Chapter 10

The Learning Perspective

Modified: 2022-07-26 3:55 pm

There are two branches related to learning. The first is the conditioning viewpoint characterized by Pavlovian conditioning and by instrumental conditioning. The second is the social cognitive viewpoint that emphasizes human thinking and how that alters behavior.

• Learning Objectives:
  •10.1 Relate the process of classical conditioning to the concepts of discrimination, generalization, and emotional conditioning
  •10.2 Examine the processes of instrumental conditioning, schedules of reinforcement, and partial reinforcement
  •10.3 Analyze cognitive and social learning theories as new generation of learning theories
  •10.4 Summarize the process of acquiring a behavior potential through observational learning
  •10.5 Examine three processes that influence the impact of media violence on real-life aggression
  •10.6 Evaluate behavioral assessment
  •10.7 Assess how behavior problems can be treated through conditioning procedures of behavior therapy or behavior modification
  •10.8 Recall two strengths and problems of the learning perspective on personality
• 10.1 Classical Conditioning (p. 144)
• 10.1.1 Basic Elements
  • Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist. During the early 20th century he worked on describing the process of digestion. He developed techniques of collecting saliva from dogs. He did so because salivation is the first step in digestion. He presented meat powder to his dogs, and then collected the saliva. However, he soon noticed that as the dogs became familiar with the experimental routine they began to salivate before they received the meat powder.
  • That observation led Pavlov to investigate the process whereby dogs learned to associate the experimental routine with the meat powder. That decision marked the time that Pavlov's research became psychological instead of physiological. He systematically presented stimuli, e.g., metronomes, lights, buzzers, to his dogs and then followed those with meat powder. He soon found that the dogs easily learned to salivate to the presentation of any stimulus associated with the meat powder.
  • He called the meat powder the unconditioned stimulus or UCS, because dogs did not need to learn that association. It was already "built-in" to each dog. He called the stimulus he chose to present first the conditioned stimulus or CS. He called it the conditioned stimulus because the dogs would not salivate to it at first. They would only salivate to it after it had been associated with the UCS.
  • When the dog salivated to the meat powder, Pavlov called that response the unconditioned response or UCR. He called it that because it occurred to the UCS. When the dog salivated to the stimulus Pavlov chose and presented prior to the UCS, he called that the conditioned response or CR. Again, he called it that because it occurred to the CS. Although the UCR and CR are very similar, they are not identical.
  • So, Pavlov's discovery was that a new stimulus can lead to a new response similar to a naturally occurring stimulus and response.
  • The keys to classical conditioning are the temporal (time) relationships of the CS and the UCS, and also, how well the CS predicts the likelihood of the UCS.
  • Let us review. Pavlov's discovery is now called classical or respondent conditioning. The UCS-->UCR relationship is naturally occurring; it is not learned. Salivation in dogs occurs to the presentation of meat powder because that is part of the biology of being a dog.
  • A similar example in humans is an air puff to the eye and blinking. Humans will blink if air is blown gently into their eye. The CS at first leads to no observable behavior. But, as the CS is followed by the UCS over and over, dogs start to salivate when the CS is presented, and humans, also, start to blink to a light when that light (a CS) is presented prior to the puff of air.
  • So, one can think of classical conditioning as the pairing of a CS and a UCS in time, with the CS occurring first, or, CS-->UCS.
• 10.1.2 Discrimination, Generalization, and Extinction in Classical Conditioning
  • Generalization
    • In classical conditioning generalization occurs when a stimulus similar to original CS elicits the conditioned response. Ringtones are a good example, when you hear someone else's ringtone and it is similar to yours you might try to answer your phone.
  • Discrimination
    • In classical conditioning discrimination occurs when a new stimulus is sufficiently different from the original CS that the conditioned response is not given to the new stimulus.
    • When I let my dogs back in from outside I always give them a treat. But, when my wife lets them back in she never gives them a treat.
    • Consequently, when I let them in the dogs look up at where their treats are stored over the refrigerator. But, when she lets them in they do not. I am the original CS and my wife is the new stimulus.
  • Extinction
    • In lay terms, you can think of extinction as the "unconditioning" or unlearning of a conditioned response. That sentence tells us something very important. That is, extinction is not like forgetting. We do not simply forget responses that have been conditioned. Rather, if we want to remove conditioned responses, we have to extinguish them. That fact has important implications in areas like therapy and child rearing.
    • Many years ago, Skinner conditioned some pigeons to make an operant response. He then put those pigeons on a vacation; he let them just spend their time in the lab without doing any more operant conditioning. When he returned them to the conditioning situation, some years after their original conditioning, they all exhibited the conditioned response. So, in a sense, conditioning is forever, unless it is extinguished.
    • How do we extinguish an animal? In classical conditioning, we remove the UCS. In operant conditioning, we remove the reinforcer. Over a period, the animal will learn that the CS, or the operant response, is no longer being reinforced. (The UCS is also considered to be a reinforcer.) We will see however, that conditioned behaviors can make a reappearance, even after extinction.
• 10.1.3 Emotional Conditioning
  • Many students feel negative emotions when shown the color red
    • Is it because the use of red pens by instructors has conditioned them? Red Ink->Bad Grade
• Box 10.1 What's Going on in Classical Conditioning?
  • The Rescorla-Wagner model of classical conditioning goes beyond simple contiguity of CS and UCS
  • In classical conditioning the CS is a signal that something is going to happen (e.g., when the metronome starts, food will follow)
  • When one CS has already been established it is difficult (if not impossible) to establish a different CS that predicts the same UCS
  • Cancer patients can be conditioned to "blame" their nausea from treatment to a "scapegoat" taste stimulus (one they would not normally eat)
  • Rescorla also avers that classical conditioning can occur more quickly than most claim
    
• 10.2 Instrumental Conditioning (p. 148)
• The paradigm for operant conditioning is:

  S^D-->R-->S^R

  where and S^D is a discriminative stimulus, R is a response, and S^R is a reinforcer.

  In operant conditioning, an animal must first make a response; that response is usually preceded by a discriminative stimulus, and sometimes followed by a reinforcer. Notice, that is not the case in classical conditioning.

  Operant conditioning occurs when the association of response and reinforcer causes the animal to make the response again later in a similar situation.The discriminative stimulus signals the animal that a response at a given time is likely to be reinforced. The response MUST be made, for without it, the reinforcement will not occur. Finally, the reinforcer has the property of making the response that precedes it more likely to recur.

  Think of a traffic light. It's a complex discriminative stimulus. Green means go, Red means stop. Here's another example:

  Imagine that you are in a future classroom and a green light appears on your console. Were you to raise your hand and ask a question, you would get a $20 bill. If you never raise your hand then no money. But, if you do raise your hand and get the money you'll probably raise your hand again.

  But, when you raise your hand when the green light is not on, nothing happens, no $20 bill. Soon, the green light comes on, you raise your hand and the money is dispensed. Now, the green light has become a discriminative stimulus. If it is on AND you raise your hand you'll get the money. If it is off and you raise your hand nothing happens. What do you think you'll do when that green light appears?

  The apparatus used to study operant conditioning removes many distractors. An animal in an operant chamber will eventually direct its attention to the manipulandum (e.g., the lever or key) that activates the reinforcer.

  So, operant conditioning can be defined as a procedure in which a response followed by a stimulus recurs. It recurs because of the stimulus. That stimulus is called a reinforcer. Reinforcers are stimuli that make the response that preceded them more likely to recur. Typical reinforcers include the giving of food or drink, and the removal of shock or pain. I will discuss the properties of reinforcers more below.

  Discriminative stimuli set the occasion for a response and its associated reinforcer to occur. For example, a green traffic light is the discriminative stimulus for the response of pressing on the accelerator of your car. The facial expression of your boss may set the occasion for you NOT to ask your boss for a raise (because of a likely negative answer to your question).

• 10.2.1 The Law of Effect
  • Thorndike (1911) wrote :
    • Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will be more likely to recur; those which are accompanied or closely followed by discomfort to the animal will, other things being equal, have their connections with that situation weakened, so that, when it recurs, they will be less likely to occur. The greater the satisfaction or discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond.
    • This was the earliest definition of reinforcement. Notice the cognitive language.
• 10.2.2 Reinforcement and Punishment
  • Reinforcement increases the response that precedes it
    • Positive reinforcement is when a response is followed by the addition of a stimulus, and then that response is more likely to recur. For example, let's pretend we are in a classroom in the near future. You raise your hand to ask a question, and a $20 bill appears from a slot in the desk top. You ask another question, and $20 more appears. Pretty soon, you find yourself asking more and more questions. Here, the $20 has become a reinforcer because it increased your level of question asking.
    • Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, is when a response is followed by the removal of a stimulus and then that response is more likely to recur. Notice that negative reinforcement also makes the response more likely to recur. Let's revisit that hypothetical classroom in the near future. Now, when you sit in your desk, you are subjected to electric shock. Whenever you are in your desk you are being shocked. One day you ask a question, and the shock disappears, briefly. You ask another question, and it disappears briefly again. Soon, you are asking a lot of questions. Your question asking is also being reinforced, but now by the removal of a stimulus, or by negative reinforcement.
    • In everyday life, nagging is one of the more common examples of negative reinforcement. If someone nags at you, and then you perform some behavior, then the nagging stops, you may perform that behavior again when the nagging starts another time.
  • Punishment is when a stimulus that follows a response leads to a lower likelihood of that response's recurring. Note that reinforcement, either positive or negative, leads to a higher likelihood of a response recurring.
    • Positive punishment is when a response is followed by the addition of a stimulus. That stimulus has the property of making that response less likely to recur. For example, let's go back to that classroom in the near future. Now, whenever you raise your hand, you receive a shock. Soon, you stop raising your hand. Note that this scene sometimes occurs in real classrooms. If a student asks a question and then hears something like, "That's the stupidest question I ever heard" from the instructor, that student will likely not ask many questions in the future.
    • Negative punishment is when a response is followed by the removal of an already present stimulus, and that leads to that response's occurring less often. For example, in that future classroom again, if you asked a question and one of your $20 bills disappeared back into the slot every time you asked a question, you would probably quit asking questions.
    • Although it might appear that reinforcement and punishment are opposites, they are not. Punishment arouses negative emotions, (e.g., hate, disgust, loathing). But, reinforcement does not similarly arouse positive emotions like love, liking, and attraction. Think of jilted suitors who asks why their partners left. They might wonder why their partners left even though they gave their partners expensive gifts. Those expensive gifts did not, in and of themselves, lead to love.
      
• 10.2.3 Discrimination, Generalization, and Extinction in Instrumental Conditioning (see 10.1.2)
  
• 10.2.4 Schedules of Reinforcement
  • One of the major discoveries of operant conditioning was that not only do reinforcers have the power to cause responses to be made more often, but that how and when those reinforcers are delivered also affects the pattern of responses. Controlling the how and when of reinforcement is a reinforcement schedule.
  • Schedules are of two main types, time-based and response-based. Time-based schedules usually contain the word interval, as in time interval. Response-based schedules usually contain the word ratio, referring to the ratio of responses over time.
  • Fixed interval (FI) schedules reinforce any response made after a given interval measured from the preceding reiforcement is reinforced. A given interval is indicated by the addition of a number to the letter FI (minutes, usually).Thus, in FI 5 the first response which occurs five minutes or more after the preceding reinforcement is reinforced. (Thanks to Julie Vargas)
  • Fixed ratio (FR) schedules deliver a reinforcer based upon a constant number of responses. For example, a FR-15 schedule would deliver a reinforcer every 15th response.
  • Variable ratio (VR) schedules are similar to fixed ratio, except that the number of responses required for a reinforcer changes each time. So, a VR-15 schedule would deliver a reinforcer over an average of 15 responses, not on every 15th response.
  • Let's examine some everyday examples of reinforcement schedules and their effects. A paycheck is a good example of an FI schedule. Workers get a check once a week, for example, if they show up and work. They do not get rewarded for working harder, or penalized for working less. Workers who work by the piece or by the job, piecework, are paid more if they produce more, and are paid less if they produce less. Piecework is an example of an FR schedule. Workers typically work harder on FR schedules than they do on FI schedules.
  • Gambling is the classic example of a VR schedule. Part of the allure of gambling is its uncertain payoff. Imagine a slot machine that paid off every 10th time; only the 10th pull would be exciting. A real slot machine, on the other hand, pays off on a random basis, so each pull is exciting. VR schedules maintain behavior at very high rates.
  • About the best everyday example of a VI schedule that I can think of is working for a shady character. This person pays you, but you never know when payday is going to be. It could be a week, two weeks, a month. So, you don't work very hard. You would probably jump to another job if the pay were the same but given regularly.
  • Continuous schedules make acquisition easier but extinguish faster
    • Intermittent schedules make acquisition harder but extinguish slower
    • PREE-partial reinforcement extinction effect
      • Name for effect described above
      • Think of breaking up and phone calls
        • What happens if you ex keeps calling you and you answer once.
          • Ex will call again
          • You have placed ex on a partial schedule
• 10.2.5 Reinforcement of Qualities of Behavior
  • Reinforcers have been shown to generalize to similar abstract qualities in different situations:
    • Effortfulness
    • Accuracy
    • Speed
    • Creativity
    • Focused thought
    • Variability
    • Selective attention
  • Conditioning may be more complex than previously thought
    
• 10.3 Social and Cognitive Variations (p. 151)
  • Cognitive learning theories:
    • May better account for human learning
    • Explain observational learning
    • Redefine learning as the acquistion of knowledge
    • Are called social learning theories
  • 10.3.1 Social Reinforcement
    • Humans can reinforce or punish themselves: self-reinforcement or self-punishment
    • Social reinforcers include:
      • acceptance
      • smiles
      • hugs
      • praise
      • approval
      • interest
      • attention
    • Self-reinforcement can be:
      • Reinforcing yourself after completing a task (e.g., watching TV after washing the dishes)
      • Reacting to your own behavior with approval (reinforcement) or disapproval (punishment)
  • 10.3.2 Vicarious Emotional Arousal
    • Vicarious means actually experienced by someone else and indirectly experienced by you
      • Note: much of what we learn is vicarious
        • Example: parachuting. Unless you have actually jumped out of an airplane your experience of it is vicarious
    • Vicarious experiences are NOT learning but they may be a precursor to learning via classical conditioning
  • 10.3.3 Vicarious Reinforcement
    • Similarly, seeing another person being reinforced or punished might make you act accordingly
      • Seeing them reinforced may induce you to exhibit their behavior
        • Example: someone gets all of their money back AND a drink from a beverage machine, you imitate
      • Seeing them punished may induce you to avoid such behavior
        • Example: you pass the car that just passed you on the highway. Now that car is getting a speeding ticket, you slow down
  • 10.3.4 What Really Is Reinforcement?
    • Bandura had a different view of reinforcement
    • Instead of reinforcement increasing the probability of a response he maintained:
      • Reinforcement created expectancies
        • Example: When you switch on the lights in your room you expect the lights to come on
      • Bandura redifined reinforcement as:
        • Something that provided information about outcomes
        • Something that provided potential for future motivational states
  • 10.3.5 Efficacy Expectancies
    • Efficacy (self-efficacy) is the confidence required to perform a desired action
    • First discovered in therapeutic results, it also:
      • helped business students in a management task
      • lowered grief among the newly bereaved
      • predicted recidivism in recovering drug users
    • Self-efficacy may the the pathway to self-esteem and optimism
  • 10.3.6 Role of Awareness
    • Being aware of conditioning may be important in human learning
    • A middle ground position is that two systems of learning exist
      • An actuarial one
        • Records all experiences
        • Infants only use this one
      • A predictive one
        • Generates expectancies
        • Adults use both
• Box 10.3 Modeling and Delay of Gratification
  • Delay of gratification
    • Choose a more desirable alternative later instead of a more desirable one now
    • Difficult choice for most
    • Bandura and Mischel (1965)
      • Watching a model pick OPPOSITE the child's previous choice (delay vs immediate) indicated modeling was important and likely the result of vicarious reinforcement
        
• 10.4 Observational Learning (p. 154)
  • Observational learning is another form of learning
  • It involves watching another perform an action and then repeating it oneself
  • It must be a new action
  • Common in humans from first year of life on (monkey see, monkey do)
  • Seen in some animals too
    
    • 10.4.1 Attention and Retention
      • Observational learning requires:
        • Paying attention to the model
        • Realizing some models are better than others
        • Sufficient capability and concentration in the observer
        • Not being distracted
        • Retaining the observation in memory
          • Imaginal coding
          • Verbal coding
            
    • 10.4.2 Production
      • The next step is repeating the observed behavior
      • Having similar skills already helps
      • Having experience with the elements of the behavior helps too
        • Example: Knowing the parts of a car already
      • Linking the cognitive label to the sequence of events makes observational learning easier
        
    • 10.4.3 Acquisition versus Performance
      • Bandura and Walters (1963)
        • Children watched model:
        • Praise the Bobo doll
        • Punish the Bobo doll
        • After children successfully reproduced their behaviors when given incentives
        • But, they did not reproduce behaviors when not given incentives
        • Conclusion: observational learning and vicarious instrumental learning are not the same processes
          
• 10.5 Modeling of Aggression and the Issue of Media Violence (p. 156)
  • Observing symbolic (e.g., on the media) or actual aggression:
    • Creates innovative methods for inflicting pain and suffering
    • Makes aggression an appropriate way to deal with problems
    • Desensitizes people about extreme violence and makes it normal
    • Prosocial games, however, increase prosocial behavior
    • In short, content is king
• 10.6 Assessment from the Learning Perspective (p. 157)
  • Assessments vary based upon the type of learning.
    
    • 10.6.1 Conditioning-Based Approaches
      • Physiological approaches assess by looking at correlated bodily responses:
        • Muscular tension
        • Heart rate
        • Blood pressure
      • Behavioral assessment
        • Looking at behavior in specific situations:
          • Trembling
          • Paleness
          • Avoidance
          • Selection of activities
          • Length of activity
          • Patterns of activity
            
    • 10.6.2 Social–Cognitive Approaches
      • Self-reports are common methods
      • Experiential variables are emphasized
      • Expectancies, too, are important
        • Coping
        • Personal efficacy
      • Personal views of situations over objetive measurement of physiological and behavioral variables
        
• 10.7 Problems in Behavior, and Behavior Change, from the Learning Perspective (p. 158)
  • In a case of learning theorists, heal thyselves there exist techniques designed to change learned behavior, especially when it is maladaptive
    • 10.7.1 Classical Conditioning of Emotional Responses
      • Phobias are inappropriately intense fears of some specific class of stimuli
      • Systematic desensitization (or counterconditioning):
        • Happens in an office or therapeutic venue
        • Patient or client is taught relaxation first
        • Then, patient or client is slowly exposed to a graduated series of descriptions of scary events
        • The patient or client attempts to relax in the face of those descriptions
        • The idea being that the patient or client can either be scared or relaxed, but not both
      • Exposure treatments are similar except that a high level of anxiety is introduced by a very scary description
        
    • 10.7.2 Conditioning and Context
      • Often, a patient or client returning to the original situation will have the anxiety reappear
      • Two solutions are:
        • Having therapy take place in a similar situation
        • Avoiding the original situation
      • Unfortunately, problems such as smoking or drinking each have their own long list of associated discriminative stimuli, any one of which might trigger the original problem behavior
        
    • 10.7.3 Instrumental Conditioning and Maladaptive Behaviors
      • Contingency management techniques substitute new reinforcers for old
        • Example: childhood obesity may be due to lack of physical activity and poor diet. Reinforcing physical activity and modeling a better diet might reverse such a trend
          
    • 10.7.4 Social–Cognitive Approaches
      • Principles:
        • Vicarious conditioning
          • Direct experience not needed to acquire unwanted emotion (e.g., fear)
        • Expectancies
          • Expectancies themselves may cause problems
            • Example: Fear of high places leads to avoidance of high places
        • Observational learning
          • Watching others, by itself, can lead to vicarious reinforcement or punishment
      • Skill deficits may be caused by:
        • Deficits in observational learning
        • Lack of adequate models
        • Skill deficits may change expectancies
          • Example: There is no way I could ride a horse. (David Niven's first movie part in Hollywood required him to ride a horse. He had never ridden one, but when asked said, yes, he could ride.)
            
    • 10.7.5 Modeling-Based Therapy for Skill Deficits
      • Modeling used for skill deficits and fear (see below)
      • Social skill deficits are most commonly addressed by this modeling
        • Example: Assertiveness, acting to make sure your rights are not violated while at the same time not violating someone else's rights
      • Modeling and patient/clients actions may each be overt or covert
        
    • 10.7.6 Modeling and Responses to Fear
      • Three models:
        • Mastery
          • Model has not obvious fear
        • Coping
          • Model initially exhibits fear
          • Eventually handles the situation without fear
        • Participant
          • Model actually performs the behavior causing the fear
          • Patient/client repeats it
          • Model explains how coping with fear happened
        • Models are useful for:
          • Fear of animals (dogs, snakes, spiders)
          • Surgery
          • Injections
          • Dental work
          • Test taking
          • Flying
            
    • 10.7.7 Therapeutic Changes in Efficacy Expectancy
      • Bandura (1977b) believes these cognitive therapies work because:
        • Efficacy expectations mediate behavior change
        • Participant modeling shows patients/clients that they can cope
        • Even vicarious methods work better than no therapy
        • Verbal persuasion also plays a role
          
• 10.8 Problems and Prospects for the Learning Perspective (p. 161)
  • This chapter reveals two widely separated views of psychology and personality
  • The conditioning viewpoint emphasizes determinants of behavior and minimizes personality. It also, in its more radical forms, minimizes cognition.
  • The social cognitive viewpoint (formerly known as the social learning viewpoint) emphasizes thinking as the precursor to behavior.
  • Whether a reconciliation between the two views is possible is unknown at present.
• Points to Remember
  • Conditioning approaches emphasize two types of learning.
  • In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus (CS) is presented along with another stimulus (US) that already elicits a reflexive response (UR).
  • After repeated pairings, the CS itself comes to elicit a response (CR) that’s similar to the UR. The CR appears to be an anticipatory response that prepares for the US.
  • This basic phenomenon is modified by discrimination (different stimuli leading to different responses) and extended by generalization (different stimuli leading to similar responses).
  • CRs fade if the CS is presented repeatedly without the US, a process termed extinction.
  • Classical conditioning is important to personality primarily when the responses being conditioned are emotional reactions (emotional conditioning).
  • Classical conditioning, thus, provides a basis for understanding people’s unique preferences and aversions, and it provides a way of analyzing certain psychological problems, such as phobias.
  • In instrumental conditioning, a behavior is followed by an outcome that’s either positively valued or aversive.
  • If the outcome is positively valued, the tendency to perform the behavior is strengthened. Thus, the outcome is called a reinforcer.
  • If the outcome is aversive (a punisher), the tendency to perform the behavior is reduced.
  • Discrimination in instrumental conditioning means responding in different ways to different situational cues; generalization is responding in a similar way to different cues; extinction is reduction of a behavioral tendency through nonreinforcement of the behavior.
  • Reinforcers can occur in many patterns, termed schedules.
  • An important effect of variations in reinforcement schedules is that behavior learned by intermittent (partial) reinforcement is more persistent (under later conditions of nonreinforcement) than is a behavior learned by continuous reinforcement.
  • Another generation of learning theories has evolved. They’re called cognitive because they emphasize the role of thought processes in behavior and social because they emphasize the idea that people often learn from one another.
  • Several aspects of these theories represent elaborations on conditioning principles. These elaborations include an emphasis on social reinforcement (rather than other sorts of reinforcement) in shaping behavior.
  • Because humans have the capability for empathy (vicarious emotional arousal), we can experience classical conditioning vicariously.
  • We can also experience reinforcement and punishment vicariously, causing shifts in action tendencies on the basis of someone else’s outcomes.
  • This view also holds that humans often learn expectancies and then apply them to new situations.
  • The idea that expectancies about outcomes play an important part in determining our behavior is a central part of social–cognitive learning models.
  • Another important idea is that perceptions of personal efficacy determine whether a person will persist when in stressful circumstances.
  • Another part of this approach to personality stands as distinct from conditioning principles: the process of acquiring behavior potentials through observational learning.
  • This process requires that an observer attend to a model (who is displaying a behavior), retain some memory of what was done (usually a visual or verbal memory), and have component skills to be able to reproduce what was modeled.
  • This process of acquisition is not directly influenced by reinforcement contingencies.
  • On the other hand, spontaneous performance of the acquired behavior is very much influenced by perceptions of reinforcement contingencies.
  • Assessment, from a conditioning point of view, emphasizes observation of various aspects of behavior as they occur in specific situations.
  • Assessment can focus on people’s physiological responses, their overt behaviors, or their reports of emotional reactions in response to different kinds of stimuli.
  • Assessment from a social–cognitive learning point of view is more reliant on self-reports.
  • The conditioning approach assumes that problems in behavior are the result of the same kinds of processes as result in normal behavior.
  • Classical conditioning can produce intense and irrational fears, called phobias; instrumental conditioning can produce behavior tendencies that persist even when they are no longer adaptive.
  • These various problems can be treated by means of conditioning procedures, collectively termed behavior therapy or behavior modification.
  • Systematic desensitization counterconditions fear reactions with relaxation.
  • Exposure treatments keep people focused on distressing situations until long after the burst of anxiety calms down.
  • Problems in behavior can also develop through vicarious learning, or when people haven’t had the opportunity to learn needed behaviors from models.
  • Therapy based on the social–cognitive learning approach often involves modeling, whether as an attempt to remedy skill deficits through observational learning or as an attempt to show the utility of coping skills through vicarious reinforcement.
• KEY TERMS

• Behavior modification (or behavior therapy): The changing of behavior therapeutically through conditioning processes.
• Behavioral assessment: An assessment made by observing a person’s overt behavior.
• Classical conditioning: The pairing of a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus.
• Conditioned (or conditional) stimulus (CS): A neutral stimulus that’s paired with a US to become conditioned.
• Conditioned (or conditional) response (CR): A response to the CS that’s acquired by classical conditioning.
• Contingency management: Programs in which reinforcement is increased for desired behaviors and withheld after undesired behaviors.
• Continuous reinforcement: A schedule in which reinforcement follows each instance of the behavior.
• Coping model: A model that displays fear but ultimately handles it.
• Counterconditioning: The linking of an emotion to a stimulus that differs from the emotion the stimulus now causes.
• Discrimination: Responding in a different manner to different stimuli.
• Discriminative stimulus: A cue that controls the occurrence of behavior.
• Efficacy expectancy: Confidence of being able to do something successfully.
• Emotional conditioning: Classical conditioning in which the CR is an emotional reaction.
• Exposure treatments: Treatments in which people stay focused on the distressing topic until well after their anxiety reaction dissipates.
• Extinction: In classical conditioning, the reduction of a CR by repeating the CS without the US; in instrumental conditioning, the reduction of a behavioral tendency by removing reinforcement.
• Generalization: Responding in a similar manner to somewhat different stimuli.
• Habit hierarchy: The ordering of a person’s potential responses by their likelihood.
• Higher-order conditioning: Event in which a former CS now acts as a US in a new instance of conditioning.
• Instrumental (or operant) conditioning: Conditioning in which a behavior becomes more likely because it is followed by a desirable event, or less likely because it is followed by an undesirable event.
• Mastery model: A model that displays no fear.
• Negative reinforcement: The removal of an aversive stimulus.
• Observational learning: Acquiring the ability to do a new behavior by watching someone else do it.
• Outcome expectancy: Judgment about how likely a specific behavior is to attain a specific goal.
• Partial reinforcement: A schedule in which the behavior is reinforced less often than every time it occurs.
• Partial reinforcement effect: The fact that a behavior acquired through partial reinforcement is resistant to extinction.
• Participant modeling: The act of practicing a behavior that’s hard for oneself while using the therapist as model.
• Phobia: An inappropriately intense fear of some specific class of stimuli.
• Physiological assessment: The measuring of physiological aspects of emotional reactions.
• Positive reinforcement: A reinforcement involving addition of a desired stimulus.
• Punisher: An undesired event that makes the behavior that came before it less likely to occur again.
• Reflex: An event in which a stimulus produces an automatic response.
• Reinforcer: An event that makes the behavior that came before it more likely to occur again.
• Self-control: The regulation and sometimes restraint of one’s own activities.
• Self-efficacy: Confidence of being able to do something successfully.
• Self-reinforcement: The approval one gives to oneself for one’s own behavior.
• Skill deficit: The absence or insufficiency of a needed behavior or skill.
• Social reinforcer: Praise, liking, acceptance, or approval received from someone else.
• Symbolic models: Models in print, movies, TV, and so on.
• Systematic desensitization: A therapeutic procedure intended to extinguish fear.
• Time out: A punishment in which a child is temporarily removed from an enjoyable activity.
• Unconditioned (or unconditional) response (UR): A reflexive response to an unconditioned stimulus.
• Unconditioned (or unconditional) stimulus (US): A stimulus that causes a reflexive (unconditioned) response.
• Vicarious classical conditioning: Conditioning in which the unconditioned response occurs via empathy.
• Vicarious emotional arousal: The tendency to feel someone else’s feelings along with them; also called empathy.
• Vicarious reinforcement: An event in which a reinforcement experienced by someone else has a reinforcing effect on one’s own behavior.

 

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