Introduction To Psychological Concepts:

Behaviourism and Learning

Psychologists have studied how learning takes place throughout the whole history of psychology. There are a number of different ways that we learn, & these vary in there complexity from simple forms of association which involve the linking of a particular stimulus with a particular response, to the complex building of new information into knowledge that we have been using for some time. In this note we will look at forms of learning.

A basic form of learning is the way we come to associate a particular response with a particular stimulus, just because they have been linked together several times. This is known as classical conditioning , & it was studied in great detail by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, in 1911.

Classical conditioning involves what are known as conditioned reflexes. All animals have reflexive behaviour, which is not under conscious control but is produced in response to specific stimuli. An example of this is the ‘knee jerk’ reflex - not matter how much you may try not to, you will still jerk your knee if it is tapped in the right place (just below the kneecap) while your lower leg is swinging freely. This reflex isn’t controlled by the brain, but by the spinal chord, and it is a straightforward response to the stimulus, which happens whether we want it to or not. Another example of a reflex is the production of salvia in response to food when you are hungry, & it was this response which Pavlov first investigated when he discovered classical conditioning.

Pavlov had been studying the digestive process in dogs. in order to do this, he had the dogs in harness, with a tube set into the cheek so that he could measure the rate and production of their saliva. He noticed that the dogs would start salivating not just when they were given their food, but when they first caught sight of the assistant with the food pail. Pavlov realised that they must have learned to associate the sight of the pail with the food. So, he set up various studies to investigate whether dogs could learn to associate salivation with other stimulus such as bell ringing. He found that after associating the bell with the presentation of food on several occasions, the dogs would salivate when they heard the bell. The reflex of salivation had become conditioned even though it was a basic form of behaviour. This is represented in the diagrams below:

(eg bell sounding)

(eg food)

( the conditioned stimulus is paired with the unconditional stimulus which produces the unconditional response)

( the conditioned stimulus produces a conditioned response)

Although Pavlov’s studies took place with dogs many studies showed it was also a form of human learning. One study which demonstrated it was by Menzies in 1937. Menzies showed how a completed unconscious response could be conditioned in response to the sound of a buzzer. The response was vasoconstriction, which is the process of blood vessels withdrawing from the surface of the skin in a cold environment( the reason why your hands go paler if they are very cold). Menzies got human research participants to immerse their hands in a bucket of ice cold water whenever a buzzer was sounded. This caused vasoconstriction in their hands. After a while, the vasoconstriction would take place when the buzzer sounded even though the participants hands were not put in the water - the reflex had become conditioned.

This study is important because it illustrates very clearly the way fact that classical conditioning doesn’t have anything to do with our conscious decisions. We can’t just decide to contract the blood vessels in our hands, but it may happen nonetheless , as a result of conditioning. And there are other types of human response which may be the result of the conditioning of unconscious responses, such as the anxious feeling which exam rooms bring up in many people, even if they are not taking the exam themselves.

One very fundamental form of learning which seems to be shared by even the most primitive animals, is known as one-trail learning . It is a rapid process of association, whereby we learn to react in some way to a particularly strong stimulus. For instance a animal may learn to avoid a particular stimulus if it has been associated with an electric shock; or a human being may be permanently ‘turned off’ from eating a specific food by one experience of food poisoning.

The interesting thing about one-trail learning is it only requires the event to happen once for the learning to take place & once learned it is very resistant to extinction. If you have developed food poisoning after eating, say fish & chips, you may find for many years- even for the rest of your life in some cases - just the thought of fish cooked in batter makes you feel slightly ill, and you cannot bring yourself to eat it even though you know perfectly well that this time the fish is allright.

Seligman (1970) argued that is forms of learning like this which make us realise how we are influenced by our evolutionary background. One-trail learning is a highly valuable survival trait for all animals - something which makes you sick is very likely to be poisonous, & if you survived eating once , then making sure you don’t eat it again is likely to help you survive!!!

Some kinds of phobias too can be introduced by a single frightening event. While Pavlov was studying classical conditioning there was a flood in his laboratory. Some of the dogs were trapped in the experimental apparatus & had to experience the water coming higher & higher with no means of escape. From that time on, they showed fear of water, although previously they had not shown any such reaction, and even though it was just one single event.