In psychology, there are three types of learning; habituation, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Learning is an adaptive process driven by experience. This means that we learn through doing things; we learn in accordance with what we experience. Much of what we know of learning can be found through behaviourism, the school of thought. Behaviourism is the idea that all actions are acquired through conditioning processes (Cherry. K. 2016. “Classical and Operant Study Guide”). As a school of thought, Behaviourists contributed immensely to psychology. Due to their work, overtime we have been able to gather an understanding of learning and different kinds of development through conditioning.
Classical and operant conditioning involve …show more content…
This is also known as instrumental learning (Carlson, Martin & Buskist, 2014, Learning and Behaviour, (246)). In summary, it’s the idea that we, as humans would not repeat an action that has proven to have bad consequences and would repeat actions that present good consequences. A popular study that is used to illustrate and support operant conditioning is ‘Thorndike’s Puzzle box, the Law of effect.’ The ‘law of effect’ is simply the idea that favourable outcomes increase the probability of the action being carried out again. Thorndike put an unfed cat inside what he called a ‘puzzle box’; the cat would only be able to eat if it managed to successfully unlatch the door of this box. To unlatch this door, the cat attempted many things until it was successful, eventually the cat would unlatch the door more and more with practice ultimately enabling it to open it without hesitation. Thorndike referred to this process as “learning by trial and accidental success (Carlson, Martin & Buskist, 2014, Learning and Behaviour (248)). The main point of the experiment is that the cat only learnt how to unlatch the door because it had a favourable consequence, escaping this box meant being able to eat some food. There are many other popular studies that demonstrate operant conditioning, e.g. Skinner’s operant chamber. Operant behaviour however, has many consequences one of them being
Classical and operant conditioning involve …show more content…
This is also known as instrumental learning (Carlson, Martin & Buskist, 2014, Learning and Behaviour, (246)). In summary, it’s the idea that we, as humans would not repeat an action that has proven to have bad consequences and would repeat actions that present good consequences. A popular study that is used to illustrate and support operant conditioning is ‘Thorndike’s Puzzle box, the Law of effect.’ The ‘law of effect’ is simply the idea that favourable outcomes increase the probability of the action being carried out again. Thorndike put an unfed cat inside what he called a ‘puzzle box’; the cat would only be able to eat if it managed to successfully unlatch the door of this box. To unlatch this door, the cat attempted many things until it was successful, eventually the cat would unlatch the door more and more with practice ultimately enabling it to open it without hesitation. Thorndike referred to this process as “learning by trial and accidental success (Carlson, Martin & Buskist, 2014, Learning and Behaviour (248)). The main point of the experiment is that the cat only learnt how to unlatch the door because it had a favourable consequence, escaping this box meant being able to eat some food. There are many other popular studies that demonstrate operant conditioning, e.g. Skinner’s operant chamber. Operant behaviour however, has many consequences one of them being