Chapter 1 Part 2

Hi, welcome back.

We're going to be talking in this next
segment on the next couple of terms

from your sheet, we're going to be looking
at classical and operant conditioning.

Now these are 2 types of learning and my
guess is since you've taken psychology 201

you're familiar with these kinds of learning.

Now before we talk about what you know
I want to preface that

we're going to cover a lot of this content
across the term.

So right now I don't want you to get bogged
down with details

I want to just start making
some connections

and tying this back to what you
already know.

We're going to spend several weeks talking
about these different types of learning.

So I don't want you to get overwhelmed
right now with all the different pieces,

I'm just trying to, again, kind of prime
some of your prior knowledge.

So we're going to talk about these
2 kinds of learning

and then we are going to spend several
weeks across the term talking about this.

So the first kind of learning we're going
to talk about is classical conditioning.

And classical conditioning we typically
connect with Ivan Pavlov.

So in classical conditioning we've got a
couple of components.

In classical conditioning we often have an
unconditioned stimulus

and an unconditioned response.

You know the S and the R,
the U stands for unconditioned.

Now these 2 have the term reflex here
because often times in classical conditioning

these 2 components are connected in a
reflex like way.

The other 2 components in classical
conditioning include a conditioned stimulus

and a conditioned response, and we see
that the relationship between these

2 components is a learned relationship.

So we go from an unlearned reflex-like
relationship to a learned relationship.

That's what happens in classical conditioning.

Let's go through an example
to illustrate this point.

Alright, we're going to use one we did
a few minutes ago.

So, smelling fresh bread,
freshly baked bread.

Potentially the smell of freshly baked bread
elicits the feeling of hunger

and that's kind of a reflex-like connection

bread and feeling hungry, that might be
a reflex-like connection.

Maybe just good smells associated
with food

that's something that gets you
to feel hungry.

So that's the first part that's not really
thought of as learning.

Now imagine if we're at grandma's house
and every time we're at grandma's house

we smell freshly baked bread, we're at
grandma's house, shes baking bread,

we feel hungry.

We're at grandma's house, she's baking
bread, we feel hungry.

Now we're going to get to this point where
when we're at grandma's house

we're going to start to feel hungry.

Even when she's not baking the freshly-
baking the bread, right?

Now my kids used to do this all the time
and it made me nuts

because I would feed them before they went
over to grandma's house,

we didn't want to take advantage of grandma
and it never failed.

We would walk in the door and they would
feel hungry and ask for food,

and I'm like, "I don't know why they're hungry
and asking for food.

I fed them before we came over."

But likely they were classically conditioned
to the smells associated with

grandma's house eliciting that strong
feeling of hunger.

Now that's classical conditioning.

Now as I said don't get bogged down in
these individual components

you'll have plenty of time to get
this all figured out

but I did want you to understand kind of
the bigger picture, how it works.

Now the other type of learning we're going
to start with here today,

is known as operant conditioning.

And we typically associate operant
conditioning with B.F. Skinner.

Now I have written Skinner, et al. because
this term "et al.",

is oftentimes used in psychological writings
to indicate you have more than

1 person there.

So, we've got Skinner but really
keep in mind there were a lot

of people that looked at operant conditioning.

So now operant conditioning is different
from classical conditioning.

Now operant conditioning includes
a stimulus and a response,

and remember we practiced those a few minutes
ago but then also

another stimulus that we often times think
of as a consequence.

A consequence of making this
particular response.

Now those consequences can be considered
reinforcing,

and sometimes we use a little "r" subscript
to reflect a reinforcing consequence.

Something that we, we could add some
emotions to this.

So something that we enjoy, something
that we like,

or that consequence could be punishing, so
we've got a little subscript of a "p" here

So these consequences can either strengthen
connections, if they're reinforcing

or they can weaken connections
if they're punishing.

Let's do an example to think about
how this might work.

So let's imagine that you have a test in the
class and you know that it's 1 week away.

You look at your calendar or maybe you see
your instructor and your instructor says,

'Hey don't forget! We have a test
1 week away."

Now if the stimulus of knowing your test
is one week away

elicits the response of you starting
to study, that's a connection

right between the two.

Let's think about what some of those
consequences could be.

So maybe one consequence could be that
you get a good grade on the test.

Now I'm going to venture to guess that
a good grade on a test

would be perceived as a reinforcing
consequence.

According to operant conditioning if you
hear that a test is 1 week away

and you start to study, and that leads to
you getting a good grade,

a reinforcing consequence.

That's going to strengthen that connection,

so that the next time you've got a test
that's 1 week away,

you're going to be more likely to study.

Alright, so that's what we hope happens.

There's always the possibility that the
consequence might not be

something that's reinforcing, maybe
the consequence is something punishing.

So here's a different scenario; imagine the
test is 1 week away and you start to study.

Now again, we don't want this to happen,
but let's say that

that's associated with a low grade.

According to operant conditioning if you
perceive that low grade to be punishing

then the next time the test is 1 week away
you're not going to be as likely

to start to study, maybe you'll engage
in some other kind of a behavior.

So again with- with operant conditioning

we're looking at stimulus response connections
and consequences

and with classical conditioning we were
looking more at reflex-like connections.

Okay.

Alright, so the next set of terms that we
have that you have looked at yourself

are these terms of nativism and empiricism.

Now I can't see what you've written down
but my guess is you know something

about these terms, even if you didn't
write a whole lot.

These 2 terms are kind of the classic
debate in psychology

and lots of other fields.

With nativism and empiricism we're
looking at this basic distinction

between nature and nurture.

Why are we the way that we are?
Were we born the way that we are?

Or have we developed a set of traits and
personality characteristics

based on the way that we've been raised.

Are we a product of what is innate,
how we were born?

Or are we a product of learning?

Are we a product of the genes and the
biological information we've inherited

from our parents, or the traits of our
species, or are we a product of

our environments, how we
have been raised.

Is what we are inborn or
based on exposure?

Now this term over here in quotes is a
very famous term

that refers to this empiricist side.

It's the idea of "tabula rasa",
or a blank slate.

The idea is that if we believe in empiricism
and "tabula rasa"

we are born like a blank slate or a blank
black board or I guess

a white board would be the right way to
think about it now

and we're waiting to be written upon.

There is nothing there at the beginning and
we're just a product of the exposure

to different factors in our environment.

Now for our class, we're going to focus
more on this empiricism, whoa,

this empiricism side because we're doing a
class on learning but as you know

if you've taken any psychology courses
already, nobody tends to believe

that it's one or the other anymore.

Very few people believe that.

And let's think about this, so let me
give you an example.

Imagine that you meet somebody who has a
very strong fear of spiders.

Now if we're a nativist and we're very
clearly on this side

we would have to believe that that individual
is born with that fear.

That it's innate to have a fear of spiders.

Now somebody on the empiricist side would
argue that, "No, that's not the case.

This is probably somebody who has had
a bad experience with a spider.

Maybe they were bitten as a child?

Maybe they saw a parent having a very bad
experience with a spider?

Uhm, so it's more a product of learning.

Now what we're going to see when we start
to spend more time talking about fears

and there's a lot of learning research
looking at fears,

is that even with fears like a fear of a
spider, or a phobia

there is certainly a learning component,
over on this side

but there's probably a biological
predisposition to developing

certain kinds of fears too, uhm.

We don't as a species, humans, we don't
develop fears for some things

or put another way we develop fears
for certain kinds of objects

more than others.

We're much more likely to develop a fear
of a spider or a snake,

things that scurry on the ground, it could
potentially be harmful.

We're much less likely to develop fears
for things that don't have the same kinds of

uhm, dangerous traits.

So we don't typically develop fears for
sedentary objects like chairs, uhm,

or a desk.

So some of the fears that we do have
make sense

and maybe there's a biological
predisposition.

Alright, so time for another review.

Here we go, let's think about this.

Write down your answers in your notes.

"Ari believes that great scientists are born
with great minds,

Now Reri thinks that great scientists have
simply experienced great training."

So Ari supports the view of,
Reri supports the view of, what?

We've just talked about these terms.

Okay, alright. You have something?

Let's try something else.

So here's an example

Tamsen once became ill while riding in
the back seat of a car.

Now whenever she rides in the back seat
of a car, she feels nauseous.

What kind of learning best explains Tamsen
feeling nauseous when she rides

in the back seat of the car?

Now as a clue for this, I'm asking you to
think: do you think that this learning

is a product of classical conditioning or
do you think it's a product

of operant conditioning? Okay.

So think about that, write down your answer
and we'll do a quick review.

Okay, here we go.

Ari believes scientists are born with
great minds,

Reri thinks that they have experienced
great training.

Ari supports the view of nativism.

Reri supports the view of empiricism.

What do you believe?
Okay, think about it.

Let's think about Tamsen, she gets ill
riding in the back of the car.

Now when she rides in the back seat
of a car she feels nauseous.

What kind of learning best explains Tansen
feeling nauseous?

Well, best guess here is probably
classical conditioning, alright?

So now let's think about this for a second.
How could that have happened?

Let's, let's think about this
a little bit more.

Now that's the same example so you don't feel
like you have to write it down

but let's think about how this could have
happened, now I say could have happened

because we didn't actually see
the learning happen.

We are just kind of reflecting on some
of the experiences here.

But here's how this could have happened
with classical conditioning.

So the unconditioned stimulus of being in
a bumpy car ride, or that movement,

that movement is probably what elicited
that response of nausea

and it's probably not a learned
component there

you know, you ride on- you ride in the back
of a car, you ride-

you have a bumpy experience, you ride on
some kind of ride at the fair,

you could feel nauseous, that's not
something that involves a lot of learning.

Alright, so that's probably a
reflex response.

Now what's happening in this particular
example is she's

associating the experience of being in
the back seat of the car

with that bumpy ride and because the back
seat of the car is connected to the bumpy ride

now just being in the back seat of the car
might elicit that nausea response.

Now the important piece here is she
could be in the back seat of the car

and not even be moving, or the car might
not be bumpy at all

but she's still going to have that
experience of nausea because

the back seat of the car has been paired
with the bumpy ride.

Now this is likely to be classical
conditioning

because the truth is there's nothing
about the back seat of a car

that should in and of itself make you
feel nauseous but sp-

but because it has been paired with the
bumpy car ride

it probably is going to elicit that
feeling of nausea.

Okay, great! Great work.
Let's take a break.