BEHAVIOURAL

THEORY OF LEARNING
• Behaviorism, also known as behavioral psychology, is a theory of learning which states
all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment through a process
called conditioning. Thus, behavior is simply a response to environmental stimuli.
• Behaviorism is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviors, as they can
be studied in a systematic and observable manner.
• The behaviorist movement began in 1913 when John Watson wrote an article entitled
'Psychology as the behaviorist views it,' which set out a number of underlying
assumptions regarding methodology and behavioral analysis:
• All behavior is learned from the environment:

• Behaviorism emphasizes the role of environmental factors in influencing behavior, to the near exclusion of
innate or inherited factors. This amounts essentially to a focus on learning.

• We learn new behavior through classical or operant conditioning (collectively known as 'learning theory').

• Therefore, when born our mind is 'tabula rasa' (a blank slate).

• Behaviorists defined learning as an observable change in behavior. At the time, this was
viewed as a scientific approach, in contrast to the introspective or psychoanalytic view of
learning that had been prevalent in the past. Behaviorists believed that we can never
know what is going on “inside people’s heads” and that it is inappropriate to try to guess
or speculate at what cannot be empirically observed. Instead, they believed that we
should watch for observable changes in behavior to find out what people were learning.

• Classical Conditioning
• In the early part of the 20th century, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) was
studying the digestive system of dogs when he noticed an interesting behavioral
phenomenon: The dogs began to salivate when the lab technicians who normally fed
them entered the room, even though the dogs had not yet received any food. Pavlov
realized that the dogs were salivating because they knew they were about to be fed; the
dogs had begun to associate the arrival of the technicians with the food that soon
followed their appearance in the room.
• With his team of researchers, Pavlov began studying this process in more detail. He conducted a series of
experiments in which, over a number of trials, dogs were exposed to a sound immediately before receiving food. He
systematically controlled the onset of the sound and the timing of the delivery of the food, and recorded the amount
of the dogs’ salivation. Initially the dogs salivated only when they saw or smelled the food, but after several
pairings of the sound and the food, the dogs began to salivate as soon as they heard the sound. Pavlov concluded
that the animals had learned to associate the sound with the food that followed.

• Pavlov had identified a fundamental associative learning process called classical conditioning. Classical
conditioning refers to learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus (e.g., a tone) becomes associated with a stimulus
(e.g., food) that naturally produces a behavior (e.g., salivation). After the association is learned, the previously
neutral stimulus (e.g., a tone) is by itself sufficient to produce the behavior (e.g., salivation).
• This process is known as experimental extinction and allows an individual to adapt their
behavior to a changing environment. The discovery Pavlov made through his experiments
were significant because his theory of conditioning can be applied to learning not just in
dogs, but also in other species, including humans.
• Pavlov showed that dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell if that
sound was repeatedly presented at the same time that they were given food. First the dogs
were presented with the food, they salivated. The food was the unconditioned stimulus
and salivation was an unconditioned (innate) response.

• Classical conditioning is a type of learning that happens unconsciously. When you learn
through classical conditioning, an automatic conditioned response is paired with a
specific stimulus. This creates a behaviour.
• Psychologists use specific terms to identify the stimuli and the responses in classical conditioning.
The unconditioned stimulus (US) is something (such as food) that triggers a natural occurring
response, and the unconditioned response (UR) is the naturally occurring response (such as
salivation) that follows the unconditioned stimulus. The conditioned stimulus (CS) is a neutral
stimulus that, after being repeatedly presented prior to the unconditioned stimulus, evokes a similar
response as the unconditioned stimulus. In Pavlov’s experiment, the sound of the tone served as the
conditioned stimulus that, after learning, produced the conditioned response (CR), which is the
acquired response to the formerly neutral stimulus. Note that the UR and the CR are the same
behavior—in this case salivation—but they are given different names because they are produced by
different stimuli (the US and the CS, respectively).