AQA GCSE Psychology Learning

Question	Answer
Learning	A relatively permanent change in behaviour due to experience.
Classical Conditioning	A procedure in which an animal or person learns to associate a reflex response with a new stimulus.
Unconditioned stimulus	The stimulus that produces a reflex response (e.g food for Pavlov's dog)
Unconditioned response	The reflex response to an unconditioned stimulus (e.g. Pavlov's dog's salivation)
Conditioned stimulus	A new stimulus presented with the UCS (e.g. Bell in Pavlov's experiment)
Conditioned response	The response that is learned. It now occurs when the CS is presented. (e.g. Pavlov's dog's salivation)
Extinction	A conditioned response dies out
Spontaneous recovery	A conditioned response that has disappeared suddenly appears again
Generalisation	The conditioned response is produced when a similar stimulus to the original CS is presented
Discrimination	The conditioned response is only produced when a specific stimulus is presented.
Watson and Rayner aim	To see if the emotional response of fear could be conditioned in a human being.
Watson and Rayner method	Albert was an 11 month old baby who liked a white lab rat, and had no fear of white furry objects. The rat was shown to Albert, and as he reached for it, a metal bar was hit with a hammer behind Albert's back, causing a loud noise inducing fear. This was done several times.
Watson and Rayner results	After 7 times, when the rat was presented Albert screamed and tried to get away, even though the bar wasn't hit. Albert also screamed when shown a Santa Claus mask and a fur coat.
Watson and Rayner conclusion	They showed that the fear response could be learnt and even young children can learn in the way suggested by classical conditioning,
Operant condition	Learning due to consequences of behaviour through positive or negative reinforcement.
Law of Effect	If a certain response has pleasant consequences, it is more likely than other responses to occur in the same circumstances.
Thorndike	He studied operant conditioning by putting animals inside puzzle boxes. Once he put a cat in a puzzle box after and after the 20th time, it got out very quickly.
Skinner	Introduced the idea of reinforcement. Placed a hungry rat in a Skinner box. When it pressed a lever, a pellet of food would drop, so the rat learnt to press the lever (positive reinforcement).
Punishment	A stimulus that weakened behaviour because it is unpleasant so we try to avoid.
Reinforcement	A consequence of behaviour that encourages or strengthens a behaviour. This might be seen as a reward.
Positive reinforcement	A reward or pleasant consequence that increases the likelihood that a behaviour or action will be repeated.
Negative reinforcement	When an unpleasant experience is removed after a behaviour or action has been made. This increases the likelihood of that behaviour or action being repeated.;
Behaviour shaping	Changing someone's behaviour in small steps.
Phobia	A persistent and irrational fear of an object, activity or situation. Typical symptoms include an intense feeling of fear and anxiety to avoid the object, activity or situation.
Flooding	A treatment for phobias that involves the immediate exposure of the person to the feared object, activity or situation until there is no longer a fearful response.
How arachnophobias are formed	The normal reflex is danger -> fear In a phobia, the response is spider -> fear The process goes: screaming makes me scared; spider + screaming makes me scared, spiders make me scared.
How flooding works	Person is exposed repeatedly and rapidly to the thing they fear. They make the person stay next to what they fear until they realise there is no reason for fear. The CS-CR bonds are broken.
Ethical implications of flooding	-No right to withdraw -No protection -Can be very stressful
Systematic desensitsation	A treatment for phobias in which the person is taught to relax and then is gradually exposed gradually to the feared object, situation or event. They don't move on to the next stage of the hierarchy until they are completely relaxed.
Hierarchy of fears	A series of feared events ranked from least frightening to most frightening.
Aversion therapy	A treatment for addiction such as drugs or alcohol dependency which makes the addict have an extremely negative reaction to the addictive substance.
How aversion therapy works for alcoholics	The patient develops an extremely negative reaction to alcohol using the vomiting reflex of an emetic when it is consumed with alcohol. The patient will then associate the alcohol with vomiting, so will avoid it.
Primary reinforcer	A reward such as food or water, that the animal or person needs in order to survive.
Secondary reinforcer	A reward, such as money or a token that the person can exchange for a primary reinforcer.
Token economy programs	Have been set up in some hospitals (usually psychiatric wards) and prisons to reward socially acceptable behaviour. Every time the patient produces appropriate behaviour, staff immediately gives the person the token. These tokens can be exchanged for something like watching a favourite TV program.

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AQA GCSE Psychology Learning

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	Created by Diana Domingues about 7 years ago