Learned vs. Unlearned
Modified: 2025-01-06 10:34 AM CST
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The study of learning has been one of the central foci of psychology
since the turn of the twentieth century.
- During the heyday of
behaviorism, learning WAS psychology in America.
- Although that
emphasis has subsided somewhat today, a complete understanding of
modern psychology requires us to know the research on learning.
- Learned behaviors can be distinguished from unlearned behaviors only
if we observe the development of those behaviors.
- They cannot be
differentiated on a simple to complex dimension.
- Unlearned behaviors are "built-in" in some sense.
- Either they
unfold via the process of maturation, or they manifest themselves at
some stage in life in all or nearly all members of the same species.
- In other words, unlearned behaviors are more consistent in form and
timing of development than learned behaviors.
- Learned behaviors must
be acquired.
- Learned behaviors will exhibit a wider variability than
unlearned, and will not be as universally distributed as unlearned
behaviors.
- Some examples of each (below) will help to clarify these
distinctions.
- Example: Unlearned
- The three-spined stickleback is a small, freshwater, European
fish. It lives in small streams.
- Males of this species build nests
during the mating season and then defend the cylinder of water
above the nest from other males.
- Males develop red bellies during
mating season, and that is the primary cue that other males use to
distinguish males from females.
- In fact, Tinbergen showed that even
crude fish models with red bellies were attacked by resident males,
but accurate models without red bellies were not.
- Females do not
develop red bellies.
- When a female enters a male's territory, he
engages in the "zig-zag" dance.
- If a female is receptive, she will
follow the male to his nest, lay her eggs inside, and leave.
- The male
will then fertilize the eggs, fan water through the nest with his
tail to prevent rotting, and continue to defend the nest.
- The point
of this long-winded example is that ALL normal male sticklebacks will
engage in this kind of behavior WITHOUT having to learn it.
- (Papa
stickleback does not have to explain to Junior stickleback about the
birds and the bees.....) The above is an example of a complex
unlearned situation.
- Diagram of process described above
- Example: Unlearned and Learned
- The digger wasp demonstrates a situation in which there are both
unlearned and learned components.
- These digger wasps live near the
coast in the Netherlands.
- They hunt for caterpillars, stun them, lay
eggs in them, and bury them in small burrows.
- All of those behaviors
mentioned above are unlearned, meaning that all normal digger wasps will
engage in such behavior without having to learn it.
- By the way, the
caterpillars are put into a state or torpor or immobility by the
sting. The young wasps hatch and then eat their way out of the live
but immobile caterpillar.
- The learned part of this example comes in
navigating from the area in which the caterpillars are found to the
various burrows each wasp maintains.
- Each burrow is visited several
times before it is finally sealed, and each wasp maintains several
burrows.
- The Baerends, Tinbergen's colleagues, were able to demonstrate that the wasps were
navigating by learned cues.
- They did so by moving the landmarks near
burrows.
- When the wasps returned, they landed where the burrow should
have been.
- Eventually, however, they learned the new location.
- This
example gives us an idea about a function of learning, namely, to
help animals deal with environments that change.
- The beach will
change daily, but caterpillars have been the same for millions of
years.
- More recent research showed that plants being attacked by caterpillars emitted plant hormones that the wasps could detect, thus making their search easier.
- Explanation of behavior described above.
- Example: Learned (nearly entirely)
- The final example involves human and monkey parenting. An
interesting question is, "How much of human parenting is learned?"
- Unfortunately, we cannot run the experiment to answer that question
for ethical reasons. (e.g.,. Take a number of children, raise them
without parents....)
- Harlow, however, was able to run just such an
experiment with rhesus monkeys.
- Harlow separated some mothers and
their offspring shortly after birth.
- Some monkey infants were reared
in total isolation, others with "surrogate mothers," others with
other monkey infants, and still others were not separated from their
mothers.
- The infants raised in total isolation were completely
abnormal.
- The infants reared with surrogate mothers fared somewhat
better, and they developed an attachment to the soft, warm surrogate
mother.
- Later in life, the males reared in this condition could not become
fathers because they were unable to copulate with females.
- Females
in this group did copulate successfully, but made horrible mothers.
- Both males
and females in the group that was reared with other monkeys could
copulate and made adequate, if somewhat below average, parents.
- In
rhesus monkeys, then, parenting skills are learned.
- Harlow's research described and analyzed
- Parenting skills are learned in
humans as well.
- Many of us have had experience with infants prior to
giving birth to our own.
- However, the experiences surrounding the
birth and raising of the first child are the major time of learning
for most parents.
- Subsequent children are treated very differently
because of those experiences. (Parents learned from having their first child.)
- Interestingly, our society requires no
demonstration of capacity to parent. But, society requires
demonstration of capacity to drive an automobile.
- Lykken and others have
argued that some formal training in parenting should be required.
- Informal avenues for training exist, such as LaMaze training and
intervention programs for some parents.
- The research on child abuse
is instructive here.
- Child abusers are much more likely to have been
abused children themselves, giving rise to a cyclical hypothesis of
child abuse.
- Intervention programs aim to break that cycle.
- So, understanding learning provides insight into much of human
behavior because so much of human behavior is learned.
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