Applications of Learning Theories

Applications of Learning Theories

1. Pavlovian Applications

   • Fear Conditioning
     • Conditioned emotional responses
     • Pavlovian procedures can...
       • Establish fears (Little Albert)
       • Countercondtion and overcome fears
         • Exposure therapy
           • In vivo (e.g. flooding)
           • Systematic desensitisation
           • Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET)
             • What can it treat?
               • Fear of heights
               • Fear of flying
               • Fear of public speaking
               • Fear of spiders (SpiderWorld)
               • PTSD
             • How does it treat it?
               • Uses computer software, a helmet and goggles
               • Creates a realistic simulation of fearful environment that would otherwise be hard to expose pp to
               • Control panel
                 • Allows clinicians to change stimuli within environment
               • Allows for interactions with fearful stimuli and shows everything that could be fearful about it
         • Pairing fearful CSs with positive USs
   • Prejudice
     • Conditioning prejudice
       • Pairing negative words/images with words/images about a particular social group to affect feelings about that group
       • Staats & Staats, 1958
         • Group 1: "Dutch" appeared with positive words, "Swedish" appeared with negative words
           • Rated "Swedish" more negatively
         • Group 2: "Swedish" appeared with positive words, "Dutch" appeared with negative words
           • Rated "Dutch" more negatively
       • Even if we know that we are receiving false information (fake news), the conditioning of hatred will still occur
     • Weakening prejudice
       • The more 'hate training' someone has had, the more difficult it is to reverse the prejudice
   • Taste Aversion
     • Garcia et al., 1960s
       • Rats learn to reject flavours associated with illness
     • Livestock management
       • Animals that graze in meadows can be poisoned by toxic plants but can be trained not to eat the plants by conditioned aversion
       • Pfister et al., 2002
         • Locoweed conditioned taste aversion in horses
         • Pairing exposure of plant with infection causing sickness
   • Advertising
     • Creating conditioned positive responses towards products/brands
     • Stuart et al., 1987
       • Toothpaste associated with pleasant scenes > More positive feelings about product
       • The more someone is exposed to positive pairing, the stronger the positive feelings become
     • Long established preferences for a particular product/brand are difficult to change
   • Drug Addiction
     • Unconditioned Stimulus
       • Drug
     • Unconditioned Response
       • High
     • Conditioned Stimulus
       • Anything associated with drug
         • Needles
         • Pipe
         • Friends
     • Conditioned Response
       • Physiological changes that prepare person for drug use
         • Increases sensitisation
       • Cravings/withdrawal if CS is not followed by drug
       • McRae & Siegal, 1997
         • Lever pressing rats show more withdrawal than rats receiving drug without lever pressing
     • Treatments
       • Aversion therapy
         • Pairing US with unpleasant experience, e.g. nausea
       • Extinction therapy
         • Purposefully eliciting withdrawal without presenting drug

2. Observational Applications

   • Education
     • Acquiring a first language
     • Classroom learning
       • Students learn by observing a model
       • Depends on attention to model and consequences of behaviour
       • Requires imitation of behaviour that results in positive consequences
   • Social Change
     • Practices spread through communities and become standard practice
       • Masataka et al., 2009
         • Social transmission of flossing in monkeys
         • Mother monkeys teach offspring through modelling
     • Undesirable effects
       • Aggression learnt through other people or the media
         • e.g. Bandura
       • Criminal behaviour learnt through observation
     • Potential to advance societies
       • Modelling to induce people to be more healthy, e.g. dieting, exercise
       • "Edutainment" programs dealing with social problems, e.g. gender inequality

3. Instrumental (Operant) Applications

   • Parenting
     • Operant learning is essential for normal development
       • Reinforcing desired behaviour is a successful way of teaching as it reduces the frequency of unwanted behaviour
         • Impulse control
         • Diligence
         • Language development
           • How rapidly children learn depends on instruction/practice
           • Natural reinforcement: parents responding to child's vocalisations
           • Shaping: certain sounds are selected for reinforcement
   • Schooling
     • Effects of approval and attention on student behaviour > more effective than reprimands and punishment
     • Differential reinforcement of low rate (DRL)
       • Austin & Bevan, 2011
         • Children learn to reduce attention seeking behaviour in order to actually be listened to and gain a response
           • Useful for allowing children to put their energy into other things that won't disrupt the class
   • Clinical
     • Self-injurious behaviour (e.g. in people with autism)
       • Behaviour is paired with mild electric shock
     • Delusions
       • May be reinforced by attention from carers
     • Paralysis rehabituation
       • Constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT)
         • Restricting use of unaffected hand so patients perform motor tasks with paralysed limb
         • Dramatic improvements in function of limb
         • Improvements seen in feeding, dressing and grooming
   • Zoos
     • Providing veterinary care to captive wild animals by teaching them behaviours that help the zookeepers help them
   • Work
     • Providing performance feedback
     • Bonuses
     • Reduces accidents and improves well-being