Little Albert” experiment

"Little Albert" experiment• One of the most controversial experiments in the

history of psychology• It was an experiment showing empirical evidence

of classical conditioning in humans• The goal of the experiment ;

– to show how principles of, at the time recently discovered, classical conditioning could be applied to condition fear of a white rat into "Little Albert", an 8-month-old boy

Watson and Raynor exposed the child to a series of stimuli. ( a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, a Santa clause masks and burning newspapers)

The next time Albert was exposed to the rat, Watson made a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer.

Naturally, the child began to cry after hearing the loud noise.

After repeatedly pairing the white rat with the loud noise, Albert began to cry simply after seeing the rat.

• No Fear• Unconditioned

Response (UR)

Before Conditioning

-White Rat

-Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

• Albert cries and avoids touching

• Unconditioned Response (UR)

During Conditioning

-White Rat

-Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

-Loud Noise

-Conditioning Stimulus (CS)

• Conditioned Response (CR)

• Fear

After Conditioning -white rat

-Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

CONCLUSION OF THE EXPERIMENT

• all behaviors are learned. • all phobias are most likely conditioned. • phobias were probably either a fear of the original

stimulus or that they had been transferred to other stimuli, as the person grew older.

Criticisms of the Little Albert Experiment

•First, the experimental design and process was not carefully constructed

•Secondly, the experiment also raises many ethical concerns.

Proponents & Principles:Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• Born in Russia • Studying physiology• He was noted for his

work on the physiology of digestion and was awarded the Nobel Prize for work in this area.

• However, he only became interested in psychology in 1900 at the age of 50.

Classical Conditioning

• In his classic experiment with dogs, he measured the saliva secreted by the animals when food was given.

Figure 1: Dog with tube inserted in its cheek. When the dog salivates, the saliva is collected in the test tube and its quantity is recorded on the rotating drum

Step 1: Before Conditioning

• He gave a hungry dog a bowl of food. The dog is hungry, the dog sees the food and the dog salivates.

Food Salivation

Unconditioned Stimulus

(US)

Unconditioned Response

(UR)

• This is a natural sequence of events, an unconscious, uncontrolled, and unlearned relationship.

Step 2: During Conditioning

• Next, Pavlov, presented the hungry dog with food and simultaneously rang a bell, and the dog salivated.

Food

Bell

Salivation

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

Unconditioned Response (UR)

Conditioning Stimulus (CS)

Step 3: After Conditioning

• This time Pavlov rang only the bell at mealtime, but he did not show any food. Guess what the dog did.

BellSalivatio

n Conditioning

Stimulus (CS)

Conditioning Response

(CS)

In short:

Classical Conditioning

• This type of learning involves:– An unconditioned stimulus (food)– An unconditioned response (salivation)– A conditioned stimulus (bell)– A conditioned response (dog salivate

every time bell is rings)

Basic Process/Principle in Classical Conditioning

Acquisition: Forming New Responses

Extinction: Weakening Conditioned Response

Spontaneous Recovery:

Resurrecting Responses

Higher-Order Conditioning

Stimulus Discrimination

Stimulus Generalization

Implications of Pavlov’s Conditioning Theory in

Teaching-Learning

Example 1: In Language Learning

Word ‘book’

Expressed word ‘book’

verbally

A card of word ‘book’

Teacher shows a

book

Pupil directly express

verbally the word book

Teacher shows a book

Pupil directly express verbally the word book

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Example: Behavior in classrom

• It is the first day in school and suddenly Suzy hears her teacher Ms. Lim yell “Keep Quiet” at the top of her voice.

• Suzy was startled and terrified and started to cry. In the next few days, whenever Ms. Lim entered the class she cried.

• She had associated the presence of Ms. Lim with fear. In other words, she has been conditioned to respond by crying whenever encountering Ms. Lim even though she had not yelled, “Keep Quiet”.

Example 1: In Language Learning

Ms. Lim yelled “Keep quite”

Suzy, startled, terrified (fear)

Ms. Lim

Suzy (fear)

Suzy, crying

Ms. Lim (enter class, did not

yelled)

Suzy (fear, cry)

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Classical Conditioning

• Using classical conditioning, teacher have the ability to:– affect students likes/dislikes– Influence our student’s attitude– Develop a respects for authority

Proponents & Principles:Edward Thorndike (1874-1949)

Classical Conditioning

Edward Thorndike (1874-1949)

• 1874 – 1949• doctoral thesis entitled

Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Process in Animals in 1898.

• “trial-and-error learning “

Connectionism

• Thorndike conclude that learning is incremental.

Figure 2.3 Thorndike’s puzzle box

Figure 2.3 Thorndike’s puzzle box

• Based on his experiments, Thorndike proposed the following theories of learning:

The Law of Readiness

The Law of Exercise

The Law of Effect

•The Law of Readiness•The Law of Exercise

IMPLICATIONS OF THORNDIKE’S

THEORIES

• Thorndike developed the idea of connectionism.

• People of higher intellect formed more bonds between stimuli and response and formed them more easily than people of lower ability.

stimulus response

essence of intellectual development.

Complex ideas

pre-requisite concepts

Positive reinforcemen

t

Transfer of learning

depends on the match between elements across the two events.

presence of identical elements in the original and new learning situations.

specific and never general.

Transfer from one school task to a highly similar task ,and from school subject to non-

school settings could be facilitated by teaching knowledge and skills in school subjects that have elements identical to

activities encountered in the initial context.