Learning in Psychology

Definition of Learning

• Psychological Perspective: Learning is a long-term change in behavior based on experience.

Types of Learning

1. Classical Conditioning

   • Introduced by Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s.
   • Experiment with Dogs:
     • Dogs associated the ringing of a bell (neutral stimulus) with food (unconditioned stimulus).
     • Resulted in salivation (unconditioned response) just by hearing the bell (conditioned stimulus).
   • Application to Humans:
     • Example: A painful shot at the doctor paired with words "This won't hurt a bit".
     • Words become a conditioned stimulus leading to fear of similar situations.

2. Operant Conditioning

   • Focuses on how consequences influence voluntary behavior.
   • Key Components:
     • Reinforcement: Increases likelihood of a behavior.
     • Punishment: Decreases likelihood of a behavior.
     • Positive means addition of a stimulus (e.g., getting dessert).
     • Negative means removal of a stimulus (e.g., no homework).
   • Example:
     • Clearing the table and washing dishes followed by positive reinforcement (a hug) increases likelihood of repeating the behavior.
   • Applications:
     • Present in daily life and extraordinary situations.
     • Pigeons trained to distinguish paintings by Monet vs. Picasso using food as reinforcement.