Learning theories 2

Learning Theories and
their Clinical Applications-2
Prepared by: Dr.Maan A.Bari Qasem Saleh
Associate Prof. Depart. Of Psychiatry
Course of Behavioral Sciences
Faculty of Medicine
University of Dammam
2012-2013

Basic Principles
• Definition of Learning
• Basic factors in learning
• Positive & Negative Reinforcement
• Punishment
• Generalization
• Discrimination
• Learned Helplessness (LH)

Definition of Learning
• Learning is defined as relative
permanent change in behavior as a
result of experience , practice, or
both .
• Conditioning is the process of
forming association .

Basic factors in learning
• Arousal No learning can take place
during sleep.
• Motivation Allows behavior to be elicited.
• Reinforcement A reward which increases
probability of a response in a particular situation.
• Association Implies a connection in time
and place between two events .
Stimuli (S) Responses (R)

Primary & Secondary Reinforcement
• Primary Reinforcement food , drink , sex
(satisfies an instinctual desire)
• Secondary Reinforcement have acquired
value and are not necessary for survival .
such as Grades , Money , Positions

Positive Reinforcement
occur when a reward or pleasant stimulus
is administered after some behavior has
been performed .
• For example , if a child cleans his room and
his parents reward him with extra spending
money , his behavior has been positively
reinforced .

Negative Reinforcement
• Refers to the removal of an unpleasant
stimulus after a certain behavior has been
performed .
• In this case , the avoidance or the
termination of the unpleasantness is the
reward or reinforcer .
• In other words Negative reinforcers are
anything a subject will work to avoid or
terminate.

• A child's parents may forbid him to leave the
house until he cleans his room .
• If he cleans his room and is allowed out , his
behavior has been negatively reinforced ; the
unpleasant stimulus –-confinement to the
house-- has been removed .
• This reinforcement increases the likelihood
that the child will continue to clean his room
regularly.

Nagging behavior
.
• Nagging behavior are examples of negative
reinforcement because we often will do
something( anything) to stop the nagging .
• For instance , a parent who buys a child a candy bar to
stop a child's nagging in the grocery store is
responding to negative reinforcement .

Effectiveness of reinforcement
• A reinforcers becomes less effective in
promoting future behavior , the longer
the delay between a behavior and its
reinforcement .
• The declining effectiveness of
reinforcement with increasing delay is
called the gradient of reinforcement .

Punishment
• Punishment is a technique used to decrease
the likelihood of particular response .
• Sending a man to jail for robbing a bank is an
example of punishment .
• Punishment then , is not effective in the long run
as means of control .
• Its use is made even more question-able by the
harmful side effects which accompany it.

What is generalization ?
• After an organism has learned a specific
response to a stimulus it will make this same
response to stimuli which are similar to the
original stimulus .

• The behavior we have learned in
response to honking cars is a
common example two car horns do
not make the same sound, but people
learn to respond similarly to all car
horns .
• In these cases, people respond to a
general class and not to a particular

What is discrimination?
• Discrimination is the inverse of stimulus
generalization .
• In discrimination , the organism learns to
respond differently to similar stimuli .

• As in stimulus generalization , example
of discrimination are common in every
day life .
• Traffic lights are one good example .
• People learn to respond differently to
Red , Green , and Yellow light ; they
learn to discriminate .

Habituation
• Habituation is one of the simplest
forms of learning and consists of
NOT making a response to
repetitively presented stimulus

Examples
• People who live near the railroad not
responding to the sounds of passing trains.
• Buying a new wall clock and habituating to the
noise it makes.

Noteworthy
• Stimuli which lead to habituation are typically
low in intensity and repetitive.
• Habituation can occur to stimuli without those
characteristics as well (the mentioned
examples in previous slide).

Spontaneous Recovery
• The appearance of conditioned response,
after either operant or pavlovian
conditioning, after it has been
experimentally extinguished

Experimental Example
• Let's say I condition (teach/train) a rat to press a lever
whenever I ring a bell.
• Then I teach the rat to press the lever when I flash a
light and not when I ring the bell.
• Once I've accomplished this, we can say that the first
conditioned response (pressing the lever when I ring
the bell) has been extinguished.
• But then one day, the rat starts to press the lever
when I ring the bell and not when I flash the light.
• In this situation, there was spontaneous recovery of
the response that was previously extinguished

Clinical Applications: Example-1
• When some one trying to quit drinking alcohol.
• When they return to the same situations where
they used to drink, they must battle
spontaneous recovery.
• That is why programs like Alcoholics
Anonymous try to prevent their members from
returning to their old haunts.

Clinical Applications Example-2
• A recently divorced couple visit each other.
• They may, through spontaneous recovery,
engage in an old conditioned response (e.g.,
lovemaking- or remarriage in Muslim
society), much to the chagrin of their new
partners.

Learned Helplessness (LH)
• Lack of motivation and failure to act after
exposure to unpleasant events or stimuli
over which the individual has no control.
(e.g., noise, crowding.)
• Individuals learn that they cannot control
their environment, and this may lead them
to fail to make use of any control options
that are available .
(APA Dictionary of Psychology-2007)

Experimental Example
• Animals exposed to
inescapable electric shocks
may later fail to learn to
escape these shock in
situation when escape is
possible. (Overmier & Seligman, 1967)

Clinical Applications Examples of
Learned Helplessness
The applied of LH to several areas of human behavior,
including:
(1) Depression (Seligman, 1975-1976);
- Those who have experienced depression in the past are
more likely to accept depression in their future and
therefore less likely to attempt change.
(2) Elderly adults and old-age homes (Langer & Rodin, 1976);
(social isolation & dependency)

Clinical Applications Examples of Learned Helplessness
(3) Domestic violence and abusive
relationships(Walkar2000)
 Those who have been unable to escape violent
situations in their homes are much more likely to
refuse help and accept future violence as
inescapable.
 Tension reduction theory:1.tension building,2.the
acute battering incident 3. loving-contrition
 This is true even when presented with real options
to avoid future violence.

Clinical Applications Examples of Learned
Helplessness
(4) Drug abuse and addiction:
• Quit smoking -If a person witnesses others try
and fail in their attempts to quit, they are less
likely to try themselves.
• The more you have witnessed failure either in
yourself or others, the less likely you are to
attempt change, even if the situation changes
dramatically.

Learning theories 2

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Learning theories 2