Biology, Cognition, and Learning
Biological Psychology: Study of the biology of behavior, focuses on the nervous system, hormones, genetics.
- The fear response is an example of this.
Cognition: All forms of knowing and awareness. Perceiving, conceiving, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining, and problem solving.
Learning: The acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught.
Biological Constraints Affect Classical/Operant Conditioning
Natural Response can overpower classical conditioning.
- Defense mechanisms preventing animals from becoming ill overpower the ability to elicit classical learning.
- An animal's natural predispositions constrain its capacity for operant conditioning. Biological constraints predispose organisms to learn associations that are naturally adaptive.
Predisposition: A natural or acquired habit or characteristic tendency in a person or thing.
Biological preparedness explains why certain phobias tend to form more easily,
- Works with classical conditioning as the development of taste aversions.
Cognitive Processing Affect Classical/Operant Conditioning
Cognition occurs subconsciously.
- Cognition causes operant conditioning to happen subconsciously. behaviors based on rewards and punishment happen subconsciously.
Associative Learning: Certain events go together. The events may be two stimuli, or a response and its consequence.
Textbook notes. (Apparently I missed a lot)
Pavlov and Watson believed the basic laws of learning were essentially similar in all animals.
Preparedness: A biological predisposition to learn associations, such as between taste and nausea, that have survival value.
==Biopsychosocial influences on learning--------==
Our learning results not only from environmental experiences, but also from cognitive and biological influences.
Biological Influences:
- Genetic Predispositions
- Unconditioned Responses
- Adaptive Responses
- Neural Mirroring
Psychological Influences
- Previous Experiences
- Predictability of associations
- Generalization
- Discrimination
- Expectations
Social-Cultural Influences:
- Culturally learned preferences
- Motivation affected bu presence of others.
- Modeling
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
^^The cognitive perspective has also shown us the limits of rewards. Excessive rewards can destroy intrinsic motivation - the desire to perform a behavior effectively and for its own sake. An example of being extrinsically motivated is you reading this and studying for the AP Exam. Learning to make us feel good is actually the intrinsic motivation.^^
- Youth sports coaches who aim to promote enduring interest in an activity, not just to pressure players into winning, focus on the intrinsic joys of playing and reaching one’s potential.
==Extrinsic rewards used to signal a job well done can be effective. Can boost feelings of competence and increase enjoyment of a sport. Rightly administered, rewards can improve performance and spark creativity.==
Learning and Personal Control
Problems are unavoidable. We need to learn to cope with the problems in our lives, alleviating the stress they cause with emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods. We address stressors directly with problem-focused coping.
- If impatience leads to a family fight, we might go directly to the family member to work things out.
We tend to use problem-focused strategies when we feel a sense of control over a situation and think we can change the circumstances.
We turn to emotion-focused coping when we believe we cannot change a situation. Emotion-Focused coping can harm our health, such as when we respond with eating comfort.
Perceived Loss of Control
Learning also influences our sense of empowerment versus helplessness. A series of uncontrollable events creates a state of learned helplessness, with feelings of passive resignation.
Learned Helplessness: The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or person learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.
Perceiving a loss of control, we become more vulnerable to stress and ill health.
%%Uncontrollable bad events lead to perceived lack of control which leads to generalized helpless behavior. Control also helps explain a link between economic status and longevity. American presidents who are generally wealthy and well-educated have had above-average life spans.%%
{{Why does perceived loss of control predict health problems?{{
- {{Losing control provokes an outpouring of stress hormones.{{
- {{Blood Pressure Increases{{
- {{Immune response drops{{
- {{Captive animals experience more stress and are more vulnerable to disease than their will counterparts. (Roberts, 1988){{
Building Self-Control
When we have a sense of personal control over our lives, we are more likely to develop self-control, the ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for longer performance.
- Strengthening self control requires attention and energy. Just like a muscle.
(Extreme self-control) Our ability to exert self-control increases with practice, and some of us have practiced more than others! A number of performing artists make their living as very convincing human statues.