Chapter 3: Social Learning and Culture
- operant conditioning/instrumental conditioning – a type of learning in which learning depends
on the consequences of behaviour; rewards increase the likelihood that a behaviour will recur
whereas punishment decreases that likelihood
- Positive reinforcement (by Skinner) – positive reinforcement involves anything that follows a
behavior that makes it more likely that the behavior will occur again in the future. When a
favorable outcome, event or reward occurs after an action, that particular response or behavior
will be strengthened.
- Skinner used this form of operant conditioning (built on the principles of behaviorism) in
“Walden Two” a community of people who lived w/o quarrels, jealousy but with affection, care
and cooperation
- By rewarding socially desirable behaviour, the educational system at Walden gradually instilled
positive behaviours among the community members
- Behaviorism – is a brand of psychology that explores the ways in which observable behaviour is
learned and shaped by the environment
- John Watson – the founder of behaviorism, believed he could take any human infant at random
and raise him or her to become any kind of adult creating the right environment
- John Locke – doctrine of the tabula rasa or “blank state”, Locke believed the mind is like a blank
state or clean piece of paper, nothing is written on the slate, over time experience “writes” upon
the slate
- Locke rejected the notion of innate ideas and argued instead that the environment shapes the
person
- Thus according to Locke personality is made by the environment (through learning) and is NOT
inborn
- According to behaviorists’ our environments’ teach us to be who we are, “we learn in order to
obtain pleasure and avoid pain”
- Epicureanism – by Epicurus, who stated that freedom from pain and the pursuit of gentle
pleasures and peace of mind were the hallmarks of good life. (optimal pleasure and minimal
pain make us happy and what is ethically or morally bad brings displeasure/pain)
- Utilitarianism – idea that “good” society should make for the greatest happiness or pleasure for
the greatest happiness or pleasure for the greatest number of people
- Utiliatrians argued this could be accomplished if societies were structured in a more egalitarian
fashion and equality for all
- Associationism - two concepts or stimuli are associated when the experience of one leads to the
effects of another, due to repeated pairing
- Classical conditioning – – a type of learning in which individuals learn to respond to unfamiliar
stimuli if the two stimuli are repeatedly represented together
A hungry dog learns to salivate in response to a neutral stimulus (a tone) because that neutral
stimulus has become associated with a stimulus (meat) that typically elicits salivation naturally
- Unconditioned response –
- Conditioned response –
1 - Stimulus generalization-
- Classical conditioning may be implicated in the development of certain neurotic symptoms esp
phobias
- Higher order conditioning-
- Shaping – the process of reinforcing closer and closer approximations to a diseried behavior in
an attempt to elicit that behaviour
- In Operant conditioning individuals also learn when and where to perform or refrain from
certain behaviours
- Generalization – learning behaviour is virtually always appropriate and that it should there be
shown in the presence of a great variety of stimuli
- Partial reinforcement – a particular response is reinforced intermittently
- Continuous reinforcement – the response is reinforced every time it occurs
- Extinction – when behaviour is no longer reinforced, the behaviour decreases in frequency and
eventually dies out
- Conditioned generalized reinforces – reinforces that acquire their power because of their
association with a variety of other reinforces
- Arnold Buss divides social reinforcers into two classes – stimulation rewards and affective
awards
- Stimulation rewards include receiving attention from others, affective rewards include receiving
respect, praise and affection
- Affective rewards constitute an emotional response from others, stimulation rewards merely
indicate that others are responding in some way to the self
- Social learning theories – these theories retain some of behaviorism’s emphasis on
environmentalism and learning while adopting a broader view of human behaviour that
incorporates important cognitive variables
Expectancies and values
- Julian Rotter – viewed the person as actively constructing his/her own reality, rather than
merely passively responding to it
- Expectancy – probability that particular reinforcement will occur as the outcome of a specific
behaviour
- Locus of control – people with an internal locus of control – expect reinforcers and rewards to
follow their actions and external locus of control expects that his/her behaviour will not lead to
predictable reinforcement rather its is external factors (powerful others, chance, luck etc)
- I-E Scale – self report scales have been developed to measure locus of control – which contains
29 items asking people to choose b/w internal and external options. Rotter’s scale assumes that
locus of control is a broad, generalized factor that cuts across many different domains
- Reinforcement value – refers to the subjective attractiveness of particular reinforcement
- In Rotter’s terminology, behavioral potential (BP) that is, the likelihood that a particular person
will perform a given behaviour , equals the combination of the expectancy (E) and the
reinforcement value (RV) that the behaviour holds for that person (BP = E + RV )
2 - People are most likely to act to obtain goals for which (a) they expect to be reinforced (high E)
and (b) the expected reinforcers are highly valued (high RV)
- Cognitive/social learning/person variables – these are characteristic strategies or styles of
approaching situations and thought to grow out of the individuals previous experiences with
both situations and rewards
- Competencies – refer to what a person knows and can do
- Encoding strategies – deal with the manner in which people interpret information, each person
sees a particular situation from a different point of view
- Self regulatory system and plans – to the ways we regulate and guide our own behaviour
through self imposed goals and standards
Observational Learning
- Albert Bandura – human beings learn a great deal simply by watching other people behave,
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