PSY 340

Educational Psychology

Lesson 6
Behavioural View of Learning

Dr. Martin Kramar

1. Define learning from a behavioural perspective,
including ties to neuroscience and the processes involved
in learning through contiguity, classical conditioning,
operant conditioning, and observational learning.

2. Explain early views of learning through contiguity and

classical conditioning and describe their implications for
OVERVIE
teaching.
W AND
3. Explain operant conditioning, particularly the
differences and similarities between positive and negative
OBJECTIV
reinforcement and presentation and removal punishment
and how reinforcement schedules affect learning.
ES
4. Apply behavioural approaches to modifying behaviour in
and out of the classroom using applied behavioural
analysis approaches to encourage and discourage
behaviours, shaping, positive practice, contingency
contracts, token reinforcement, group consequences, and
the appropriate use of punishment.
UNDERSTANDING
LEARNING
Learning occurs when experience (including
practice) causes a relatively permanent change in
an individual’s knowledge, behaviour, or potential
for behaviour. The change may be deliberate or
unintentional, for better or for worse, correct or
incorrect, and conscious or unconscious.
Learning Process: through which experience
causes permanent change in knowledge or
behaviour.
Behavioural learning: theories and explanations
of learning that focus on external events as the
cause of changes in observable behaviours
 The principle of contiguity states that
EARLY when two or more sensations occur
together often enough, they will become
EXPLANATI associated. Later, when only one of these
ONS OF sensations (a stimulus) occurs, the other
will be remembered too (a response)
LEARNING: Contiguity: Association of two events
CONTIGUI because of repeated pairing.
Stimulus: Event that activates behaviour.
TY AND Response: Observable reaction to a
CLASSICAL stimulus.

CONDITIO https
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRdCowYEt
NING Ag&t=172s
EARLY EXPLANATIONS OF
LEARNING: CONTIGUITY
AND CLASSICAL
CONDITIONING

Classical conditioning focuses on

the learning of involuntary emotional
or physiological responses such as
fear, increased muscle tension,
salivation, or sweating.
These sometimes are called
respondents because they are
automatic responses to stimuli.
Classical conditioning was
discovered in the 1920s by Ivan
Pavlov, a Russian phys-iologist who
was trying to determine how long it
took a dog to secrete digestive juices
after it had been fed.
 CLASSICAL
CONDITIONIN
G
In one of his early experiments, Pavlov
began by sounding a tuning fork and
recording a dog’s response.
As expected, there was no salivation. At
this point, the sound of the tuning fork
was a neutral stimulus because it
brought forth no salivation.
Then Pavlov fed the dog. The response
was salivation. The food was an
unconditioned stimulus (US) because
no prior training or “conditioning” was
needed to establish the natural
connection between food and salivation.
The salivation was an unconditioned
response (UR), again because it was
elicited automatically—no conditioning
required.
 CLASSICAL
CONDITIONIN
G three elements—the food, the
Using these
salivation, and the tuning fork—Pavlov
demonstrated that a dog could be
conditioned to salivate after hearing the
tuning fork. He did this by contiguous
pairing of the sound with food. He
sounded the fork and then quickly fed the
dog.
After Pavlov repeated this several times,
the dog began to salivate after hearing
the sound, but before receiving the food.
Now the sound had become a
conditioned stimulus (CS) that could
bring forth salivation by itself. The
response of salivating after the tone was
now a conditioned response (CR).
One explanation for how this occurs
focuses on expectations or predictability—
the dog learns that the previously neutral
stimulus (the sound of the tuning fork)
 Classical conditioning: association of
automatic responses with new stimuli.
Respondents: responses (generally automatic
or involuntary) elicited by specific stimuli.
Neutral stimulus: Stimulus not connected to
CLASSIC a response.
Unconditioned stimulus (US): Stimulus
AL that automatically produces an emotional or
physiological response.
CONDITI Unconditioned response (UR): Naturally
occurring emotional or physiological response.
ONING Conditioned stimulus (CS): Stimulus that
evokes an emotional or physiological response
after conditioning.
Conditioned response (CR): Learned
response to a previously neutral stimulus.
 CLASSICAL
CONDITIONIN
G that many of our emotional
it is possible
reactions to various situations are learned in
part through classical conditioning.
Physicians have a term, white coat syndrome,
that describes people whose blood pressure
(an involuntary response) goes up when it is
tested in the doctor’s office, usually by
someone in a white coat.
Another example, Elizabeth’s trembling hands
when she saw her college supervisor, might
be traced to previous unpleasant experiences
during past evaluations of her performance.
Now just the thought of being observed elicits
a pounding heart and sweaty palms.

Classical conditioning has implications for

teachers as well as marketing managers.
Remember that emotions and attitudes as
well as facts and ideas are learned in
 People actively “operate”
on their environment. These
deliberate actions are called
operants. The learning
process involved in operant
behaviour is called operant
conditioning because we
learn to behave in certain
ways as we operate on the
environment.
Operants: Voluntary (and
generally goal-directed)
behaviours emitted by a
person or an animal.
Operant conditioning:

OPERANT CONDITIONING: Learning in which voluntary

behaviour is strengthened or
TRYING NEW RESPONSES weakened by consequences
or antecedents.
Many human behaviours are operants, not
respondents.
Classical conditioning describes only how
existing responses might be paired with new
stimuli; it does not explain how new operant
behaviours are acquired.
Operant conditioning: shows that operant
behaviour can be altered by changes in the
antecedents, the consequences, or both.
According to the behavioural view,
consequences determine to a great extent
whether a person will repeat the behaviour that
led to the consequences.
The type and timing of consequences can
strengthen or weaken behaviors.

OPERANT CONDITIONING
 Reinforcement is So, by definition,
commonly reinforced behaviour
A reinforcer is any
understood to mean increase in frequency
consequence that
“reward,” this term or duration—that is,
strengthens the
has a particular how often or how
behaviour it follows.
meaning in long the behaviour
psychology. occur.

Reinforcement:
Antecedents: Consequences:
Use of consequences
Events that precede Events that follow an

OPERANT
to strengthen
an action. action.
behavior.

CONDITI Reinforcer: Any

event that follows a
behaviour and

ONING
increases the
chances that the
behaviour will occur
again.
 Positive reinforcement, occurs
when the behaviour or response
leads to the appearance or
presentation of a new stimulus
Examples of positive reinforcement
include a student falling out of his
chair leading to cheers and laughter
from classmates, or wearing a new
outfit leading to compliments.
Notice that positive reinforcement
can occur even when the response
being reinforced (falling out of a
chair) is not “positive” from the
teacher’s point of view.
OPERANT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
CONDITIONING PbusPzk-sY0
 When the consequence that
strengthens a behaviour is the
presentation (addition) of a new
stimulus, the situation is defined as
positive reinforcement.

In contrast, when the consequence that

strengthens a behaviour is the removal
(subtraction) of a stimulus, the process
is called negative reinforcement

If a particular action leads to avoiding

or escaping an aversive situation, the
action is likely to be repeated in a
similar situation. A common example is
the car seatbelt buzzer. As soon as you
put on your seatbelt, the irritating
buzzer stops.

The process is reinforcement because

you repeat this “buckling up” action in

OPERANT
the future. The kind of reinforcement is
negative because the buckling up
behaviour removed (subtracted) an
aversive buzzing stimulus.

CONDITIONING https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6
o-uPJarA
 Negative reinforcement is often confused
with punishment.
To avoid this mistake, remember that the
process of reinforcement (positive or negative)
always involves increasing or strengthening
behaviour.
Punishment, on the other hand, always involves
PUNISHME decreasing or suppressing behaviour.

NT A behaviour followed by a punisher is less likely

to be repeated in similar situations in the
future.
Again, it is the effect that defines a
consequence as punishment, and different
people have different perceptions of what is
punishing. One student may find suspension
from school punishing, whereas another
student wouldn’t mind the break at all.
 PUNISHME
NT
Presentation punishment occurs
when presenting (adding) a stimulus
following the behaviour has the effect of
suppressing or decreasing the
behaviour. When teachers reprimand
students, assign extra work, or make
students run extra laps, and so on, they
are using presentation punishment.

Removal punishment involves

removing (subtracting) a stimulus. When
teachers or parents take away privileges
after a young person has behaved
inappropriately, they are applying
removal punishment. With both types,
the effect is to decrease the behaviour
that led to the punishment.
 Continuous reinforcement
schedule: Presenting a
reinforcer after every
appropriate response.
Intermittent reinforcement
schedule: Presenting a
reinforcer after some but not all
responses.
Interval schedule: Length of
time between reinforcers.
Ratio schedule:
REINFORCEMENT Reinforcement based on the
SCHEDULES number of responses between
reinforcers.
 In classical conditioning, the CR (conditioned
response) is extinguished (disappears) when the
CS (conditioned stimulus) appears, but the US
(unconditioned response) does not follow—sound,
but no food.
In operant conditioning, a person or an animal
will not persist in a certain behaviour if the usual
reinforcer is withheld long enough.

EXTINCTI
The behaviour will eventually be extinguished
(stop).

ON For example, if you repeatedly text someone but

never get a reply, you may give up texting that
person. Removal of reinforcement altogether
leads to extinction.
The process may take a while, however, as you
know if you have tried to extinguish a child’s
tantrums by withholding your attention. Often the
child wins—because you give up ignoring her—
and instead of extinction, intermittent
reinforcement occurs. This, of course, may
encourage even more persistent tantrums in the
future.
 Cueing is the act of providing stimulus just
before a specific behaviour is supposed to take
place. Cueing is particularly useful in setting the
stage for behaviours that must occur at a given
time but are easily forgotten.
Presenting a non-judgmental cue can help
prevent such negative confrontations.

CUEING
For example, before a test, an educational
psychology instructor might say, “Remember,
people often confuse negative (subtraction)
reinforcement and punishment. Some of the
questions on this exam will test your
understanding of the differences.” When
students do well on the test, the instructor can
reinforce the students’ by saying “Now you got
it!”
Cueing Providing a stimulus that “sets up”
a desired behaviour.
  A fourth-grade student looks at the results of the
latest mathematics test. “No credit on almost half
of the problems again because I made one dumb
mistake in each problem. I hate math!”
A tenth-grade student finds some excuse each day
for avoiding the softball game in gym class. The
student cannot catch a ball and now refuses to try.
In both situations, the students are receiving no
SHAPING reinforcement for their work because the end
product of their efforts is not good enough.
A safe prediction is that the students will soon
learn to dislike the class, the subject, and perhaps
the teacher and school in general. One way to
prevent this problem is the strategy of shaping,
also called successive approximations. Shaping
involves reinforcing progress instead of
waiting for perfection by making small steps
so called task analyses.
TOKEN
REINFORCEME
NT SYSTEM
A token reinforcement
system can help solve this
problem by allowing all
students to earn tokens for both
academic work and positive
classroom behaviour.
The tokens may be points,
checks, holes punched in a
card, chips, play money, or any-
thing else that is easily
identified as the student’s
property.
Periodically, the students
exchange the tokens they have
earned for some desired reward
HANDLING
UNDESIRABLE
BEHAVIOUR
REPRIMANDS: Soft, calm, private reprimands
are more effective than loud, public reprimands in
decreasing disruptive behaviour. Research has
shown that when reprimands are loud enough for
the entire class to hear, disruptions increase or
continue at a constant level.
RESPONSE COST: The concept of response
cost is familiar to anyone who has ever paid a
fine. For certain infractions of the rules, people
must lose some reinforcer—money, time,
privileges.
SOCIAL ISOLATION: One of the most
controversial behavioural methods for decreasing
undesirable behaviour is the strategy of social
isolation, often called time out from reinforcement.
The process involves removing a highly disruptive
student from the classroom for 5 to 10 minutes.
SELF-
MANAGEMEN
T
Self-management: Management
of your own behaviour and
acceptance of responsibility for
your own actions. Also the use of
behavioural learning principles to
change your own behaviour.
The goal-setting phase is very
important in self-management.
Goals setting: such as discipline,
determination, self-direction,
problem solving, critical thinking,
creativity, collaboration,
communication, and social
responsibility.
Self-reinforcement: Controlling
(selecting and administering) your
own reinforcers