CONSUMER AND INDUSTRIAL

BUYING BEHAVIOR

LEARNING WITH RESPECT TO

BEHAVIORAL THEORY OF
LEARNING
GAURI POPLI | HIMANI CHANDRA | ISHA VERMA | RIDHIMA RANJAN | SANKET SHARMA
 LEARNING
• Learning is defined as a relatively permanent change
in the behaviour of a human being as a result of self-
experience or experience taken from others.
• Consumer learning is a process by which potential
consumers gather knowledge about the product and
then make their purchase decision.
• Learning theory combines cognitive learning theory
(influenced by psychological factors) and behavioral
learning theory (which assumes that learning is based
on responses to environmental stimuli).
 BEHAVIORAL LEARNING THEORY

• The term "learning theory" is often associated with

the behavioral view.

• The focus of the behavioral approach is on how the

environment impacts overt behavior.

• The behavioral learning theory is represented as an

S-R paradigm. The organism is treated as a “black box.”
We only know what is going on inside the box by the
organism’s response.
There are two types of behavioral learning theories
 CASE STUDY
There was a seventeen-year old girl named Linda. She
had learned to stand up straight. However, she
continually slouched and exhibited bad posture. Posture
is important. Good posture correctly aligns the body so
as to enamel strain throughout the body.The girl was a
dancer and violinist, and so good posture was all-the-
more important for her.
In her childhood, she used to get praised for her good
posture. So, sometimes she could be seen in a good
posture.
There was an experiment done on her for 5 days to
understand her posture and make her improve it
wherever needed. As the girl constantly maintained bad
posture, stimuli that encourages the girl to have better
The first two days of the experiment were spent
observing the girl’s behaviors, namely what
environmental stimuli encouraged her to stop
slouching and to determine whether she had been
classically conditioned to have good or bad posture.

The next three days involved operant conditioning

to attempt to train the girl to no longer engage in
poor posture.
This tested the hypothesis that rewarding good posture
and punishing bad posture is an effective way to
improve the girl’s posture.

Before the experiment was started, the participant

chose a behavior that she wished to get rid of. She
decided to try to malignant better posture.

Her posture, her location, people near her, and her

emotions were also noted throughout the 5 days.
The stimuli that encouraged her to straighten up was
recorded as opposed to stimuli that made her slouch.
The girl decided that if she received eight check marks
or more, she could eat ice cream. The girl also decided
to flick herself whenever she noticed bad posture, as a
reminder to improve her posture.

If she could not maintain good posture, she thought of

quitting dance and playing violin.

After maintaining good posture, she used to receive

compliments for having a presentable personality all
the time.
Findings :
Day 1: The girl had poor posture for most of the day ;
however she exhibited good posture two times :
• when engaged in conversation with the veterinarian
with whom she interned,
• when she visited the resident director of her
dormitory.
Day 2 : She did not have a proper posture as she did
not interact with any authority figures.
Day 3 : Operant conditioning began.
Improvements were seen if she received rewards or
punishments.
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
• Classical conditioning was the first type of learning to
be discovered and studied within the behaviorist
tradition. Conditioning is a kind of response build up
through repeated exposure.

• The major theorist in the development of classical

conditioning is Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist trained
in biology and medicine.

• Pavlov was studying the digestive system of dogs and

became intrigued with his observation that dogs
deprived of food began to salivate when one of his
assistants walked into the room.
He established the laws of classical conditioning.

General model:
•Stimulus (S) elicits >Response (R)
•Classical conditioning starts with a reflex (R): an innate,
involuntary behavior.
•This involuntary behavior is elicited or caused by an
antecedent environmental event.
•Unconditioned Stimulus (US) elicits > Unconditioned
Response (UR)
•Neutral Stimulus (NS) does not elicit the response of interest
•This stimulus is a neutral stimulus since it does not elicit the
Unconditioned (or reflexive) Response.
• The Neutral/Orientiing Stimulus (NS) is repeatedly
paired with the Unconditioned/Natural Stimulus (US).

• The Neutral Stimulus (NS) is transformed into a

Conditioned Stimulus (CS).

• That is, when the CS is presented by itself, it elicits or

causes the CR .
 Classical Conditioning from the Case Study

Linda had learned to stand up straight through classical

conditioning.
The compliment which Linda received on sitting
straight was the unconditioned stimulus (US),
The pleasure that she felt at this praise was the
unconditioned response (UR).
• Before Conditioning :
Compliment from parents (US) - Pleasure (UR)
• During Conditioning :
Compliment from parents + Compliment from an
authoritative figure (CS) - Pleasure (UR)
• After Conditioning :
Compliment from an authoritative figure (CS) -
Pleasure (CR)
OPERANT CONDITIONING
• B.F. Skinner in 1938 coined the term operant
conditioning in his book ‘The Behaviour of
Organisms’
• Operant Conditioning is a learning process through
which the strength of a behavior is modified by reward
or punishment.
• It is a type of learning where behavior is controlled by
consequences.
• The study of operant conditioning helps to understand
relations between a behavior and the consequence it
offers.
• For instance, in the experiment conducted by Skinner,
pressing the lever is the operant behavior that releases
food as a consequence.
 Operant Conditioning from the Case Study

• As the girl was a dancer and a violinist, she needed

to maintain a well set posture. She used operant
conditioning on herself to correct her posture.
• She acted out certain behavior that made her feel
rewarded and improved her posture.
• Also, she avoided certain acts that were punishing
and did not help her in improving the behavior.

Response Stimuli
Good Posture Compliments
 Reinforcement
Reinforcement is a term used in operant conditioning to
refer to any incident that increases the likelihood that a
response will occur. Reinforcement can include
anything : specific tangible rewards, events, and
situations.

For example, reinforcement might involve presenting

praise (the reinforcer) immediately after a child puts
away her toys (the response). By reinforcing the desired
behavior with praise, the child will be more likely to
perform the same actions again in the future.
 Types of Reinforcement
In operant conditioning, there are four different types
of reinforcement.

Positive Reinforcement Punishment

Behaviour is more likely Behaviour is less likely to

Event is applied
to occur again occur again

Extinction Negative Reinforcement

Behaviour is less likely to Behaviour is more likely

Event is withdrawn
occur again to occur again
Positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by
providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding.
In other words, it increases the repetition of response.

Case : If Linda exhibited proper posture for more than

eight hours, she would get to eat ice cream. This ice
cream was a positive reinforce. It made her feel good,
and she associated it with straightening up.
Negative Reinforcement is the removal of an
unpleasant reinforcer which can also strengthen
behavior. In other words, it is the removal of an adverse
stimulus which is ‘rewarding’ to the animal or person.

Case : Linda would have to leave dancing or playing

violin if she did not stop slouching. Here, leaving her
passion was the negative reinforce, which when avoided
resulted in strengthening of her behavior.
Punishment is defined as the opposite of reinforcement
since it is designed to weaken or eliminate a response
rather than increase it. It is an aversive event that
decreases the behavior that it follows.

Case : If Linda did not exhibit proper posture for more

than eight hours, she flicked herself. This was her positive
punishment. That is, when she noticed that she was not
behaving properly, she would flick herself to remind
herself to sit up straighter.
Extinction occurs when a behavior is weakened as a
result of not experiencing an expected positive condition or
a negative condition is stopped.

Case : If the girl no longer received praise for good

posture around authority figures, there would be extinction
of the positive condition.
 CONCLUSION
The main aim of the experiment was to explain the good
posture of Linda through classical conditioning and to
make her change her posture through operant
conditioning.
The rewards and punishments were chosen to help her
want to improve her posture.
They did help her as her posture was seen to improve
every day.
It is important to understand how someone learns by
using both classical and operant conditioning.
In this case, classical conditioning was useful in
explaining why the girl improves her posture in a
seemingly random way, and operant conditioning
provided a way to change her posture.
THANKYOU