What I Have Used from Psychology

What I Have Used From Psychology

I've always been interested and curious about Psychology. In Chapter 5, Learning and Cognition (or more so the Classical and Operant Conditioning) interested me the most. Who we are now is the direct result of how and what we learned as children. Learning is any relatively permanent change in behavior brought about through experience. Through our experiences in life, it teaches us new behaviors, attitudes, and skills. We also develop problem-solving strategies, and through learning we develop our personalities. Not all changes in behavior are the result of learning, but through the permanent changes. For example, if a quarter back on a football team throws the football differently because his coach or teammates has shown him a better way that is the result of learning. And if the quarterback continues to throw the ball in that way then a permanent change has occurred. The way we learn through life is by two basic ways of learning, Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning.

Classical conditioning is the type of learning made famous by Pavlov's experiments with dogs. The basis of the experiment is this: Pavlov presented dogs with food, and measured their salivary response (how much they drooled). Then he began ringing a bell just before presenting the food. At first, the dogs did not begin salivating until the food was presented. After a while, however, the dogs began to salivate when the sound of the bell was presented. They learned to associate the sound of the bell with the presentation of the food. As far as their immediate physiological responses were concerned, the sound of the bell became equivalent to the presentation of the food.

Classical conditioning is used by trainers for two purposes: to condition (train) responses, such as the drooling, producing adrenaline, or reducing adrenaline (calming) without using the stimuli that would naturally create such a response; and, to create an association between a stimulus that normally would not have any effect on the animal and a stimulus that would.

Stimuli that animals react to without training are called primary or unconditioned stimuli (US). They include food, pain, and other "hard-wired" or "instinctive" stimuli. Animals do not have to learn to react to an electric shock, for example. Pavlov's dogs did not need to learn about food.

Stimuli that animals react to only after learning about them are called secondary or conditioned stimuli (CS). These are stimuli that have been associated with a primary stimulus. In Pavlov's experiment, the sound of the bell meant nothing to the dogs at first. After its sound was associated with the presentation of food, it became a conditioned stimulus. If a warning buzzer is associated with the shock, the animals will learn to fear it. Secondary stimuli are things that the trainee has to learn to like or dislike. Examples include school grades and money. A slip of paper with an "A" or an "F" written on it has no meaning to a person who has never learned the meaning of the grade. Yet students work hard to gain "A's" and avoid "F's". A coin or piece of paper money has no meaning to a person who doesn't use that sort of system. Yet people have been known to work hard to gain this secondary reinforcer.

Classical conditioning forms an association between two stimuli. Operant conditioning forms an association between a behavior and a consequence. (It is also called response-stimulus or RS conditioning because it forms an association between the animal's response [behavior] and the stimulus that follows [consequence])

There are four possible consequences to any behavior. They are as follows: something good can start or be presented, something good can end or be taken away, something bad can start or be presented, something bad can end or be taken away.

Consequences have to be immediate, or clearly linked to the behavior. With verbal humans, we can explain the connection between the consequence and the behavior, even if they are separated in time. For example, you might tell a friend that you'll buy dinner for them since they helped you move, or a parent might explain that the child can't go to summer camp because of her bad grades. With very young children, humans who don't have verbal skills, and animals, you can't explain the connection between the consequence and the behavior. For the animal, the consequence has to be immediate. The way to work around this is to use a bridge. Anything that increases a behavior - makes it occur more frequently, makes it stronger, or makes it more likely to occur - is termed a reinforcer. Often, an animal (or person) will perceive