A dentist tried to soothe the fears of his young patients by showing them cartoons whilst drilling their teeth. Many years later a former patient said, “After all these years I still cannot bear to watch cartoons”.
Outline what is meant by classical conditioning, and show how it could be used to explain why this person cannot bear to watch cartoons.
Classical conditioning is learning by association. This is simply learning to associate two events which often occur at the same time. As in the example, the former patient has associated watching cartoons with the bad experience of drilling teeth. Because the two have been associated together, the patient then relates their teeth being drilled every time they watch cartoons. This is why the patient does not like to watch cartoons, due to the association with the dentist.
Some psychologists believe that principles of operant and classical conditioning do not offer adequate explanations of all types of learning.
With reference to 2 examples of behaviour, discuss how observational and imitative learning provide a better explanation for some types of learning.
Observational learning is seeing what happens to other people and whether they are rewarded for their behaviours, or punished for their behaviours. The imitative side to this is repeating the desirable behaviour which was observed, or avoid repeating the undesirable behaviour. E.g. Kevin is walking down a street and sees a gentleman drop his wallet on the floor without knowing. Somebody then quickly picks up the wallet and runs and gives the gentleman the wallet, who then offers to buy the person a drink for their help. This is a reward for the person, and Kevin would recognize this, and learn from the occasion, even though Kevin was not directly reinforced. This is known as Vicarious reinforcement, which is observing somebody else. However, if the behaviour of the person was undesirable, such as they picked up the wallet and ran away, then Kevin is likely to see this as a lead to punishment rather than reinforcement, and because of this, is less likely to imitate the behaviour. Observational learning takes place around models, and the model in the example was the person who picked up the wallet. The differences between Observational, Imitation learning, and the operant and classical conditioning learning, is that operant and classical only relate to the single organism and its responses to the environment. They also do not take into account any subjective experiences. Observational learning may be a better explanation of how we learn as we learn from the people around us. This could relate to gender identity, as while a boy is growing up, he may imitate his fathers behaviour, but if he imitates his mother, then he may receive punishment and may not be likely to imitate his mother again. Observational learning can also be related to morals, such as the example given previously.
Outline what is meant by the term mediational processes, and use an example in your answer.
Mediational processes are the cognitive processes or mental events that take place between stimulus and response. Usually referred to as stimulus-organism-response. Whether these be conscious of unconscious. The organism stated may be an animal, not just a human. Mediation processes may occur at the conscious or the unconscious level, and if it is at the conscious level, the person should be able to report on them, but not if unconscious.
Jack is a young inexperienced lawyer who finds that he often loses his temper at work.
Outline how Cognitive Psychologists might attempt to explain why Jack loses his temper at work.
