What makes his theories effective and contributive to the learning perspective is because he made it scientific after having been inspired by Thorndike. It has numerous practical applications and it helped to justify psychology and most importantly the learning perspective.
Another important theorist is Pavlov. He believed that learning is can be done through another type of conditioning which did not require any rewards or punishment, contrarily to Skinner. He experimented with dogs and used unconditional stimuli and conditional stimuli to create the unconditional response which then became a conditional response. This demonstrated learning through association, through reflexes which is very applicable in our daily lives.
Pavlov contributed to the learning perspective in a way which did not oppose Skinner, but instead opened another window and outlook to psychology.
Bandura has also taken an important part within the learning perspective. His main theory was that humans learn observationally, by watching others’ behaviours. He developed the social learning theory.
The observational learning was proven through the experiment he did which he named “Bashing Bobo”. It constituted of different groups of children watching different videos in which adult models showed a certain type of behaviour. The adult models were rewarded or punished vicariously which instantly gave another aspect of observational learning. Through vicarious reward and punishment, it was proven that the children would act differently. It showed that it was through motivation that the children behaved, and this added a cognitive aspect to the learning perspective which broadened the learning perspective.
By using his theory, any behaviour can be changed. He demonstrated the limitations of traditional conditioning and behaviour and as he used children, it links it much closer to humans as Skinner and Pavlov used animals in their experiments. His contributions to the learning perspective made it even more broad and less objective and less behaviourist.
