Behavioral Learning Theories: Classical And Operant Conditioning

Behavioral Learning theories, developed at the turn of the century to compensate for psychology’s lack of “science,” focused on the behaviors of individuals as opposed to the inner workings of the mind (Harzem, 2004, p. 6). As psychology resolutely turned its eye to the exhibited behaviors of individuals, it developed a means for testing its experiments so that psychology could once again be added into the great hall of sciences. The two camps of behavioral learning theory became Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning. The first of the two focused on behavioral responses to situations that were involuntary, though they should not have been so. The latter focused on voluntary behavioral responses to situations. Classical Conditioning …show more content…
In this example, the same elements of human nature were capitalized on in order to create an involuntary response. The individual associated hearing the toilet flush with pain. The other two examples, 3 and 4, are similar, they deal with individuals who associated the smell or taste of something with good or bad experiences. Depending on what they experienced, a behavior is learned that is involuntary. In example 3, the person did not consciously decide that he or she was going to stop liking a certain food, because he or she got sick. Instead, the person involuntarily associated that food with getting …show more content…
Well, the brain develops in a human child the same as it first did evolutionarily. At first, the main parts of the brain that existed, called the Reptilian section, contained the parts of the brain that are needed for basic functions, like breathing. It is the part of the brain that keeps an animal alive. The next part of the brain that developed was the mammalian section. This part of the brain contains the Amygdala and Hippocampus. The Amygdala is the seat of emotion and deals with valuating processes. It rests right beside the Hippocampus, which is necessary for the formation of long-term memory. In human infants, this part of the brain develops before most of the rest of the brain does. However, there is a crucial part of the brain that is not developed as a child, called the Cingulate Gyrus. This part of the brain regulates emotions. This explains why as a child, classical conditioning is so effective. Children are not able to regulate their emotions and logically think through why certain conditioned responses are not needed or useful. Instead, they just feel scared or happy in front of something and remember that response. Evolutionarily speaking, this ability to learn behaviors is very important. As human ancestors evolved into modern day humans, having the ability to learn responses would be crucial. For instance, imagine a human ancestor walking around in an area, like South Carolina, that has