Behavioral Learning Theories

Learning Theories

Behavioral learning theories focus on the ways in which pleasurable or unpleasant consequences of behavior change individuals' behavior over time and ways in which individuals model their behavior on that of others. Behavioral learning theorists try to discover principles of behavior that apply to all living beings.

Social learning theories focus on the effects of thought on action and action on thought.

Cognitive learning theories, which emphasize unobservable mental processes that people use to learn and remember new information or skulls.

Cognitive and social learning theorists are concerned exclusively with human learning. Actually, however, the boundaries between behavioral and cognitive learning theories have become increasingly indistinct in recent years as each school of thought has incorporated the findings of the other.

What is learning?

Learning is usually defined as a change in an individual caused by experience. Changes caused by development (such as growing taller) are not instances of learning. Neither are characteristics of individuals that are present at birth (such as reflexes and responses to hunger or pain).

Learning takes place in many ways. Sometimes it is intentional, as when students acquire information presented in a classroom. Sometimes it is unintentional, as in the case of the child's reaction to the needle.

The content of this chapter, the placement of words on the page, and the smells, sounds,  and temperature of your surroundings are all stimuli. Your senses are usually wide open to all sorts of stimuli, or environmental events or conditions, but you are consciously aware of only a fraction of them at ally one time.

The problem of educators face is not how to get students to learn but it is how do we present students with the right stimuli on which to focus their attention and mental effort o that they will acquire important skills? That is the central problem of instruction.

Behavioral Learning Theories

Using techniques borrowed from the physical sciences, researchers began conducting experiments to understand how people and animals learn. Two of the most important early researchers were Ivan Pavlov and Edward Thorndike. Among later researchers, B. F. Skinner was important for his studies of the relationship between behavior and consequences.

Pavlov: Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning: the process of repeatedly associating a previously neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus in order to evoke a conditioned response.

Unconditioned stimulus: A stimulus that naturally evokes a particular response.

Unconditioned response: A behavior that is prompted automatically by a stimulus.

Neutral stimuli: Stimuli that have no effect on a particular response.

Conditioned stimulus: A previously neutral stimulus that evokes a particular response after having been paired with an unconditioned stimulus. 

Thorndike: The Law of Effect

Thorndike developed his Law of Effect, which states that if an act is followed by a satisfying change in the environment, the likelihood that the act will be repeated in similar situations increases. However, if a behavior is followed by an unsatisfying change in the environment, the chances that the behavior will be repeated decrease. Thus, Thorndike showed that the consequences of one's present behavior play a crucial role in determining one's future behavior.

Skinner: Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning: The use of pleasant or unpleasant consequences to control the occurrence of behavior. Skinner proposed another class of behavior, which he labeled operant behaviors because they operate on the environment in the apparent absence of any unconditioned stimuli, such as food. Like Thorndike's, Skinner's work focused on the relation between behavior and its consequences. For example, if an individual's behavior is immediately followed by pleasurable consequences, the individual will engage in that behavior more frequently.

When a teacher reinforces a student who raises her hand to speak, she is using operant conditioning.