Learning Theories

• Learning


  • To gain knowledge, comprehension, or mastery through experience or study
  • Changes in observable behavior
  • A relatively permanent change in behavioral potentiality that occurs as a result of reinforced practice
• Modified definition of learning

  Relatively permanent change in behavior or in behavioral potentiality that results from experience and cannot be attributed to temporary body states such as those induced by illness, fatigue or drugs
• Different kinds of learning

  • Classical Conditioning
  • Operant Conditioning
  • Social Learning
• Classical Conditioning


  Learning through association, where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus to evoke a response (e.g., Pavlov's dogs associating a bell with food)
• Operant Conditioning


  Learning through consequences, where behaviors are strengthened or weakened by the outcomes they produce (e.g., positive reinforcement, negative punishment)
• Social Learning


  Learning by observing others' behaviors and their consequences, and then imitating those behaviors (e.g., Albert Bandura's Bobo doll experiment)
• Theory


  • Unsubstantiated hypothesis or a speculation concerning reality that is not yet definitely known to be so
  • Set of conventions created by the theorists, which can either be useful or not useful
  • Has the capacity to generate research by suggesting ideas or resistance as it may be referred to as the heuristic influence of the theory
  • Should permit incorporation of known empirical findings within logically consistent and reasonably simple framework
  • Should prevent the observer from being dazzled by the full-blown complexity of natural or concrete events
  • The theory should be prepared to deal with any behavioral phenomenon that can be shown to possess significance for the individual
• Aspects of Theory

  • Formal Aspect
  • Empirical Aspect
• Characteristics of a Scientific Theory

  • Synthesizes a number of observations
  • Heuristic; that is, it generates new research
  • Must generate hypotheses that can be empirically verified
  • Is a tool and as such cannot be right or wrong; it is either useful or it is not useful
  • Chosen in accordance with the law of parsimony: Of two equally effective theories, the simpler of the two must be chosen
  • Contain abstraction, such as numbers or words, which constitute the formal aspect of a theory
  • The formal aspect of a theory must be correlated with observable events, which constitute the empirical aspect of a theory
  • All theories are attempts to explain empirical events, and they must, therefore, start and end with empirical observations
• Aspects of the Learning Experiment

  • Idiographic (study of particular scientific facts and processes)
  • Nomothetic Techniques (study of general scientific laws)
  • Humans versus Nonhuman animals as subjects
  • Correlational techniques versus experimental techniques
  • Which independent variables should be studied?
  • What levels of the independent variables should be studied?
  • Choice of dependent variables
  • Data analysis and interpretation
• History of Learning Theory

  • Epistemology
  • Plato
  • Aristotle
  • Rene Descartes
  • Thomas Hobbes
  • John Locke
  • George Berkeley
  • David Hume
  • Immanuel Kant
  • John Stuart Miller
  • Thomas Reid
  • Franz Joseph Gall
  • Charles Darwin
  • Hermann Ebbinghaus
• Psychology's Early Schools


  • Voluntarism
  • Structuralism
  • Functionalism
  • Behaviorism
• Formal Aspect - includes the words and symbols the theory contains
• Empirical Aspect - Consists of the physical events that the theory is attempting to explain.
• Epistemology - Branch of philosophy that is concerned with the nature of knowledge and its origin.
• Plato – He stated that knowledge is inherited and innate known as Nativism.
• Aristotle – He stated that knowledge is derived from sensory experiences known as Empiricism.
• Rene Descartes - predecessor of stimulus-response psychology through his idea of reflex actions. He believed in innate ideas.
• Thomas Hobbes - maintained that sense impressions are the source of all knowledge. He believed that behavior is controlled by “appetites” and “aversion”.
• Voluntarism – founded by Maximilian Wundt whose goals were to study consciousness as it was immediately experienced and study products of consciousness such as cultural achievements.
• Structuralism – created by Edward Titchener, who studied human consciousness through introspection.
• Functionalism – founded by William James who said that consciousness cannot be deduced into elements rather functions as a unity whose purpose is to allow organisms to adjust to his environment.
• Behaviorism – founded by John Watson who said that consciousness should not be studied for it is unreliable. Behavior is what we can see and therefore behavior is what we study.
• Idiographic (study of particular scientific facts and processes) versus Nomothetic Techniques (study of general scientific laws)
• Idiographic – study of the learning process of a single experimental subject under a wide variety of circumstances.
• Nomothetic – study of the learning process using groups of experimental subjects and their average performance.