AP Psych: Key Studies in Learning

Key People

• Ivan Pavlov→Classical Conditioning

  • Dog and Bell → Classical Conditioning

• John Watson→Classical Conditioning

  • Baby Albert → Little Albert Experiment

• B.F. Skinner→Operant Conditioning

  • Rat Box → Operant Conditioning

• Edward Thorndike→Operant Conditioning

  • Puzzle Boxes → Law of Effect

Instinctive Drift

• established by Keller Breland

• Tendency of conditioned behavior to gradually return to a more innate behavior

• Ex: A raccoon that is trained to drop coins in a machine for food may begin “washing” the coins which is a behavior they perform with food

Learned Helplessness

• established by Martin Seligman

• feeling helpless to change a situation due to repeated exposure to uncontrollable events

Insight

• established by Wolfgang Kohler

• abrupt realization of a problem’s solution

Taste Aversion

• established by John Garcia

• can occur when eating a substance that is followed by illness, even extended lengths of time

Latent Learning

• established by Edward Tolman

• Learning that becomes apparent only when there is an incentive to demonstrate it

Cognitive Maps

• established by Edward Tolman

• A mental rep. of physical features in an environment

Contingency Theory

• established by Robert Rescorla

• a.k.a Cognitive Component to Learning

• For learning to take place a stimulus must provide the subject information about the likelihood that certain events will occur

Observational Learning

• established by Albert Bandura

• learning through watching others, retaining the information, and later replication the behaviors observed

Reciprocal Determinism

• established by Albert Bandura

• An individual’s behavior influences and is influenced by both the social world and personal characteristics