Learning Theories

Prepared by: Patricia Mae Taba, MA, LPT, RPm, RGC

Burrhus F. Skinner:
Behavioral Analysis
Overview of Behavioral Analysis

 Two of the early pioneers of behaviorism were E.L.

Thorndike and John Watson, but the person most often
associated with the behaviorist position is B.F. Skinner.
 Skinner minimized speculation and focused almost
entirely on observable behavior.
 Skinner’s strict adherence to observable behavior earned
his approach the label radical behaviorism, a doctrine
that avoids all hypothetical constructs, such as ego,
traits, drives, needs, hunger, and so forth.
Overview of Behavioral Analysis

 As an environmentalist, Skinner held that psychology

must not explain behavior on the basis of the
physiological or constitutional components of the
organism but rather on the basis of environmental stimuli.

 Watson took radical behaviorism, determinism, and

environmental forces beyond Skinner’s Conception by
ignoring genetic factors completely and promising to
shape personality by controlling the environment.
 Biography of
B.F. Skinner

 Burrhus Frederic Skinner (real

name)
 Born on March 20, 1904 in
Susquehanna, Pennysylvania.
 1st child of William and Grace Mange
Burrhus Skinner and has a brother
named Edward (Ebbie) but during
Fred’s first year at college, the
parents became progressively less
willing to let Fred go. They wanted
him to become “The Family Boy”.
Biography of B.F. Skinner

 In an effort to secure the needed funds, he prepared a film of

trained pigeons pecking at the controls of a missile and guiding
it toward a moving target.
 Shortly after Skinner abandoned Project Pigeon and
immediately before the birth of his second daughter, Debbie.
 On August 18, 1990, Skinner died of leukemia.
 One week before his death, he delivered an emotional address
to the American Psychological Association (APA) convention in
which he continue his advocacy of radical behaviorism.
Scientific Behaviorism

 Skinner insisted that human behavior should be studied

scientifically.
 His scientific behaviorism holds that behavior can be best be
studied without reference to needs, instincts, or motives.
 Skinner disagreed to most personality theorists that assume
that people are motivated by internal drives and that an
understanding of the drive is essential.
 Skinner insisted, psychology must avoid internal mental
factors and confine itself to observable physical events.
Philosophy of Science

 Interpretation permits a scientist to generalize

from a simple learning condition to a more
complex one
 Skinner (1978) used principles derived from
laboratory studies to interpret the behavior of
human beings but insisted that interpretation
should not be confused with an explanation of
why people behave the way they do.
Characteristics of Science

1. Its findings are cumulative

2. It rests on an attitude that values empirical
observation
3. It searches for order and lawful relationships
2 kinds of conditioning

 Classical conditioning
 Operant conditioning
Classical Conditioning

 Classical conditioning , a neutral (conditioned) stimulus

is paired with that is, immediately precedes - an
unconditioned stimulus a number of times until it is
capable of bringing about a previously unconditioned
response, now called the conditioned response.

Example: Food placed on tongue brings about salvation:

pepper in the nostrils results in sneezing reflex
Operant Conditioning

 Skinner believed that most human behaviors are

learned through operant conditioning
 With Operant Conditioning the organism first does
something and then is reinforced by the environment
 Reinforcement, in turn, increases the probability that
the same behavior will occur again.
 (the opposite of Classical Conditioning)
3 Components of Operant Conditioning

 Antecedent - is the cue, signal or condition that

influence the occurrence of the behavior. basically it is
what happens right before the behavior occurs.

 Behavior - An observable act that a person does.

 Consequence - The outcome and/or feedback that

occurs immediately following the behavior
Reinforcement

 Positive Reinforcement – You behave in a certain way

that results in a reward, and as a result, you are more
likely to repeat that behavior

 Negative Reinforcement – You behave in a certain way

that results in the removal of something unpleasant,
and as a result you are more likely to repeat that
behavior (ex: stop smoking cigarette)
 Inboth cases, something happened that you saw as
“good” and as a result, you exhibited the behavior more.
Punishment

 Punishment – A consequence that follows a behavior

so that you do the behavior less often in the future.
 Punishment can involve adding something (paying a
fine, staying after school) or involve removing
something you like
 Inboth cases, adding something or removing something,
you perceive it as “bad” and as a result, you exhibit the
behavior less.
Differences Between Negative
Reinforcement & Punishment
 Negative reinforcement: Something unpleasant is
removed & as a result you are more likely to do it again
 Something happened that was “good”

 Punishment: A consequence happens that you don’t

like and you are less likely to do it again. The
punishment can add something or take something away.
 Something happened that was “bad”
4 basic intermittent schedules
1. Fixed-ratio
- Organism is reinforced intermittently according to the number
of responses it makes
2. Variable-ratio
- Organism is reinforced after an average of a predetermined
number of responses
3. Fixed-interval
- Organism is reinforced for the first response following a
designated period of time
4. Variable-interval
- Organism is reinforced after the lapse of varied periods of time
Schedule of Reinforcement
The Human Organism

 Skinner’s view was that an understanding of the

behavior of laboratory animals can generalize to human
behavior.
 Skinner agreed with John Watson that psychology must
be confined to a scientific study of observable
phenomena, namely behavior.
 According to Skinner, human behavior and human
personality is shaped by three forces : Natural
selection, cultural practices, and an individual’s
history of reinforcement.
Natural Selection

 As a species, our behavior is shaped by the

contingencies of survival; that is, those behaviors
(e.g., sex and aggression) that were beneficial to
the human species tended to survive, whereas
those that did not tended to drop out.
Cultural Practices

 According to Skinner, humans do not make a

cooperative decision to do what is best for the
society, but those societies whose members
behaved cooperatively tended to survive.
Inner States

 Skinner, did not deny the existence of internal states,

such as feelings of love, anxiety, or fear.

 Skinner recognized the existence of such inner states as

drives, self-awareness, emotions and purpose but he
rejected the notion that they can explain behavior.
Inner States: Self-Awareness
 Skinner believed that humans not only have
consciousness but are also aware of their consciousness.
 Each person is subjectively aware of his or her own
thoughts, feelings, recollections, and intentions.

Inner States: Drives

 Drives are not causes of behavior, but merely explanatory fictions.
 To Skinner, drives refer to the effects of deprivation and satiation
and thus are related to the probability of certain behaviors, but
they are not the causes of behavior.
Inner States: Emotions
 Skinner recognized the subjective existence of emotions, but
he insisted that behavior must not be attributed to them.
 Skinner believed that emotions can be accounted for by the
contingencies of survival and the contingencies of
reinforcement; but like drives, they do not cause behavior.

Inner States: Purpose and Intention

 Purpose and Intention are not causes of behavior,
although they are sensations that exist within the skin.
Complex Behavior

 Complex Behavior is a combination of both types of

behaviors ; human thoughts and free will

 Skinner did not deny the existence of higher mental

processes such as cognition, reason and recall ; nor did
he ignore complex human endeavors like creativity,
unconscious behavior, dreams and social behavior.
Complex Behavior: Higher Mental Processes
 Skinner believed that most of our behavior is unconscious or
automatic and that not thinking about certain experiences is
reinforcing.
 Thinking, problem solving and reminiscing are covert behaviors
that take place within the skin but not inside the mind.

Complex Behavior: Unconscious Behavior

 Behavior is labeled unconscious when people no longer think
about it because it has been suppressed through punishment.
 Behavior that has aversive consequences has a tendency to be
ignored or not thought about.
Complex Behavior: Creativity
 Skinner explained creativity as the result of random or
accidental behaviors that happen to be rewarded.

Complex Behavior: Dreams

 Skinner viewed dreams as covert and symbolic forms of
behavior that are subject to the same contingencies of
reinforcement as any other behavior.
 Skinner agreed with Freud that dreams may serve a
wish-fulfillment purpose.
Complex Behavior: Social Behavior
 Individuals establish groups because they have been rewarded for
doing so.
 Membership in a social group is not always reinforcing ; yet, for
at least three reasons, some people remain a member of a group.
 First, people may remain in a group that abuses them because
some group members are reinforcing them
 Second, some people especially children may not possess the
means to leave the group
 Third, reinforcement may occur on an intermittent schedule so
that the abuse suffered by an individual is intermingled with
occasional reward
Social Control
 All of a person’s behavior is controlled by the environment
 There are four basic methods of social control ; Operant
conditioning, describing contingencies, deprivation and
satiation and physical restraint

Self-Control
 Although Skinner denied the existence of free will, Skinner
and Margaret Vaughan did recognize that people manipulate
variables within their own environment and thus exercise
some measure of self-control, which has several techniques.
 (1) physical restraint, (2) physical aids, such as tools; (3)
changing environmental stimuli; (4) arranging the
environment to allow escape from aversive stimuli; (5)
drugs; and (6) doing something else.
The Unhealthy Personality
Counteracting Strategies from excessive social control

Escape Passive resistance

ex. “Paasa”, being ex. A child with
Revolt
single because he/she homework to do finds
ex. NPA
is terrified to be “in” a dozen excuses why
the relationship. it cannot be finished.

Inappropriate Behavior

- follow from self-defeating techniques of counteracting social

control or from unsuccessful attempts at self-control, especially
when either of these failures is accompanied by strong emotion
Psychotherapy

 Skinner believed that psychotherapy is one of the chief

obstacles blocking psychology’s attempt to become scientific.
 The shaping of any behavior takes time and therapeutic
behavior is no exception.
 Skinner reasoned that if behavior is shaped by inner causes,
then some force must be responsible for the inner cause.
 In general, these therapist play an active role in the
treatment process, pointing out the positive consequences of
certain behaviors and the aversive effects of others.
How Conditioning Affects Personality

 Personality change occurs when new behaviors become

stable over time and/or across different situations.
 Goal in psychotherapy: to change a behavior.
 If changes are stable over time and situations, the one
could talk about changing personality.
 Skinnerian conditioning: reinforcement shapes behavior.
How Conditioning Affects Personality

 Different personalities may react differently to the

same environmental stimuli. The same reinforcement
strategies will not have the same effect on all people

 Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory -- suggests that

impulsivity, anxiety, and introversion/extraversion
relate to ways people respond to environmental
reinforcers
Critique of Skinner
 Hans J. Eynsenck once criticized Skinner for ignoring such concepts
as individual differences, intelligence, genetic factors, and the
whole realm of personality.
 Skinner’s theory is very high on its ability to generate research.
 High on falsifiability. High rating on guiding to action.
 Moderate rating for the ability to organize all that is known about
human personality.
 Very high rating on internal consistency.
 Is the theory parsimonious? Skinner’s theory is difficult to rate. Why?
1. The theory is free from cumbersome hypothetical constructs.
2. It demands a novel expression of everyday phrases.
Concept of Humanity

 B.F. Skinner held a deterministic view of human

nature, and concepts like free will and individual
choice had no place in his behavioral analysis.
 Skinner’s view of human nature is highly
optimistic.
Albert Bandura:
Social Learning Theory
 Albert Bandura’s
Life
 Albert Bandura was born
in Mundare, Alberta in
December 4, 1925
 Only boy with five (5)
older sisters
 Bandura’s father worked
as a track layer for the
Trans-Canada railroad
Albert Bandura’s Life

 His mother worked in a general store before they were able to

buy some land and become farmers
 Bandura’s parents placed great emphasis on celebrating life and
more importantly family
 They were also very keen on their children doing well in school
 Because of limitations (1 school, limited resources and
teachers) most of the learning was self-directed on the
student’s part. Dr. Bandura learned a lot about value and
importance of self-direction from this time in his life
Albert Bandura’s Life

 Dr. Bandura went to the University of British Columbia.

 He graduated three years later in 1949 with the
Bolocan Award in Psychology.
 After completing his doctorate Dr. Bandura went onto a
postdoctoral position at the Wichita Guidance Center
before accepting a position as a faculty member at
Stanford University in 1953, where he still is today
Overview of Social Cognitive Theory

 Takes an agentic perspective - humans have some limited

ability to control their lives
 Recognizes that chance encounters and fortuitous events
often shape one’s behavior
 Places more emphasis on observational learning
 Stresses the importance of cognitive factors in learning
 Suggests that human activity is a function of behavior
and person variables, as well as the environment
 Believes that reinforcement is mediated by cognition
Learning

 Humans are quite flexible and capable of Learning

 Learning are the result of vicarious experiences
 Although people can and do learn from direct
experience, much of what they learn is acquired
through observing others
 People learn through observing others and by
attending to the consequences of their own actions
 People can learn in the absence of reinforcement
and even of a response
Observational Learning

 Bandura believes that observation allows people

to learn without performing any behavior.
 Bandura (1986, 2003) believes that observational
learning is much more efficient than learning
through direct experience.
 Modelingis the heart of observational learning,
which involves adding or subtracting from
observed behavior
Modeling
 The core of observational learning.
 Itinvolves cognitive processes and is not simply
mimicry or imitation.
 Itinvolves symbolically representing
information and storing it for future use at a
future time.
Enactive Learning

 Enactive learning
– learning by doing and is reinforced by the
consequences of actions/ outcomes

 Vicarious Learning
- Learning through observation not performance
Triadic Reciprocal Causation Model
(also known as Reciprocal Determinism)
Learning results from the interaction among:
 Personal Characteristics
- mental and emotional factors such as goals, anxiety,
metacognition, and self-efficacy
 Behavioral Patterns
- Include self observation, self-evaluation, making changes in
behavior to overcome of reduce perceptions, and creating
productive study environments
 Environmental Factors
- An individual’s social and physical environment
Human Agency

 Essence of humanness

 Humans are defined by their ability to organize,

regulate, and enact behaviors that they believe
will produce desirable consequences

 Bandura discusses four core features of human

agency: Intentionality, Forethought, Self-
reactiveness, and Self-reflectiveness.
Core Features of Human Agency

 Intentionality refers to acts a person performs

intentionally. An intention includes planning, but it also
involves actions. People continually change their plans as
they become aware of the consequences of their actions.

 Forethought is to set goals, to anticipate likely outcomes

of their actions, and to select behaviors that will produce
desired outcomes and avoid undesirable ones.
Forethought enables people to break free from the
constraints of their environment.
Core Features of Human Agency

 Self-reactivenessis in the process of motivating

and regulating their own actions. People do
more than plan and contemplate future.

 Self-reflectiveness,the examiners of their own

functioning; they can think about evaluate their
motivations, values, and the meanings of their
life goals.
Self-efficacy

 Self-Efficacyis people beliefs in their

capability to exercise some measure of
control over their own functioning and over
environmental events. It is not a global or
generalized concept, such as self-esteem or
self-confidence.
Self-efficacy

 High efficacy
When efficacy is high and the environment is
responsive, outcomes are most likely to be successful.

 Low efficacy
It is combined with a responsive environment; people
may become depressed when they observe that others
are successful at tasks that seem too difficult for them.
What Contributes to Self-Efficacy?

 Mastery Experiences
The most influential sources of self-efficacy are mastery
experiences. In general, successful performance raises efficacy
expectancies; failure ends to lower them. It has six corollaries.

 Social modeling
The effects of social modeling are not as strong as those of
personal performance in raising levels of efficacy, but they can
have powerful effects where inefficacy is concerned.
What Contributes to Self-Efficacy?

 Social persuasion
Self-efficacy can be also be acquired or weakened through social
persuasion. Persuasion may convince someone to attempt an
activity, and if performance is successful, both the accomplishment
and the subsequent verbal rewards will increase future efficacy.

 Physical and emotional states

The final source of efficacy is people’s physiological and emotional
states. Strong emotion ordinarily lowers performance; when people
experience intense fear, acute anxiety, or high levels of stress, they
are likely to have lower efficacy expectancies.
Proxy Agency

 Involves indirect control over those social

conditions that affect everyday living. Proxy
involves however has a downside. By relying too
much on the competence and power of others,
people may weaken their sense of personal and
collective efficacy.
Collective Efficacy

 Peoples shared beliefs in their collective power to

produce desired results.

 In other words, collective efficacy is the

confidence people have that their combined
efforts will bring about accomplishments.
Self-Regulation

 First, people possess limited to manipulate the

external factors that feed into the reciprocal
interactive paradigm.

 Second, people are capable of monitoring their

own behavior and evaluating it in terms of both
proximate and distant goals.
External Factors in Self-Regulation

 First,they provide us with a standard for

evaluating our own behavior.

 Second, external factors influence self-

regulation by providing the means for
reinforcement.
Internal Factors in Self-Regulation

 External factors interact with internal or personal

factors in self-regulation. Bandura recognizes
three internal requirements in going exercise of
self-influence:
Internal Factors in Self-Regulation

 Self-observation, the first internal factor in self-regulation is

self-observation of performance. What we observe depends on
interests and other preexisting self-conceptions.
 Judgmental processes, helps us regulate our behavior through
the process of cognitive mediation. We are capable not only of
reflective self-awareness but also of judging the worth of our
actions on the basis of goals we have set for ourselves.
 Self-Reaction, people respond positively or negatively to their
behaviors depending on how these behaviors measure up to their
personal standards. People create incentives for their own
actions through self-reinforcement or self-punishment
Self-Regulation Through Moral Agency

(1) doing no harm to people and

(2) proactively helping people

 Selective activation - moral precepts predict moral behavior only when

those precepts are converted to action. In other words, self-regulatory
influences are not automatic but operate only if they are activated

 Disengagement of internal control, justifying the morality of their

actions, they can separate or disengage themselves from the
consequences of their behavior
Dysfunctional Behavior

 Bandura’s concept of triadic reciprocal causation

assumes that behavior is learned as a result of a
mutual interaction of the person, the
environment, and behavioral factors.
Dysfunctional Behavior : Depression

 According to Bandura, having high standards and

goals, although might lead to self-satisfaction and
achievement, can also lead to failure if set too
high. Failure frequently leads to depression and
depressed people often undervalue their own
accomplishments, resulting to feeling worthless
and pervasive depression.
Dysfunctional Behavior : Depression
Three self-regulatory sub-functions:
 Depressed people tend to exaggerate their past wrong doings
and belittle their accomplishments, perpetuating their
depression.
 Setting their standards unrealistically high so that any personal
accomplishments will be judged as a failure, making faulty
judgements and setting their goals and personal standards
much higher than their perceived efficacy to attain them.
 Depressed people feel inclined to treat themselves badly for
their shortcomings and judge themselves harshly because their
self-reactions are quite different from those of nondepressed
people.
Dysfunctional Behavior : Phobias

 Fears that are extremely strong that they have sever

debilitating effects on one’s daily life. Phobias and
fears are learned by direct contact, inappropriate
generalization, and especially observed by
experiences (Bandura, 1986). They are difficult to
extinguish because the phobic simply avoids the
threatening object.
 Television and other news media are to blamed,
according to Bandura, for generating many of our
fears.
Dysfunctional Behavior : Aggression

 Bandura (1986) contended that aggressive

behavior is acquired through observation of
others, direct experiences with positive and
negative reinforcements, training, or instruction,
and bizarre beliefs.
Dysfunctional Behavior : Aggression

5 reasons why people continue to aggress:

 They find pleasure in inflicting other people pain (positive
reinforcement).
 They avoid or counter the eversion consequences of
aggression by others (negative reinforcement).
 They receive injury or harm for not behaving aggressively
(punishment).
 They live up to their personal standards of conduct by their
aggressive behavior (self-reinforcement).
 They observe others receiving rewards for aggressive acts or
punishment for nonaggressive behavior.
Therapy
 According to Bandura, deviant behaviors are
initiated on the basis of social cognitive learning
principles, and they are maintained because, in
some ways, they continue to serve a purpose.
 The ultimate goal of social cognitive therapy is
self-regulation (Bandura, 1986).
 The first step in successful therapy is to instigate
change in behavior. Some therapists induce
change and facilitate generalization, but in time,
the therapeutic effects are lost and the person
reacquires the dysfunctional behavior.
Therapy

3 levels of treatment:
 Induction of change
 Generalization of change to other appropriate
situations
 Maintenance of newly acquired functional
behaviors
Bandura’s several basic treatment
approaches:
 Overt or vicarious modeling. People who film models
that perform threatening activities often feel less
fear and enxiety and are then able to perform those
same activities.
 Covert or cognitive modeling. The therapists trains
patients to visualize models performing fearsome
behaviors.
 Enactive mastery. Requiring patients to perform those
behaviors that previously produced incapacitating
fears.
Critique of Bandura

 Albert Bandura has evolved his social cognitive

theory by a careful balance of the two principal
components of theory building-innovative
speculation and accurate observation.
 Rates high on its capacity to generate research,
falsifiability, ability to organize knowledge,
practicality, and parsimony.
Concept of Humanity
 Bandura views humans as beings who has the capacity and
ability to become so many things through learning modeling.
He believes that although people are quite plastic, they are
flexible. And that plasticity ad flexibility are the essence of
humanity’s basic nature. People have the capacity to store past
experiences and to use this information to chart future actions.
 Bandura’s concept of humanity is more optimistic than
pessimistic, because, according to him, people are capable of
learning new behaviors throughout their lives.
 Bandura’s social cognitive theory emphasizes social factors
more than biological ones.
 Rated high on freedom versus determinism because he
believes that people can exercise a large measure of control
over their lives.
Concept of Humanity

 Bandura’s position on the issue of causality or teleology could

be described as moderate.
 And his social cognitive theory emphasizes conscious thought
over unconscious determinants of behavior.
 Bandura believes that the division of biological and social
factors is a false dichotomy.
 Because people have a remarkable flexibility and capacity for
learning, vast individual differences exist among them.
Bandura’s emphasis on uniqueness, however, is moderated by
biological and social influences, both of which contribute to
some similarities among people.