Transcript behaviour

• This term Behavioral science originated from the
United state in the 1950’s
• It is often used synonymously with Social Sciences
although some writers distinguish between them.
– Social Sciences, sciences concerned with the origin
and development of human society, and the
institutions, relationships, and ideas involved in
social life. Included in the social sciences are
anthropology, sociology, political science,
economics, law, psychology, criminology, and social
psychology.
• Recently however, the term behavioral science suggests
• They used it to encompass subjects as
– Psychology
– Psychiatry
– Sociology
– Social Anthropology
– History
– Economics
– Ethics etc.
INTRODUCTION
• Strictly speaking the meaning of the concept Behavioral
Science could be made more meaningful simply by
turning the two words around “Science of behavior”
– in the face value means the scientific study of human and
animal behavior and the mental processes that inform them.
• What makes a subject Scientific?
• In the Behavioral Sciences Dept. and for that matter this
lecture; we use it to loosely to encompass several
subject areas, namely
– Psychology
– Psychiatry (branch of medicine specializing in mental
illnesses)
– Sociology (the scientific study of human social relations or
group life). Family, Class, community n power =how do they
influence society?
– Social Anthropology (the study of all aspects of human life
and culture)
WHY BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE IN A MEDICAL SCHOOL?
the animal is not all to understanding it.
You also need an understanding of its behavior in
order to wholly understand it.
• The early years of medicine was dominated by the
“dualist philosophy” which posited that the mind and
the body were two separate entities.
• Thus, conceptualization and treatment of illnesses
was strictly biomedical, whereby the organism’s
psychological and socio - cultural factors were entirely
ignored.
• Strict biomedical practice had to give way to a more
encompassing one known as holistic/
(Biopsychosocial) approach, because it was realized
that the psychological and social factors were after all
important in the etiology of most illnesses.
INTRODUCTION
• Just learning all the Anatomy and the
Physiology was not enough to understand the
human being.
• You really need to understand the behavior to
be able to effectively deal with the numerous
medical problems; most of which have
behavioral/ psychological components in their
etiology.
– Common malaria – behavioral components?
– Non contagious diseases
MANAGEMENT OF MALARIA - EXAMPLE
MANAGEMENT OF ILLNESSES (MALARIA)
• Primary
Education and Prophylaxes
• Secondary
Actually medical treatment
• Tertiary level Rehabilitation.
– ***
• Lots of efforts / resources - research into treatment
regimes/ effective drugs etc but with the recent adoption of
“mosquito nets”, higher successes at controlling malaria is
being reported.
– Maintenance of hygienic environment etc.
– That is the evidence that behavior is important in the etiology
of malaria.
What about other illnesses?
– Essential hypertension? / stroke?
– Diabetes?
• Do they have behavioral components?
– Common factors
• Stress
• Compromised lifestyles
–
–
–
–
Smoking?
Lack of exercises
Lack of rest
Bad nutrition but to mention a few.
– To be effective, you may have to consider the
behavioral factors at the primary level.
BEHAVIOURAL COMPONENTS
• Education for instance would require knowledge
of the behavior of the people under study.
• It will also require knowledge in Sociology/
anthropology, which deals with the cultural
practices, and value systems etc, that inform
the people’s attitude and subsequently their
behavior.
• Many such sicknesses (contagious and noncontagious) have behavioral aspects whose
understanding will enhance medical practice.
BEHAVIOURAL COMPONENTS
• There is the need to study behavior within its cultural
perspectives. As a doctor, knowing about the peoples
cultural practices will also enhance your care. Why?
• Doctors need to observe the people – good and bad
behaviors, their practices that can help you to
educate them. That way he/ she reduce the incidence
of the problem behaviors contributing to the illnesses
and therefore reducing the illnesses you deal, hence,
reducing their own workload.
– Is it their environmental conditions
– Their nutritional – taboos; do they not avoid some
nutritional foods that would otherwise boost their nutritional
status? And so on **
In the Hospital Setting
• Behavioral Sciences should help you to understand your
patients very well.
• Subjects such as motivation, personality, communication,
stress etc will enhance the patient – doctor relationship.
• Some doctors find it difficult to communicate with their patients
about their own care. They are made passive recipients of
medical care?
–
–
–
–
No Explanation of procedures carried out on them
No information about diagnosis/ prognosis
No counseling skill
How do we break news to the patients?
OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF
BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE
ALL HISTORICAL
OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE
• Long before Behavioral Sciences became
distinctly established as scientific enterprises of
their own, man asked questions in order to
ascertain “TRUTHS” about human behavior.
• Our approach to the outline of the history of
Behavioral Science is to focus on the theorists
and investigators of human behavior.
• There are so many outstanding behavioral
Scientists and a review of their approaches to
understanding behavior will form the basis of
our understanding of Behavioral Sciences, as
we know it to be today.
OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE
• Thus, a review of Historical development of
Concepts of human behaviour from the first few
models to the 1900 when Behavioral Science
was established will enhance our knowledge of
the past.
– …a review of some observers of man; through the
time of the social philosophers and the period after
1900 when schools/ perspectives of contemporary
psychology, namely; (behavioral, psychoanalytic,
Humanistic, neurobiological, cognitive Psychology,
etc sprang up)
SOME OUTSTANDING BEHAVIOURAL SCIENTISTS
• SOME OBSERVERS
• EMIL DURKHEIM
• He was one of the founders of modern Sociology who
published most of his work before 1900, yet enjoys
frequent citation because of its relevance today.
According to Nisbet, (1979, p.33),
• Durkheim is credited with producing the “ first clearcut scientific study of a single social problem in
modern Sociology – Suicide.
– He demonstrated empirically and theoretically that this
human behaviour was related to the organization – or more
specifically the disorganization – of the group to which the
individual belongs.
• Durkheim’s methodology and the theoretical
implications of behaviour as a function of interaction in
a social environment have endured.
OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE
• GREEK PHILOSOPHER PLATO (427 – 347 B.C)
• Plato’s initially, speculation as to the nature/ behaviour
of man became theories of the state and its
functioning.
• He maintained two beliefs; that of ideal society and his
belief that the individual behaviour should be
controlled by the decisions of the ruling elite (Jowett,
1892).
• Plato argued that people behaved as they do because
they have been taught to behave so.
– According to him, men are born with the capacity to learn
and are trained by the society’s system of education. The
way therefore to influence behaviour was to change the
social system.
• He reached these by Armchair philosophising
ARISTOTLE
• Aristotle’s, on the other hand, viewed the
individual’s behaviour as a reflection of the
individual’s nature.
• In his view, society is a function of the
instinctive and unchanging nature of the
human being.
SOCRATES
• Socrates developed a third theory based on the
observation of the Greek society. He argued that men
naturally do things that please them and avoid the
things that displease them.
• This was the early form of HEDONISM, which explains
human behavior on the basis of pleasure and pain. In
some ways hedonism is a variation of the Aristotelian
belief that behavior is caused by innate natural forces,
and thus is impossible to change.
• Let me mention that this observation constitute one
important theme that runs through modern behavioral
Science today and psychology for that matter.
COULD BEHAVIOUR BE SCIENTIFICALLY STUDIED?
• McClelland (1951) assessed the history of man’s approach to
human behaviour and he summarized as follows;
– …”The Hebrews felt that there were dark inscrutable forces within
nature just as there were in the outside world and that even the wish to
understand them was in itself bad, in fact a symptom of those evil forces
themselves at work.
– The Greeks, on the other hand, at least in the time of Plato and Socrates,
felt that man by reasoning could arrive at understanding and control
himself…. With such an inheritance from opposing Greek and Hebrew
traditions, it can hardly be wondered that beliefs about the feasibility of
scientific approach to personality swung from one extreme to another at
different periods in the history of western Civilization (Pp.6-7).
• McClelland’s assessment summarizes the attitude of
application of Scientific method to the study of human
behaviour/ nature.
• And as you will see later, the Hebrews taught that there was
everything wrong with trying to investigate human nature. Thus,
even the wish to understand human behaviour was itself evil.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT ISSUE
• JOHN LOCKE AND HIS BRITISH ASSOCIATES
• Another important idea about human behaviour that
affected contemporary Psychology was that of John
Locke and his British Associations school???
– Locke and his successors thought that since man was
essentially a “blank tablet” at birth,
– society had the capacity to influence him in nearly any
manner by the kind of education it gave him.
– This was an idea that influenced J.B Watson and the other
behaviorists.
• Machiavelli, the Italian Political advisor of the
Renaissance, argued that man should accept the fact
that power was his main concern in life and act
accordingly.
OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE
• A few other scholars such as Karl Marx’s believed that
the profit motive was essentially instinctual and hence
could not be understood or controlled. Instead, he felt
it had to be accepted and curbed by social
arrangements.
• As will be revealed later, Freud combined the two
contradictory beliefs about human behaviour/ nature
(thus, that of rationality and of irrationality) above.
• He had the Greek’s strong faith in the power of man’s
ability to understand himself. Yet the aggressive,
antisocial, apparently irrational, and even mystical
aspects of man’s nature fascinated him.
THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS
• The Social Philosophers included Rene Descartes
(1596 – 1650), Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679), John
Locke (1632 – 1704), Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712
– 1778) and David Hume (1731 – 1776).
– Their ideas have had considerable impact not only on their
peers but also on subsequent generations. It must be
mentioned that their ideas conflicted greatly.
• Descartes argues that the human beings and his
behaviour were subject to the same mechanical laws
of the universe as other organisms.
• The notion of the mind- body dualism is usually traced
to Descartes, who also emphasized the innate source
of man’s ideas. Yet Descartes laid the basis for later
scientific approaches to man. This great man
contributed to the origin of Biomedical practice.
THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS
• Hobbes originated a number of important concepts.
These included the believe that all human
behaviour is subject to scientific law
– that all other things being equal, man chooses his course of
action based on what will give him pleasure ( a variant of
hedonism), and that the state must control man’s natural
passion (a view similar to Machiavelli’s).
• He also developed a view, which was later borrowed
by John Locke to form his Associationist’s concept.
– This was the view that every individual comes into the world
with TABULA RASA or blank slate. This view was a
counterview to the prevailing doctrine that the source of
man’s behaviour was inborn.
• Locke’s believe (as opposed to that of Descartes) that
man’s ideas and behavior resulted from experience or
interaction with the external environment.
THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS
• Another Scholar, Gall argued that the explanation of
human behaviour would be found in the
NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL makeup of the individual.
• He believed that fundamental innate attribute (such
as pride, vanity, foresight, cunning, sense of property)
existed in man and that each attribute was
represented by an organ or a part of the brain.
• Another fact was that the development of particular
characteristics would be evidenced by the size of that
part of the brain.
– NB. For the first time somebody has attributed human
behaviour to the brain/ physiological processes.
THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS
• Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857) was influenced
by Gall particularly in his belief that a
physiological substrate was correlated with
behaviour.
• Comte added another notion that human beings
possessed INNATE POSITIVE SOCIAL
INSTINCT, which interacted with environmental
demands and on which human society was
based.
MARGARET MEAD (1901 – 1978)
• ANTHROPOLOGIST – Study of the existence of man, esp. of
the beginning. Development, customs and beliefs of mankind.
– Pioneered research methods that turned cultural anthropology into a
major science. Her anthropological expedition include trips to SAMOA,
New Guinea, Bali and other parts of South Pacific.
– Her first book, COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA, was a result of study of
female adolescent in that society and found no such conflicts as
characterizing American adolescent period.
• She found sex roles and temperament to be a function of each
particular culture.
– Males and females were aggressive or passive in terms of what the
culture dictated. She attributed the differences in behaviour between the
sexes to the kind of upbringing, particularly by the mother.
• Throughout her career, Mead promoted the importance of
environmental influences, women’s rights and harmony.
RUTH BENEDICT (1887 – 1948)
• Benedict (also Anthropologist) obtained her PHD in Anthropology under
Franz Boas at Columbia.
• Most of her research dealt with the origin of American Indian cultures. She
saw in each culture as assemblage of elements of several other cultures.
• *She saw the cultural personality as deriving from the influence of the
cultures on the individual during his or her development, not from any sort of
genetic determinism.
– This work is of particular importance to Psychology in that it suggests a cultural
determined definition of normality.
• Benedict’s major publications include Psychological type in the Cultures
of the Southwest, in which she compares two Indian tribes, and her very
important “Pattern of Culture”.
• As part of her wartime work, she wrote
– The chrysanthemum and the sword; Pattern of Japanese Culture (1946) – a
useful explanation of Japanese culture for Westerners.
– Also of interest are her early Tales of the Cochiti Indians, and her two – volume
Zuni Mythology.
THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS
• SIGNIFICANCE OF OBSERVERS OF HUMAN
BEHAVIOUR
• Observers of human behaviour helped set the
stage for one of the more dramatic and
influential investigators of personality. The
social philosophers shared a general belief in
the role of the environment in shaping man’s
personality – even to the point of viewing man
as potential perfectible.
BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCES.
SMS 154
BEHAVIOUR
DEFINITION?
TYPES?
~ & ATTITUDE? + COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
MOTIVATION?
BEHAVIOUR
• Behaviour is difficult to define.
– It has been a subject of debate for many years.
– Compulsive evasion by most authors
• Man lives in an environment where he is being acted on by
uncountable number of stimuli through his specialized sense
organs
– Sense Organs (in humans and other animals) faculties by
which outside information is received for evaluation and
response.
– This is accomplished by the effect of a particular stimulus on a
specialized organ, which then transmits impulses to the brain
via a nerve or
– Aristotle classified five senses although scientists have
determined the existence of as many as 15 additional senses
(buried deep in the tissues of muscles, tendons, and joints)**
• Senses giving rise to sensations of weight, position of the
body, and amount of bending of the various joints; these
organs are called proprioceptors (Find out);
4
CLASSICAL ARISTOTELIAN FIVE
POP./ BIOLOGICAL names
SENSES
– Sight
ability to see features (color, shape, size,
• ..... Vision
–
depth etc) of objects we look at
– Hearing
• The process of sound perception is
called audition.
• …. Auditory
–
– Touch
• by which the body perceives contact
with substances
– Smell
• by which odors are perceived and also
account for differing taste of substances
in the mouth
The physical stimulus is the vibration
transmitted from the object to the ear
• …. Tactile
–
touch is accomplished by nerve endings in the
skin that convey sensations to the brain via
nerve fibers
• …. Olfactory
–
– Taste
• by which four gustatory qualities
(sweetness, sourness, saltiness, and
bitterness) of a substance are
distinguished
Vision is achieved when the eyes and brain
work together to form pictures of the world
around us. Light rays from objects are
transmitted into electrical impulses & sent to
the brains thro’ optic nerve for interpretation
Molecules combine with specific cells in nose/
with chemicals of those cells – transmit
impulse by olfactory nerves to brain for
perception.
• …. Gustatory
–
Taste is determined by receptors, called taste
buds, the number and shape of which may
vary greatly between one person and another
CLASSICAL ARISTOTELIAN FIVE
SENSES

..... Vision/Sight
–
–

…. Auditory/ Hearing
–
–

Vision is achieved when the eyes and
brain work together to form pictures of the
world around us. Light rays from objects
are transmitted into electrical impulses &
sent to the brains thro’ optic nerve for
interpretation
WORD DOCS - HUMAN
SENSES\VISION.docx
The physical stimulus is the vibration
transmitted from the object to the ear
WORD DOCS - HUMAN
SENSES\HEARING.docx
…. Tactile/ Touch
–
–
touch is accomplished by nerve endings in
the skin that convey sensations to the
brain via nerve fibers
WORD DOCS - HUMAN
SENSES\TOUCH.docx

…. Olfactory/ Smell
–
–

Molecules combine with specific cells in
nose/ with chemicals of those cells –
trasmit impulse by olfactory nerves to
brain for perception.
WORD DOCS - HUMAN
SENSES\SMELL.docx
…. Gustatory/ Taste
–
Taste is determined by receptors, called
taste buds, the number and shape of
which may vary greatly between one
person and another
– WORD DOCS - HUMAN
SENSES\TASTE.docx
BEHAVIOUR
• These stimuli, some of which emanate
from within the organism, may cause them
to react to his environment.
• It is this reaction that is called behaviour.
• Everything we do
BEHAVIOUR
• Because of man’s standing on the
evolutionary scale, his behaviour is more
complex than other organisms.
• With man a fresh complications is
introduced by the fact that “we feel” and
“know” & higher cognition (capable of
reasoning).
• Again, we possess the ability to distinguish
right from wrong and so our actual
behaviour often appears to be the result of
BEHAVIOUR
• While some theorists such as the strict
behaviour advocate for restriction of the
definition of behaviour to only observable
measurable ones?
– Arguing Scientificity will suffer
• others (i.e., cognitive Psychologists)
argue for the inclusion of covert mental
processes.
BEHAVIOUR
• In this lecture, we shall use the term
behaviour to refer to the things we do.
• We expand to include
– all observable, measurable activities,
– responses,
– reactions,
– movements,
– open (overt) and the
– mental/ cognitive (covert) processes (if it could
be operationally defined and inferred) that inform
them.
BEHAVIOUR AS AN ASPECT OF ATTITUDE
BEHAVIOUR AS AN ASPECT OF ATTITUDE
•
COGNITIVE
•
–
•
•
The word cognitive comes from cognition, which is
an act or process of knowing. Cognition includes
attention, memory, reasoning, judgment, imagining,
thinking, and some people include speech.
AFFECTIVE **?
WORD DOCS - HUMAN
SENSES\EMOTION.docx
•
•
mental processes (thinking, knowledge, memory,
judgment etc).
(emotions/ feeling domain of behavior)
CONATIVE
•
( Ability to initiate a goal directed behavior)
ATTITUDE - DEFINITION
• Several definitions
• Review a few
– “An attitude is a psychological
tendency we express when
we evaluate something or
someone” (Eagly and
Chaiken, 1993)
• Quoted in Matlin, M. W
(1999;510)
– “Learned predisposition to
respond in a favorable or
unfavorable manner to a
particular person, behavior,
belief or thing”
• Quoted in Feldman, R. S
(1996; 605)**
– “is a mixture of belief and
emotion that predisposes a
person to respond to other
people, objects, or institutions
in a positive or negative way”.
• Coon, D (1995:661)***
• 1st KEYWORDS
– Tendency (propensity)**
– Predisposition
• general inclination or
likelihood
• liability to something: a
liability or tendency to do
something, for example,
behave in a particular way
ATTITUDE - DEFINITION
• 2nd Key Evaluate*
– examine and judge: (its value,
quality, importance, condition)
• We evaluate the condition of
patients, their worth etc
before we deal with them)
• 3rd Key (OBJECT) we
evaluate
– something or someone
– person, behavior, belief or thing
– other people, objects, or
institutions
• 4th Key
– positive or negative way”.
– Means attitude may be positive
or negative.
• Summary
– Tendency/ Learned
predisposition
– Evaluate (Cognitive)
– Positive/ negative
predisposition
– (ATTITUDE OBJECT)
Something/ someone/ person/
behavior/ belief/ institution
• It means we do not only have
an attitude towards products;
its virtually towards every
thing
– Institution, friends, patients,
lecturers, School, job etc
ATTITUDE
• “Attitudes are likes & dislikes – favorable &
unfavorable evaluations of and reactions to objects,
people, situations, or any other aspects of the world,
including abstract ideas and social policies” by Smith
et al (2001)*
– Our attitudes are therefore not restricted to consumer products.
We also develop attitude towards individuals (Job, Patients) and
issues/ events.
– Example, consider all the important people in your life, you
would realize you have vastly different attitude towards each
one of them, depending on the nature of your interaction
with them.
– These attitudes may range from highly positive as in the
case of lover, to extremely negative, as with despised
rivals.
ATTITUDE
– Attitude is a –ve/+ve predisposition/tendency
we acquire for an object, a person, event
(called attitude object) as a result of evaluation
(cognitive appraisal).
– This becomes an acquired Potential (covert).
• Interaction of our Cognition and affective
domains results in some acquired potential
to behave in a positive or negative way
towards the attitude object.
OVERVIEW; COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDE
• 3 Components
– 1st Cognitive
– 2nd Affective &
– 3rd Conative/ Behavior
• Social Psychologists
generally consider attitudes
to follow the ABC model
– ABC model suggest that an
attitude has 3 components;
affect, behavior, and
cognition…(Rajecki, 1989)
• AFFECT
– Encompasses our positive
or negative emotions about
something – how we feel
about it.
• BEHAVIOUR
– Consists of a
predisposition or intention
to act in a particular
manner that is relevant to
our attitude
• COGNITION
– Refers to the beliefs and
thoughts we hold about the
object of our attitude
– Beliefs??**
• ideas a person accepts as
true and in which the
person places faith and
confidence
– Also important are the values**
(ideas or issues that are
important/ appreciated)
COMPONENTS CONT’D
CASE:
• What's yours attitude
towards
– Osama bin Laden?/ Kofi
Anan/ VC/ Kodjo Antwi
• Someone’s Attitude towards
Kodjo Antwi could be broken
down into 3 components
– Affect;
• positive emotion
– Behavior;
• buys his cassette
– Cognitive;
• belief/ judged to be a
good musician
Example
• To say alcohol (object) leads to
major social problems
(evaluation) is to express an
attitude.
• What are the 3 components of the
above?
– Cognitive/ belief
• (alcohol leads to major social
problems)
– Affective/Emotional or
Evaluative charge
• Alcohol is bad
– Behavioral Disposition
• Alcohol should be avoided
– Are the 3 components
always mutually consistent/
in harmony?
COMPONENTS CONT’D
COMPONENTS OF LOVE OF HIPLIFE MUSIC
• AFFECTIVE
– Feeling Hip life music is fun and uplifting (A)
• BEHAVIOUR
– Person who feels Hip - life music is fun is likely to
• turn to Hip life music station on car radio
• Buy hip life music CDs
• Or go to a country music concert
• COGNITIVE COMPONENT
– Might believe that hip life music is superior to other forms of
music
• Does it mean, if you know what someone feels about
something you can predict what the person will do??
Sorry!!
• Attitude can turn out to be a pretty poor predictor of
actual behaviour in a lot of situations
• According to (Wicker, 1971), research indicate that what
people say and what people do are often two different
things
• Further research later found that attitude predict
behaviour only under certain conditions
– Clarke et al., 1999) for eg found out although people
indicated on a survey that they believed in protecting
the environment and would be willing to pay for more
fruits and vegetables raised under such conditions,
those same people were seen to buy the ecologically
– friendly fruit only in higher income grocery stores
where consumers had the financial means to
– REASON …..MONEY?
– Implication for 3rd world Countries
COMPONENTS CONT’D
Another factor is People may hold a general attitude about
something without reflecting that attitude in their
behaviour
Example
– Nurses and Doctors may hold general attitude that
people should do everything they can to protect their
health and promote wellness, yet some still
– Smoke tobacco, marijuana,
– Fail to exercise
– Often get too little sleep
– Abuse drugs
• However more specific attitudes such as “
–
“exercise is important to my immediate health” will more
likely be associated with exercising behaviour (Adjen,
2001, Adjen & Fishbeing, 2000)
COMPONENTS CONT’D
Yet Another factor
• Some attitudes are stronger than others and stronger
attitudes are more likely to predict behaviour than weak
ones.
– A person who quits smoking because of failing health might have
a stronger attitude towards secondhand smoking than someone
who quits on a dare
• Again, the importance or salience of a particular attitude
in a given situation also has an impact on behaviour. The
more important attitude appears, the more likely the behaviour will
match the attitude
– Someone who is antismoking might be more likely to confront a
smoker breaking the rules in hospital, for example, than a
smoker outside the building
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• 3 components could surprisingly
be at odds very often.
• Most people believe that alcohol is
a major social problem, since it is
believed to cause fatal automobile
accidents and murders, yet people
drink (same as smoking)
• Logic suggests that the
cognitive and emotional
aspects of attitudes would be
congruent because an
emotional evaluation of an
object should reflect a cognitive
appraisal of its qualities.
• However, the belief and
feelings comprising an
attitude frequently develop
separately and can change
independently acc. to
– (Petty & Cacioppo 1981, 1986;
Edwards 1991)
– e.g. Americans survey/ polls
suggested that majority did
not favor policies (abortion
etc) of Prez. Ronald Reagan
but they maintained a highly
favorable attitude towards
him. Why?
DISSONANCE – CONT’D
– Emotional aspect which to a
large extent could be very much
decisive in voting behavior rests
as much on some unconscious
assessment of
• non- verbal gestures,
• likeability, and
• apparent sincerity as on the
issues;
– Epstein (1994)
• COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
– Occurs when a person
experiences a discrepancy
between an attitude and a
behavior or between an
attitude & a new piece of
information. What happen?
• The discrepancy creates a state of
tension (dissonance) akin to
anxiety.
• The tension, in turn, motivate the
individual to change the attitude,
the behavior, or the perception of
the anomalous information in order
to eliminate the discrepancy and
the accompanying tension,
– Festinger (1957, 1962)
• (NB; Hedonic Principle)
• Cognitive Dissonance theory is
essentially a Drive reduction theory
in which
– An attitude change is reinforced by
reduction of a painful emotional
state (a drive) * BEHAVIOR
CHANGE?
DISSONANCE – CONT’D
• It means Cognitive dissonance
may also arise when people carry
out an act contrary to their
attitudes, which frequently lead to
attitude change / behavior
change.
• Assignment
– Read & Summarize a classic
experiment on Cog. Dissonance by
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)
AND SUBMIT**
• Two variables that influence the
extent to which dissonance arises
and requires resolution are the
perception of choice and the size
of rewards and punishments.
– If u have a gun to your head,
you will easily change an
attitude you publicly professed
– (“Eye hann eye Kania in 1979
Coup”)
• Also the smaller the reward/
punishment, the greater the
attitude change because larger
incentives minimize dissonance
acc. to Festinger.
• Behaviorists (Bem, 1967, 1972)
oppose Festinger’s theory of
dissonance.
– He offered the SELF
PERCEPTION THEORY as an
alternative.
DISSONANCE – CONT’D
– He contended that
individuals infer their
attitudes, emotions, and
other internal states by
observing their behavior.
• Thus, if they see themselves
telling someone that they like a
task and they have only
received $1 for doing so, they
conclude that they must have
liked it or they would not be
doing it.
• If at gunpoint they slander their
country, they conclude that
they had to avoid dying, not
because they dislike their
country.
– Acc. to Bem’s theory, the
attitude people report
depend on their behavior,
and as their behavior
changes (as a result of
changes in reinforcement
contingencies), so again will
their attitude.
– Thus, No motivation,
tension, or perceived
inconsistencies is involved.
– SUMMARY ON COGNITIVE
DISSONANCE
DISSONANCE – SUMMARY
• Attitude had 3 Components
– Affective; Behavior; Cognitive
• The 3 components are not always in harmony
although humans wish to maintain harmony.
• Disharmony create state of tension
• In a bit to reduce it, we change (behavioral change)
a component or our attitude.
– 2 theories explain behavioral change
– 1st by Festinger’s Cog. Dissonance
• Who proposed that people often change their attitudes
to justify their own actions.
– 2nd by Bem
• We infer attitude from our behavior.
• * Explanation*
ASSIGNMENT 2
Choose an attitude object (person, issue, event etc)
Inquire students’ about their general attitudes towards
these objects ****2 students each.
–Positive
–Negative
Specifically document their attitude to reflect the 3
components
– A (Affect)
– B (Behavior)
– C (Cognitive)
SUGGESTED TOPICS
–Alcoholism, Sex, Religion, Terrorism, Poverty, Politics, Abortion, Psychiatric
illness, Nursing/ Nurses Behaviour etc, etc.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• is a concept developed by a social
Psychologist Leon Festinger (1957),
• Theory refers to an individual’s motivation
to reduce the discomfort (Dissonance)
caused by inconsistent thoughts.
TYPE OF BEHAVIOUR
• INHERITED and
• LEARNED behaviours
INHERITED BEAVIOUR
• Simple organisms may show complex inherited
behaviour patterns, which are often referred to
as instinctual.
• They may facilitate feeding,
• as in the web – building of spiders,
• or ensure successful reproduction,
• as in courtship behaviour in fishes, birds, monkeys etc
INSTINCT THEORISTS INSIST
• that we are born with certain instincts
• Defined as
– Inborn, inflexible, goal-directed behaviour that is
characteristic of an entire species).
• Early Psychologist (William McDougall; 1871 – 1938)
embraced instinct theories as the sole explanation of
motivation of behaviour.
• Acc. to INSTINCT THEORIES,
– people (are motivated to) engage in certain unlearned
behaviors because of GENETIC PROGRAMMING.
– Innate motivation inherited through genes
– At appropriate time it evolves – Examples
• Mating behaviors of animals
• Migrating behaviour of animals – fishes for example
INSTINT & GENETIC MOTIVATION
– Best example is the “IMPRINTING” of baby geese
to their mother – following her as soon as they are
able to walk.
– Discovered by Etiologist Konrad Lorenz (study
animal behaviour patterns)
– This is an example of inherited behaviour
UNLEARNED BEHAVIOUR
• Lorenz theorized that many animal and
human tendencies are based on latent
genetic patterns and are triggered by
events in the environment.
• Ethologists hold that much of what animals
know is innate (instinctive).
• Examples
– *digger wasp, is programmed to find and
capture only honey bees for reproduction*
– **Baby birds – whom to go for food & how
the they all behave during feeding – are
genetic**….Penguine.
– Young fowls are born able to recognize and
flee from the silhouette of hawks.
– ***Mating in animals such as fishes & birds –
right x’tics at the right time*** and
– Imprinting in baby geese (Next Slide)
IMPRINTING
• Baby geese are born to imprint – follow the
mother as soon as they are able to walk.
– Konrad discovered that the stimulus eliciting this
instinctive behaviour is the first moving object that
the newly hatched goslings see, which in nature is
invariably the mother.
– By separating newborn goslings from the mother
and showing them other moving things, Lorenz got
them to faithfully follow a variety of “peculiar”
objects such as a wooden box on wheels, and even
himself.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE - ATTACHMENT
• One other example of modern instincts theory is John
Bowlby’s view that babies have in built – in tendencies to
become attached (emotional bond) to the adult who cares
for them… (1982)
• Acc to Wortman and Loftus (1992), this serves the
important function of encouraging infants to stay close to
their parents, thus affording them protection.
• Human instincts are less rigid and automatic than those of
many other species – because they are more open to
variation due to different learning experiences.
• They explain - Unlike imprinting in baby geese, which
occurs quickly and cannot be changed once established,
the attachment of human babies to their parents
– is a product of a great many hours of interaction,
– leaves room for attachment to other caregivers,
– and can vary greatly in quality due to learning.
BEHAVIOUR
– They thought just as animals display instinctive
behaviour patterns, such as migration or mating
behaviors, human behavior was also motivated by
INBORN BEHAVIOUR REPERTOIRES
INHERITED /UNLEARNED BEHAVIOUR
• Humans are also said to be born with some
inherited behaviours – present at birth. They are
reflex movements that are inborn and made
without thinking.
• They are Adaptive
• for example human infants cling instinctively to
their mothers.
• As mentioned most of them come as reflex
(involuntary) responses in infants but some
seem to get extincted after sometimes.
INHERITED /UNLEARNED BEHAVIOUR
• Example include swallowing and sucking
reflexes,
• rooting (turning the head towards the
direction of touched cheek);
• grasp (hand automatically grasp);
• and walking reflexes (walking movements
when held upright with feet touching a firm
surface).
INHERITED /UNLEARNED BEHAVIOUR
• The rest are startle reflex
– (hands are clenched, and elbows are bent to bring
forearm in when startled) when they are startled by
sudden noise or bright light.
• Moro falling reflex
– (catching movement in the incidence of sudden
movement).
• There are many more of such reflex responses in
infants but some seem to get extincted after
sometimes.
• According Pamela Minett (1994), these reflexes are
replaced by actions which the baby has to learn by
age 3 months.
– For example the walking reflexes disappear long before
the child learns to walk.
SOME REFLEXES
INHERITED /UNLEARNED BEHAVIOUR
• these inherited actions of many of these
kinds are modified by experience,
• This allows for an animals behaviour to
be better suited to a complex and
changing environment.
• Human inherited behaviours are no
exceptions.
LEARNED BEHAVIOURS
• Some other behaviors are learned.
– Lion’s cubs, for example, learn to hunt by watching
and copying their parents, while many
insectivorous birds learn to avoid eating
unpalatable prey through trial and error.
• The well – developed brain of humans and
other animals such as elephants, allow them to
learn a wide range of complex behavioral
LEARNED BEHAVIOURS
• These include complex social,
manipulative, and mental skills, and in
humans, speech.
• Occasionally, learned behaviour patterns
may be transmitted culturally from
generations to generations.
LEARNED BEHAVIOURS
• The conclusion on these two types of
behaviours is that the debate
• (Nature – nurture debate) is still ongoing
(Nativism vs. Empiricism**).
CONCLUSION - BEHAVIOUR
• It could however be safe to say that whiles
some behaviour are inherited, others are
learned and even those that are inherited
are acted upon by experience to make it
more adaptable.
• So there is no clear cut distinction
between the two, thus, it’s a daunting –
almost impossible task to determine how
much of each; NATURE AND NURTURE
contributes to a given behaviour
MOTIVATION OF BEHAVIOUR FROM VARIOUS
PSYCHOLOGY, PERSPECTIVES/ THEORISTS.
• We are concerned not so much with what the
organism does, nor with how it accomplishes
what it does, as we are with why it acts as it
does.
• Psychologists do not agree on the motivation
of the behaviour. Depending on the theoretical
leaning, or school of thought they come from,
they may explain motivation differently.
• Schools of thoughts used here refer to
psychologists who held similar views and had
similar approaches to the study of psychology.
MOTIVATION OF BEHAVIOUR
• Each school developed around one eminent
thinker and in most cases, in and around a
geographical area.
• In founding stages of psychology many
schools sprang up, namely the structuralism,
functionalism, behaviorism and cognitive
psychology.
• Some died with the death of their leaders, but
those that exist today do explain motivated
behavior differently.
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
• Psychodynamic theory was born out of the
clinical practice of a medical doctor (neurologist
by training) who was called Sigmund Freud
(under 1856 –1939). It was concerned with
neurotic patients.
• Basic tenet
• Contrary to our view that we are rational and
exercise free will, behavior is motivated by
unconscious psychological forces (sexual
instincts and urges) that are not available to the
rational, conscious part of our mind.
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
• MOTIVATION: That is to say that the
unconscious conflict within the individual
influences much of human thought and
actions.
BEHAVIOURISM
• The name speaks for itself, Behaviour.
• They argued that the whole idea of mental life
(perception, sensation unconscious etc) if could
not be measured physically were all
superstitious.
• One assumption is that all behavior occur in
response to stimulation and that all actions and
feelings are elicited by unconditioned or
conditioned stimuli.
• SCHOLARS
• John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner,
Edward lee Thorndike, etc
BEHAVIOURISM
• BASIC TENET
– Psychology should study only observable
measurable behavior - Nothing more. Anything that
cannot be defined located measured cannot be an
object of scientific study. They emphasize
environmental determinant of behaviour.
• VIEW ON MOTIVATED BEHAVIOURAL
– Behavior is motivated by reward and punishment
that usually precede, and come after the behavior
HUMANISTIC/ EXISTENTIAL
• (PHENOMENOLOGICAL) - HUMANISTIC
• Humanists were referred to as the “third
forced”.
• Humanistic the psychology is closely related to
the existential psychology because both
schools are concerned with subjective
experiences
• insist that people must learn how to realize their
human potential.
HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVES
• They insist that human beings with
intrinsically good as opposed to psych
dynamic view and that behavior to them is
motivated by the urge to achieve one’s
potential and self actualize.
• Some scholars include Carl Rogers and
Abraham Maslow.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• Is one of the newest fields of psychology.
• It began in the 60’s. While behaviours
believe that mental processes could not be
studied scientifically, cognitive psychologists
believed otherwise.
• That is to say that mental process should be
studied scientifically.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• Tenet
• They argue, although we cannot observe
cognitive processes directly we can observe
behavior and make inferences about the
kind of cognitive processes that underlie the
behavior.
• Behaviour is motivated by cognitive/ mental
processes.
SUMMARY
• Behaviour – reaction to stimuli that impinge on
our senses
– Everything we do
– Define to include mental (covert processes)
• Aspects of attitude (Cognitive; Affective;
Conative)
– Harmony/ cognitive dissonance & Beh. Change
• TYPES – Learned & Inherited (Genetic)
• Motivation
– Psychodynamic
– Behaviorists
– Humanistic
CRITERIA FOR ABNORMAL
BEHAVIOUR
RESEARCH?
@ LEAST FIVE (5)
METHODS OF INVESTIGATION
IN BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCES
HUMAN BIOLOGY I
RESEARCH METHODS
• When we say a subject is a science
– it applies systematic method of enquiry to
understanding phenomenon
– Science means using systematic (step by
step) process to acquiring knowledge/
arrive at a particular conclusion.
– Behavioral sciences therefore applies
systematic methods in understanding
human
• all areas of specialization/ subjects use
the scientific method to study behavior –
only their perspectives are different.
R. METHODS CONT’D
• Definitions of scientific method use such
concepts as objectivity of approach to and
acceptability of the results of scientific
study.
– Objectivity indicates the attempt to observe
things as they are, without falsifying
observations to accord with some
preconceived world view.
– Acceptability is judged in terms of the degree
to which observations and experimentations
R. METHODS CONT’D
• Scientific method could involve 2 main
approaches namely;
– inductive reasoning (reasoning from specific
observations and experiments to more general
hypotheses and theories) and
– deductive reasoning (reasoning from theories to
account for specific experimental results).
– By such reasoning processes, science attempts to
develop the broad laws—such as Isaac Newton's law
of gravitation—that become part of our understanding
of the natural and by extension Behavioral laws.
SYSTEMATIC – STEPS??
• The scientific method is a systematic strategy
designed to obtain accurate information.
• It includes the following steps;
–
–
–
–
identifying and analyzing a problem,
developing tentative explanations,
collecting data (Using some research design),
drawing conclusions, and collecting additional
information to confirm or revising the theory.
• Science means using systematic (step by
step) process to acquiring knowledge/ arrive
at a particular conclusion.
RESEARCH METHODS
• Steps include
– Identifying and Analyze a Problem
• Violence of sports fans and drinking?
• smoking and lung cancer?
• Valentine celebration contribute to HIV/ AIDS in
Ghana?
– Develop Tentative Explanations by way of
hypothesis (later gets proven to become
theory)
• Research design
• what method do u use?/ is permissible?
– Collect data
– Draw Conclusion
– revisit the theory before Publication
RESEARCH METHODS
• a. Identifying and Analyze a Problem.
– This is usually the first step. What problem
do you want to solve? You do not only
undertake a general discussion of the
problem, you isolate, focus on, and define
what you want to study.
– “Violence of sports fans and drinking”,
– “smoking and lung cancer”
– “Psychological stress increases the
likelihood of physical illness”
– “Valentine celebration contribute to HIV/
AIDS in Ghana”
– “Lack of exercise contribute to illnesses”
etc.
SOURCES OF RESEARCH
PROBLEMS
• Variety of research sources;
– Questions raised by previously conducted research
which was inconclusive – from critical evaluation of
published literature.
– Hypotheses logically deduced from existing theories
– Hypothesis suggested by clinical observations and
insights
– Questions raised concerning the effectiveness of
currently used or new treatment or assessment
techniques.
– Solutions required to pressing problems faced in
professional settings, including problems reported
by patients. Thus much of applied health sciences
research may be seen as a process of identifying,
clarifying and solving problems
RESEARCH METHODS
• Develop Tentative Explanations
• Next is to discover the most important
factors/ variables involved. To do this
Psychologists often construct a theory
– Thus, (A theory is an organized set of
principles that is designed to explain and
predict some phenomenon.
– Good theories also provide specific
testable predictions, or hypotheses, about
the relation between two or more variables.
– Formulating a hypothesis to be tested is
the first important step in conducting
RESEARCH METHODS
• Hypothesis is an intelligent guess that is to be
tested to determine its accuracy. It breaks your
theory into testable forms.
• A frequent goal in research is to test a
hypothesis.
– Hypotheses are propositions about relationships
between variables** or differences between groups
that are to be tested.
• (Variable is anything/ property that can change/ vary from
one case to another – OR …that can take on different
values)
• Hypotheses may be concerned with
relationships between observations or
variables, for e.g.
– Is there an association between levels of exercise
and annual health care expenditure in Ghana?
EXAMPLES OF THEORIES n
HYPOTHESES
• EXAMPLES OF THEORIES THEIR
HYPOTHESIS.docx
HYPOTHESIS
• Do all researches have hypotheses?
– Acc to Polgar and Thomas (2003): Intro to research in Health
Sciences; p.25
– Some research projects do not have hypothesis to be tested in
any formal sense. For example, if one is measuring the health
needs of a local community, there need not be any expectation
or hypothesis to be tested.
– Does it mean the research is deficient?
– No, it means it has a different objective from other types of
research projects. In fact for qualitative research (
QUALITATIVE.docx ),
– holding clear cut hypothesis may prejudice the investigation (e.g.
Literature review)
– In these cases we talk about research having aims or objectives,
rather than hypothesis.
• Restricting alcohol use by sports fans will reduce sports related violence
HYPOTHESIS
• When formulating aims or hypotheses, we must specify the
variables being studied, and how these variables are to be
observed; (define variables).
• Examples; Consider “Coronary disease”-symptoms??
• Severe periodic pain in the chest and upper left arm
• Occlusion (blockings) of the coronary arteries, reducing blood flow
• Sudden death
– Supposing a new drug “x” is introduced for tx. of coronary
disease, the researcher may hypothesis as ff;
• Patients diagnosed with coronary dx, taking drug “x” will report
fewer incidence of pain in the chest and upper left arm than
patients taking traditionally used drugs.
• Patients diagnosed and using drug “x” will have greater volume
of blood flow through their coronary arteries than patients taking
drug “y”
• Fewer patients diagnosed with coronary dx. Taking drug “x” will
die during a 5 year period than those taking traditionally used
drug “y”.
RESEARCH METHODS
• RESEARCH DESIGN?
– Circumstances will determine
– Could human be used?
– Ethical?
– Could you induce certain disease conditions
because you want to understand it.
– That’s what research design is all about
• Overview of a number.
RESEARCH DESIGNS
• Two BROAD DESIGNS for our
considerations
• Non- Experimental/ Descriptive
methods (Case studies; naturalistic
observations; survey etc) and
• Experimental approach.
• These are the focus of today’s lectures.
• We shall be looking at each of these
methods;
– how they contribute to knowledge;
– their weaknesses and strengths.
Archival Studies
• One way to learn about people is through
archival studies, an examination of existing
records of human activities.
• Psychological researchers often examine old
newspaper stories, medical records, birth
certificates, crime reports, popular books, and
artwork.
• They may also examine statistical trends of
the past, such as crime rates, birth rates,
marriage and divorce rates, and employment
rates.
• The strength is that by engaging in a
secondhand observation of people,
researchers cannot unwittingly influence the
subjects by their presence.
– However, available records of human activity are
not always complete or detailed enough to be
Literature Reviews
• (More Academic Study of records)
• To summarize and interpret an entire body of
research, psychologists rely on two methods.
• One method is a narrative review of the
literature, in which
– a reviewer subjectively evaluates the strengths
and weaknesses of the various studies on a topic
and argues for certain conclusions.
– Another method is meta-analysis, a statistical
procedure used to combine the results from many
different studies.
– By meta-analyzing a body of research,
psychologists can often draw precise conclusions
concerning the strength and breadth of support for
CASE STUDIES
• Sometimes psychologists interview, test,
observe, and investigate the backgrounds of
specific individuals in detail.
• Such case studies are conducted when
researchers believe that an in-depth look at
one individual will reveal something important
about people in general.
• Case studies often take a great deal of time
to complete, and the results may be limited by
the fact that the subject is atypical.
• Austrian physician Sigmund Freud based his
theory of psychoanalysis on his experiences
with troubled patients. Swiss psychologist
Jean Piaget first began to formulate a theory
of intellectual development by questioning his
own children.
CASE STUDIES CONT’D
• Allow researchers to gather a great deal of
detailed information by concentrating on a
single individual.
• useful for generating topics for further study
by other methods
• One potential disadvantage of the method
is that what we learn by studying one
individual may not apply to other
individuals. It is said therefore to have
limited generalizability
Surveys
• In contrast with the in-depth study of one person,
surveys study a specific population or group of
people.
• Surveys involve asking people a series of
questions about their behaviors, thoughts, or
opinions.
• Surveys can be conducted in person, over the
phone, or through the mail.
• Most surveys study a specific group—for
example, college students, working mothers,
men, or homeowners.
• Rather than questioning every person in the
group, survey researchers choose a
RESEARCH METHODS
• Surveys may pertain to almost any topic.
• Often surveys ask people to report their feelings/attitude
about various social and political issues, the TV shows
they watch, or the consumer products they purchase.
– people’s sexual practices; estimation of the use of cigarettes,
alcohol, and other drugs; could be studies by survey.
• The results can be influenced, and biased, by two factors:
who the respondents are (representative?) and how the
questions are asked.
• For a survey to be accurate, the sample being
questioned must be representative of the population on
key characteristics such as sex, race, age, region, and
cultural background
• To ensure similarity to the larger population, survey researchers
usually try to make sure that they have a random sample, a
method of selection in which everyone in the population has an
equal chance of being chosen.
– When the sample is not random, the results can be misleading
Naturalistic Observations
• In naturalistic observation, the researcher observes
people/ animals as they behave in the real world.
• The researcher simply records what occurs and does
not intervene in the situation.
• Behavioral scientists use naturalistic observation to
–
–
–
–
study the interactions between parents and children,
doctors and patients,
police and citizens, and
managers and workers.
• The goals are to describe the settings, frequency and
characteristics of certain behaviors.
• Caution is needed not to affect the behavior we
observe and record. Observations that interfere with
the behavior being studied are termed REACTIVE.
• “They try to blend with the surroundings”.
• Naturalistic observation is common in Anthropology
(the study of humankind in all its aspects, especially
human culture or human development),
RESEARCH METHODS
• Ethnologists, who study the behavior of animals in their
natural habitat, also use this method. For example, British
ethnologist Jane Goodall spent many years in African
jungles observing chimpanzees—their social structure,
courting rituals, struggles for dominance, eating habits,
and other behaviors.
• Naturalistic observation is also common among
developmental psychologists who study social play,
parent-child attachments, and other aspects of child
development. These researchers observe children at
home, in school, on the playground, and in other settings.
• ADVANTAGE & DISADVANTAGE
• Advantage is that the observation is as close as it occurs
freely since there are no manipulations.
• The results are not generalizable because there is no
manipulation and too many variables are at work.
Correlational Studies - LINK
• A correlation is a statistical measure of the extent to
which two variables are associated How related are
smoking and lung cancer?
• A positive correlation exists when two variables
increase or decrease together.
– For example, frustration and aggression are positively
correlated, meaning that as frustration rises, acts of
aggression rise. (direct relation)
– A negative correlation exists when increases in one variable
are accompanied by decreases in the other, and vice versa.
– For example, friendships and stress-induced illness are
negatively correlated, meaning that the more close friends a
person has, the fewer stress-related illnesses the person
suffers. Inverse relationship
– Result always expressed in terms of coefficient of correlation
(i.e degree of link) and expressed by the letter “r “.
• The R-value is usually between zero and one. 0 = no link and 1 =
highly correlated. The signs e. g r = 0.75 means that there is
positive correlation, i. e as one- value/ (variable) increases, the
other increases and the value/ magnitude of relation is 0.75.
Correlational Studies
• R = - 0.75 means as one value increases,
other decreases and the degree of correlation
is 0.75 (Positively or negatively correlated).
Example, emotional experience in inversely
related to academic performance.
• ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE
• This gives you information concerning chosen
areas of research. It helps with generation of
topics.
• The disadvantage is that No causal effect
could be deduced. You cannot also
generalize findings.
Experiments
• (Most Powerful method)
• Most of the above cannot provide CAUSE – ANDEFFECT.
• To determine if one variable actually causes another,
psychologists must conduct experiments.
• In an experiment, the psychologist manipulates one factor
in a situation— keeping other aspects of the situation
constant —and then observes the effect of the
manipulation on behavior.
• The people whose behavior is being observed are the
subjects of the experiment. Usually two or more groups
• The factor that an experimenter varies (the proposed
cause) is known as the independent variable and the
behavior being measured (the proposed effect) is called
the dependent variable.
• In a test of the hypothesis that frustration triggers
aggression for e.g., frustration would be the independent
Experiments
• There are three requirements for conducting a
valid scientific experiment:
– (1) control over the independent variable,
– (2) the use of a comparison group, and
– (3) the random assignment of subjects to conditions.
• In its most basic form, then, a typical experiment
compares a large number of subjects who are
randomly assigned to experience one condition
with a group of similar subjects who are not.
• Those who experience the condition constitute
the experimental group, and those who do not
make up the control group.
– E.g Bandura’s experiment?
Experiments
• If the two groups differ significantly in their
behavior during the experiment, that difference
can be attributed to the presence of the
condition, or independent variable.
• For example, to test the hypothesis that
frustration triggers aggression, one group of
researchers brought subjects into a laboratory,
impeded their efforts to complete an important
task (other subjects in the experiment were not
impeded), and measured their aggressiveness
toward another person.
• These researchers found that subjects who had
been frustrated were more aggressive than those
who had not been frustrated.
Experiments
• Psychologists use many different methods in
their research. Knowledge build over time.
• First, a new discovery must be replicated.
• Replication refers to the process of conducting a
second, nearly identical study to see if the initial
findings can be repeated.
• If so, then researchers try to determine if these
findings can be applied, transferred, or
generalized to other settings.
– Generalizability refers to the extent to which a finding
obtained under one set of conditions can also be
obtained at another time, in another place, and in
other populations.
QUASI- EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS
• QUASI (Resembling) – Experimental
• Sometimes Behaviorists cannot study cause - and
– effect questions by means of a true experiment.
• Certain variables, for one reason or another,
cannot be experimentally manipulated.
– Example undertaking a Correlation study between
stress and Essential hypertension.
– Or we are interested in how effectively the death
penalty deters murder; we would not be able to arrange
a true experiment. In such a case you may want to
determine peoples attitude to assess the impact.
• Other factors are, for ethical reasons, beyond a
researcher’s control we cannot conduct
experiment where we randomly assign subjects to
experimental and control groups.
QUASI- EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS
• For instance a behaviorist may suspect that
overly harsh or overly lax parental discipline may
lead to juvenile delinquency, but he or she could
certainly not encourage these potentially harmful
parenting style in order to investigate.
• Best way is to wait for the experimental and
control groups to form naturally in real life.
•
This is like the true experiment but because
the experimenter has far less control over
variables than they do in true experiments, and
•
Because they cannot assign subjects
randomly to conditions, such studies are called
~.
COMMON STRATEGIES COMMON TO ALL
RESEARCH METHODS
• INTERVIEW – conversation with purpose
– Structured
– Unstructured
• OBSERVATION IN MEDICAL PRACTICE
– In Medicine, just observing the physical body
constitute a vital part. Pain for instance, could
sometimes be observed from the Patient’s face.
Sometimes a covered wound is a major lead to
that Patient’s diagnosis. Or of gestures are very
important.
• SAMPLING***
– Simple random, Stratified Sampling,
Ethical Considerations in
Research
• Supporters of animal rights regard most animal
experimentation as unethical. Many scientists
defend animal studies as necessary for
advancing understanding of human diseases and
improving the quality of human life.
• The American Psychological Association
recommends that researchers
– (1) tell prospective subjects what they will experience
so they can give informed consent to participate;
– (2) instruct subjects that they may withdraw from the
study at any time;
– (3) minimize all harm and discomfort;
– (4) keep the subjects’ responses and behaviors
confidential; and
– (5) debrief subjects who were deceived in some way
by fully explaining the research after they have
participated.
PERSPECTIVES IN
CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY?
Psychology has a long past but a short
history.
SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY
• SHORT OVERVIEW
• Why it has a long past? It was part of other
subjects.
• What prevented scientific study of man?
History
• How did Psychology evolve as a separate
subject and a science?
• What happened that we seem to have
separate schools/ perspectives today?
• Are all these schools in existence today?
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY? ()
First what is not Psychology?
What is not Psychology
• Do Psychologists read the mind?
• People claim to possess the ability to communicate
mentally and to predict the future. All the above, lie in
the domain of what we call PARAPSYCHOLOGY.
• Parapsychology is the study of Extra – Sensory
Perception (ESP) and other “ PSI” phenomenon or
events that seem to defy acceptable scientific laws.
What’s Psychology – contd.
• Parapsychologists seek answers to the questions raised by 4 basic forms
that ESP could take. These are;
• (1) CLAIRVOYANCE**; The ability to perceive events or gain
information in ways that appear unaffected by distance or normal
physical barriers. E.g what’s in a box or film canisters or two people
communicate from two locations.
• (2) TELEPATHY***; Extrasensory perception of another person’s
thoughts/ emotion , or ability to read someone’s else’s mind.
•
• (3) PRECOGNITION;
the ability to perceive or accurately predict
future events (Prophetic dreams etc). E.g. palm reading/ horoscope etc.
• (4) PSYCHOKINESIS; Ability to exert influence over in-animate
objects by Willpower; (“charm on TV3”)
•
• All these have not gained approval into mainstream  because we have not
been able to subject these claims to independent scientific enquiries.
CLAIRVOYANCE
• Clairvoyance, ability to see or visualize objects and
events beyond the range of normal sight.
• Clairvoyance is a form of extrasensory perception, or
ESP, which includes any ability to gain information by
psychic means, rather than through the physical
senses.
• According to belief, clairvoyance usually occurs when
a person with clairvoyant powers is in a state of
trance, during which that person can describe the
objects or events that appear in his or her mind.
• Most scientists, however, deny that claims of
clairvoyance have been supported by any substantial
evidence.
TELEPATHY
• Telepathy, perception of another person’s thoughts by
means beyond the ordinary senses.
• The term telepathy was first used by English essayist
and poet Frederic W. H. Myers in 1882.
• Myers defined telepathy as “the communication of
impressions of any kind from one mind to another,
independent of the recognized channels of sense.
Why are the above not accepted as part of Psychology?
• They defy scientific principles of systematic
enquiry into phenomena.
– Provided inconsistent statistical evidence
• for any one evidence, there is one counter evidence.
– People with these powers often fail to be able to
enact them for scientific purposes, etc
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
• Term Psychology () is derived from Greek roots
PSYCHY (soul/mind) and LOGOS (Study).
• We have several definitions but certain keywords are
common – Perusal of Psychology bks…
• Key words ;
– (a) scientific/science
• Although psychologists share the average person’s interest in
behaviour and unseen mental processes that shape it, they rely on
scientific method.***
– (b) Behaviour and
• Already defined
– (c) animal/human
Quick review of definitions – Non embracing
• Kassin (2001) – scientific study of behaviour and the
mind, p.4
• Coon (1992) – as the scientific study of human and
animal behaviour, p.2
• Kalat (1996) – as the systematic study of behaviour and
experience,
• Hockenbury and Hockenbury (2001:3) – as the science
of behaviour and mental processes
• Morris and Maesto (1999) – as the science of behaviour
and unconscious mental processes that shape it, p.8
Defining Psychology - contd
• SCIENCE   is a science because it
applies systematic method of enquiry to
understanding human and animal behaviour;
• The aims of employing scientific method are
– 1. to observe and describe
– 2. to understand
– 3. to predict and
– to 4. Achieving a measure of control of behaviour.
Psychology -contd
• BEHAVIOUR
– overt behaviour alone?
– mental processes as well?
• ANIMAL/HUMAN;
– Controversy existed as to what the subject matter of
 should be;
– animals included or human beings alone?
• Contemporary trend in Psychology () seem to
accept animals, humans and even
cognitive/mental processes as subject matter.
Defining Psychology – cont’d
• DEFINITIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY
(embracing)
–  could be defined as the scientific study of
behaviour (whether animal/human) and the unseen
mental processes that shape it.
• Psychologists collect data through CAREFUL,
SYSTEMATIC, OBSERVATION;
– attempt to explain what they have observed by
developing THEORIES, make new PREDICTION
based on theories and then SYSTEMATICALLY
test those predictions through additional
observations and experimentations to determine
whether they are correct
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES
• To do justice to the contemporary
perspectives** (evaluation of a situation or facts, especially from a
person’s point of view ) in Psychology, we consider one
favorite question.
• Psychology has a long past but a short history.
– Long Past?
– Short history
COULD BEHAVIOUR BE SCIENTIFICALLY STUDIED?
• History – outstanding Observers
• McClelland (1951) assessed the history of man’s approach to
human behaviour and he summarized as follows;
– …”The Hebrews felt that there were dark inscrutable forces within
nature just as there were in the outside world and that even the wish to
understand them was in itself bad, in fact a symptom of those evil forces
themselves at work.
– The Greeks, on the other hand, at least in the time of Plato and Socrates,
felt that man by reasoning could arrive at understanding and control
himself…. With such an inheritance from opposing Greek and Hebrew
traditions, it can hardly be wondered that beliefs about the feasibility of
scientific approach to personality swung from one extreme to another at
different periods in the history of western Civilization (Pp.6-7).
• McClelland’s assessment summarizes the attitude of
application of Scientific method to the study of human
behaviour/ nature.
• And as you will see later, the Hebrews taught that there was
everything wrong with trying to investigate human nature. Thus,
SCHOOLS/ PERSPECTIVES OF
PSYCHOLOGY
• Question of Human Behaviour and Mental processes
(Psychology) dates as far back as the time of Plato and
Aristotle (both Philosophers).
• Not until the late 1800’s they never applied the scientific
method to questions that had puzzled philosophers for
centuries, Psychology was still a part of philosophy.
– Armchair philosophizing
• In other words  was a part of philosophy until late 1800’s
because matters of human behaviour was a no go area.
• Reason for man’s behaviour a restricted area?
• Taboo?
Schools - contd
• They thought that normal scientific enquiries could not
be applied to human being since laws of nature did not
affect human by virtue of the positions they occupied
(i.e. between the angels and the beast).
• For them science was the study of the natural world
(planets, plants, and etc) and not human beings
– who possessed consciousness;
– who exercised free will and self-determination.
• Therefore, the study of human beings belonged to the
realms of philosophy and metaphysics
– (branch of philosophy dealing with nature of existence, truth
and knowledge)
Schools - contd
• Some radical events reversed these trend?
• Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) was among the
first scholars to change this trend by the
publication of his two books;
– “the origin of Species” - 1859 and
– “the Descent of Man” in 1871.
• What were his arguments?
• Darwin marshaled the evidence that like all
other forms of life on our planet, human beings
evolved through a process of Natural selection.
• This conclusion was so radical that it took two
decades to publish.
Schools - contd
• This opened the way and
inspired young thinkers to
apply the scientific method to
human behaviour.
• This paved the way for
modern Psychology.
• Until then the study of
behaviour belonged to the
reams of philosophy.
• QUESTION
– What about animal and human
do we investigate?
– How do we do that?
• Various Schools of  sprang
up as a result of Darwin’s
Radical ideas that paved the
way for the scientific study of
behaviour.
• Why? they were in doubt as
to the subject matter of
psychology? As a result,
scholars began to group
themselves and most often in
a common geographical
area.
• They also applied common
systems in their studies.
Schools - contd
• Various schools came into being. Most
came as a result of criticisms of the
previous unsatisfactory ones.
• These schools included;
– Structuralism
– Functionalism
– Behaviorism
– Psychoanalytic/ Freudian Psychology
– Phenomenology; Humanistic & Existential
– Gestalt Psychology
– Cognitive Psychology
– Psychobiological/ Neurobiological, etc
SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY
• Most of these came as a result of their
disagreement over what they thought the new
science of Psychology should study.
• Some died with the death of their leading
theorists.
Schools - STRUCTURALISM
• The first to be established by Wilhelm Wundt (a Physiologist)
and Edward Bradford Titchener, when the former founded the
1st Psychological laboratory in Leipzig in Germany in 1879.
• He applied experimental methods to study of fundamental
psychological processes such as mental rxt time in response to
visual & auditory stimuli.**
• BASIC AIM AND TENET;
– Set out to study human perception to uncover its basic
element and how they are interrelated.
– They undertook to analysis consciousness according to
elements, to discover the connections of these elements and
finally to establish laws governing these connections.
– Their mission to establish basic structures of human
consciousness and perception earned them their name.
Structuralism… cont’d
– Take banana; a fruit,
• something to peel and eat (our own associations based
on our past experience)
– In reality it is, a long yellow object - the rest are
associations
• Wundt & students therefore decided to strip
perception of all its associations…Their
mission?
– to find the most fundamental elements, or “atoms”
of perception/thought/consciousness.
Schools - contd
• His students; most importantly Edwards
Titchener carried the new science to
universities around the world.
• Titchener accepted a position at Cornell
University (Ithaca), New York where he
established a 26 room psychological lab.
• He broke consciousness into 3 basic structures;
– PHYSICAL SENSATIONS
(what we see)
– FEELINGS
(such as liking /dislike) &
– MEMORIES
(memories of similar things)
– What was their view of the subject matter of the
new science?
METHOD - INTROSPECTION
• What method did they use? - INTROSPECTION
– Defined as objective self-analysis (of thoughts, feelings,
heartbeat, respiration rates when listening to a metronome).
– EXAMPLE a book is shown & subjects are required to
reconstruct their sensation, perception and feelings
immediately after viewing it
• Thro’ introspection they report everything notable about the event
– Colour
– Smell
– Feelings etc.
– This method came under serious criticism
• How objective could one be objective
• You are likely to observe & to document what you want to
see.
INTROSPECTION - CRITICISMS
• Criticism include
– Introspection was unreliable (subjective) way
of investigation
• Different subjects provided different report on a
single stimuli
– Introspection could not be used to study
children or animals ?
– Complex but interesting topics; such as
learning, development, mental disorders etc
could not be investigated using introspection.
SCHOOLS
• These Structuralists saw Psychology’s role as
identifying these STRUCTURES of perception/
consciousness and showing how they are
interconnected and integrated.
• Wundt’s insistence on measurement and
experimentation marked psychology as a
science from the beginning.
• Structuralism – the first school to disappear
Schools - FUNCTIONALISM
.
Came to be born out of the criticism of structuralism.
Functionalist criticized Wundtz that his “basic
structures /atoms of experience” i.e. pure sensations
without association simply did not exist in life
experience.
• MAIN SCHOLAR; – William James
– First American Psychologist
– Earned a degree in Physiology and studied
philosophy at leisure such that he became confused
as to which of the 2 to choose
– He eventually chose Psychology which he found to
be the link between the two subjects (Physiology
and Philosophy)
FUNCTIONALISM
• BASIC TENET;
• that our perceptions and sensations come with
learning which goes a long way to help us to
FUNCTION.**
– Meaning? Mental associations enable us to benefit from previous
experience.
• E.g if you perceive banana without learning, the next time you see it,
you would not be able to recognize it.
• U may probably have to relearn what banana is
• Wake up => go for lectures?
– According to James, the learning bit makes it less difficult as
it becomes much of a habit.
– Suggested that when we repeat something, our nervous
systems are changed so that each repetition is easier than
the last time, thus enhancing our ADAPTABILITY or
FUNCTIONING.
Schools – cont’d FUNCTIONALISM
– Thus, mental associations enable us to benefit form
previous experience. Simply put
• Perception + Learning/Association = Adaptation.
– Or else we shall wake up forgetting and therefore
relearning all over every now and then.
– SUMMARY
• James’ functionalists theory of mental life and
behaviour goes beyond mere sensation and
perception by exploring how an organism learns to
function in its environment.
Schools… PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
• PSYCHODYNAMIC 
• This was born out of clinical practice of a Medical Doctor
(Neurologist) called Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939).
• Non academic school - It was therefore not strictly concerned with
sensation, attention, perception, learning etc, like all other schools. It
was rather concerned with NEUROTIC PATIENTS (Patients with
hysteric symptoms). This notwithstanding has greatly influenced
psychology as well as other areas of social science
• BASIC TENET;
• Contrary to our view that we are rational and exercise “free will”,
behaviour is motivated by our unconscious psychological forces
(sexual instincts and urges that are not available to the rational,
conscious part of our mind.
Schools – cont’d…Psychoanalytic
• That is to say that Unconscious conflicts/forces within
the individual influence many humans thought and
actions. This view laid the foundation for the study of
personality and Psychological disorders,, and remains
influential today.
• He divided the mind into three parts, namely;
– the id – the unconscious parts operating on pleasure
principles
– The ego – the rational planful mediator of conflict operating
on reality principles
– Superego – in touch with reality, disciplinarian, morally
upright part of us
Schools - contd
• Five (5) psychosexual stages of development
marked by conflicts whose resolution go a long
way to affect our adult personality.
• The stages are marked by erogenous zones;
– Oral – receives pleasure from the mouth
– Anal – pleasure from the anal region- toilet
training
– Phallic - awareness of whom they are – males or
females (masturbation)*Oedipus and
Electra complexes.
– Latency – sexual pleasure subsides
– Genital
- early adulthood - marries
•PHALLIC STAGE
•From Latin word phallus means “penis”
•GENITAL STAGE (Puberty to adulthood)
•Sexual
organs
become
the
source
of gratification
•Oral Gratifications are centered
on atprime
•_ Beginning
puberty,
young people
take a strong
• sexual
interest
in people of the opposite sex.
•Sucking the nipple, thumb, pacifiers.
It then
moves
•_begin
Here etc.
they
express
urges towards socially
•Children
to play
withdirect
theirsexual
genitals
•on to Biting, chewing,
cooing
•acceptable substitutes,
•- (genital
masturbation).
•WEANING •ANAL
– is theSTAGE
major
sourcefondling/
of conflict.
•who often resemble their opposite sex parent.
•Is the
2NDbecome
stage
ofmore
Freudian
theory
•They
what
it meansand
to sense
be a of
male
or female.
•FIXATION….
If the ind.
wasaware
weaned
too personality
early
•_ A of
healthy
sexuality
results
is teach
derived
from become
the
that
touching
genitals isresolved
shameful,
•when
conflictstheir
are successfully
• or too•Gratification
late•Ifasparents
an infant,
he children
would
fixated.
•atfixated
each stage
of psychosexual
development.
•ANAL Region.
• biting
they become
at the
phallic stage
X’TICS include smoking,
nails, chewing
pencils,
Conflict…**Oedipus
complex
n ElectraSTAGE,
complex
•Wish to •Major
spend•thus
too
much•Following
time on the
phone
etc PREGENITAL
socalled
•from their bowel movement/ elimination.
•Child develops
intense desire
to replace
the parent
of the same sex
•the child
enters latency
stage.
•; May become passive
dependent
and
demanding
•Toilet training
•and
enjoy
the affection
ofbecome
the opp’site
sex parentduring this stage.
•Sexual
urges
of
boys
and
girls
repressed
•Acc.
To
Morris
&
Maesto
;
LACK
OF
CONFIDENCE,
•They may enjoy either the sensation of excreting feces or
•Acc. to Freud, boys experiencing Oed. Complex are afraid of being castrated
a deceived)
strong desire to associate with same sex peers,
•GULLIBILITY
(easily
tricked
or
•the sensation
of-Expresses
holding
back.
•Child realizing
that they
may
get punished
same
sex parent
-a preference
that
strengthens
the by
child’s
sexual
identity.
argumentative
•In either ways they •and
reduce
tension
in the infant.
•for their incestuous
wishes
may
identify
with
them.
•They enter latency stage,
•Source of conflict
is
the
parents
“WAIT”
•FIXATION:
may
masturbation
was strictly
or allowed.
•which
is aoccur
stageif where
they suppress
theirprohibited
psychosexual
interests.
•Phallic Personality
may occur ??? ….Arrogant; self centered and having
•and the child’s
“ I WOULD’NT”
•over – estimated
•Fixation : Anal retentive,
repulsiveneed for attention (NARCISSISM).
•2. Obsession for body building, wearing expensive clothing n
•FIXATION•Women Conquering attitude (Womanizers).
•goes through “life holding things back”
•being too orderly,
• stingy (giving unwillingly) and stubborn
Schools – cont’d…Psychoanalytic
• To uncover the unconscious, Freud developed a
technique called Psychoanalysis in which
– Patient lies on a couch, recounts dreams,
– Says whatever comes to mind (free association)
– He’d help patients to sort through half remembered
scenes, broken thought; reconstruct the past
experiences that shape patient’s present behaviour.
• Criticisms??
– Freud’s Victorian contemporaries couldn’t believe
• His emphasis on sexuality
• His suggestion that we are unaware of our true motives
• And thus not entirely in control of our thoughts, desires and
behaviour
Schools – contd…BEHAVIOURISM
• BEHAVIOURISM;
– The name speak for itself; BEHAVIOUR. They argued that
the whole idea of mental life (perception, reaction time,
sensation, memory, unconscious etc) if could not be
measure physically is all, SUPERSTITIOUS.
• MAIN SCHOLARS; include John B. Watson, Ivan
Pavlov, B.F Skinner, Thorndike etc.
• Psychology should study only observable,
measurable Behaviour – Nothing more.
– Anything that cannot be defined, located, measured cannot
be an object of scientific study. (Read on Watson’s
conditioning of little Albert to fear white rats)
• According to Watson, man is born TABULA RASA
(Latin Meaning BLANK SLATE”)
BEHAVIOURISM
• Watson’s views known as behaviourism was
based on an experiment that is well known and
conducted by a Russian Physiologist; Ivan
Pavlov.***
– Pavlov concluded that all behaviour is a learned
response to some stimulus in the environment. He
called this CONDITIONING.
– Pavlov argued that all human behaviour could be
attributable to learning.
– To prove his point, Watson and Rayner (1920)
conducted an experiment during which they
conditioned “little Albert” to fear soft furry white
Rats.
BEHAVIOURISM
• Albert was a secure happy baby who had no
fear for soft, furry white rats
– 1st given a white furry rat
– Each time Albert reached out to touch the rat =>
loud noise?
– Before long little Albert became terrified of white
rats.
• Watson & Rayner concluded; that an infant is
TABULA RASA (Latin meaning “Blank Slate”)
on which experience may write virtually
everything.
• WATSON’s DECLARATION *** (Write)….
BEHAVIOURISM – B .F SKINNER
• Another prominent scholar that comes to mind
is B.F Skinner (became a leading advocate of
behaviorism).
– Like Watson, he believed that Psychologists should
study only observable and measurable behaviour.
– His primary interest were changing behaviour
through conditioning and discovering natural laws of
behaviour.
BEHAVIOURISM…cont’d
• B.F Skinner’s contributions
– He was interested in changing behaviour through
conditioning
– He came up another term; Reinforcement**
• Rewarded his subjects for behaving the way he wanted them to
– He used all kinds of animals;
• Rats, pigeons etc…how did he study reinforcement?
– He put these animals in cages/ box (skinner’s box) and allow
them to explore
– Initially the animals would accidentally press a bar or peck at
a disk on the wall & a food pellet would drop
– Gradually, the animals learn that pressing/ pecking brings
food and so they would continue to do so…why?
– Because they are rewarded/ reinforced
BEHAVIOURISM - SUMMARY
• Psychology is a purely objective experimental
branch of the natural science aimed at the
prediction and control of behaviour.
• Significance
– Psychology should study only observable,
measurable Behaviour – Nothing more.
– Watson’s push for idealism to be discarded for
realism.
– He also helped in shifting American psychology
from an over – concern with the subjective (self
report) towards a more objective but mechanistic
approaches.
Schools - GESTALT (WHOLE) PSYCHOLOGY
• This was a movement that originated from Germany.
• Associated Scholars include Max Wertheimer,
Wolfgang. Kohler; Kurt Koffka who were all interested
in perception. They maintain that when we perceive
– We tend to perceive whole instead of individual parts
– our minds play tricks on us.
• “Gestalt” in German language means “Whole” and
when applied to perception refers to the tendency to
see PATTERNS, to distinguish an object form its
background, to complete a picture from a few cues.
• They vehemently opposed the Structuralists idea or
attempt to break down perception and thought into
their basic elements.
EXISTENTIAL & HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVES
(Phenomenology)
• Existential comes from (Existence). These schools
seek to help or enhance people’s existence. They
guide people towards an inner sense of identity, which
allows them take responsibility for their actions and in
the process, achieve freedom.
• Humanistic Psychology (Third Force) is closely
related to Existential Psychology because both
schools insist that people must learn how to realize
their human potential. That human beings are
motivated by the need for self actualization
• The self concept (How we perceive ourselves/ self
image is important)
• SCHOLARS; included
– Carl Rogers and
ABRAHAM MASLOW (1908- 1970)
• Based on studies of historical figures, famous living
individuals and friends whom he admired, Maslow
theorized that all people are motivated to fulfill a
hierarchy of needs, from the
–
–
–
–
physiological,
safety and security,
the need for belonging and love, and
esteem- related need for achievement, status, and
recognition.
• It is only when these needs are met are we ready,
willing and able to strive for self- actualization
– the distinctly human need to become everything one is
capable of becoming.
• Maslow proposed the most famous humanistic model
of motivation called the “Hierarchy of Needs” and
summarized it in the form of a Pyramid.
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
•Once all fundamental and psychological nee
•Esteem needs
•are met, we then seek to fulfill need for
-Need to achieve competence •self actualization ; the ultimate??
-Recognition and high esteem. •THE NEED TO REALIZE ONCE
Need for appreciation of beauty •UNIQUE POTENTIAL. Explain**
•n art (Aesthetic need)
•Why are you in school?•Need
SMSto be loved, feel belonging to a group,
•a person, family
•- Why we experience distress when r/ships end
seek any event/thing that provides security n Safety. Snake in the Lecture ha
in a country - will you remember you have a meeting with your local associa
•In a hospital settings, what are the safety measures – security.
•Why do we close our doors? Why do people go in for insurance etc
•Basic Physiological Needs (Air, Food, water, sex etc)
•…In a clinical setting, when someone is struggling to breath
•He will not consider other higher needs…
•its up to you to ensure other needs are met.
Schools - COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• Was one of the newest fields of psychology. It began
in the 1960’s when Behaviorists held the belief that
mental processes cannot be studied scientifically;
• Cognitive psychologist, believe otherwise. That is to
say that mental processes could and should be
studied scientifically.
• TENET; They argue, although we cannot observe
cognitive processes directly, we can observe
behaviour and make inferences about the kinds of
cognitive processes that underlie that behaviour.
• SCHOLARS; Look for Scholars – Read (Jean Piaget,
Albert Ellis, Edward C.Tolman, etc.)
Note the following
• NB: School as used here refers to group of
Psychologist who held/shared similar views and had
similar approaches to the study of Psychology.
• The Psychologists who formed a school generally
devoted themselves to common problems, using
common systems to study the problems.
• Each school developed around one eminent thinker
and in most cases, in and around a geographical area.
• Structuralism and functionalism died with the death of
their leaders.
• Schools of Psychology and FIELDS OF
PSYCHOLOGY – any differences? Yes…
• Read… Read …READ!!!
• ***READ!!!
FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY
• No confusion with schools of Psychology
– School as used here refers to group of Psychologist
who held/shared similar views and had similar
approaches to the study of Psychology.
– Some of these have died with the death of the
eminent thinker.
• Field of Psychology are areas of specialization
which include
– Clinical and Counseling; Experimental, Community;
Developemental; Social; Personality; Educational;
Industrial; Health; Forensic etc. Lets consider a few.
•
•
SELECTED AREAS OF
SPECIALIZATION
Clinical and Counseling
– We can understand and behaviour
– Most widely practiced
– Diagnose and treat people with
psychological problems.
– Counseling Psyc. Treat less
serious problems
• Personality
Experimental
• School & Educational
– Conduct research and use exp.tal
strategy to study topics such as
sensation and perception, memory,
learning, motivation and emotion.
• Developmental
– Concerned with how we become
who we are, from conception to
death
– Study biol. & environmental factors
that contribute to human
development
• Social
– Deals with people’s social
interactions, relationships, social
perceptions, and attitudes
if we know something about how
people function in groups
– Focus on relatively enduring traits
and characteristics of individuals.
– Concerned with children’s learning
and adjustment in schools
•
Industrial/ Organizational
– Deals with the workplace, focus on
both the workers and organizations
that employ them
– Organizational structure n
functions, interpersonal r/tions etc
• Health
– Multidimensional approach to
health that emphasize
psychological factors, lifestyles,
and the nature of the health care
delivery
• Forensic - Applies psychological
concepts to legal systems; eye
LEARNING THEORIES
LEARNING THEORIES
Learning is a field of study in which the
behaviorists have traditionally dominated.
 The school of behaviorism rose to a large
extent as a protest group against what
they perceived as excessive emphasis on
the unconscious by the Structuralists and
the functionalists.

LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D
The behaviorists insisted that psychology study
only observable, measurable behaviour, without
reference to unobservable mental processes.
 Even within their ranks, there are divisions; we
have the methodological behaviorists who
maintain that psychology should study only the
events that they can measure and observe – in
other words stimulus and response.
 Mental processes to them may well exist, but
may not be included in their science; or if they
include them, they cautiously inferred from
behaviour.

LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D
The radical behaviorists on the
contrary do not want to have anything to
do with mental processes. B. F Skinner
(1990) argued, when you say, “ I intend
to…” you really mean “ I am about to…”
 That was a good way of saying that any
statements alluding to intensions should
be converted into a description of
behaviour.

LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D

In everyday usage/ everyday sense, learning
often refers to formal methods of acquiring new
knowledge or skills, such as learning in the
classroom or learning to play an instrument.

It is common to think of learning as
something that takes place in school, but
much of human learning occurs outside
the classroom, and people continue to
learn throughout their lives.
LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D
Even before they enter school, young children
learn to walk, to talk, and to use their hands to
manipulate toys, food, and other objects.
 They use all of their senses to learn about the
sights, sounds, tastes, and smells in their
environments.
 They learn how to interact with their parents,
siblings, friends, and other people important to
their world. When they enter school, children
learn basic academic subjects such as reading,
writing, and mathematics.

LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D
They also continue to learn a great deal outside
the classroom. They learn which behaviors are
likely to be rewarded and which are likely to be
punished.
 They learn social skills for interacting with other
children.
 After they finish school, people must learn to
adapt to the many major changes that affect
their lives, such as getting married, raising
children, and finding and keeping a job..

LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D


Because learning continues throughout our lives
and affects almost everything we do, the study
of learning is important in many different
fields.
Teachers need to understand the best ways to
educate children. Psychologists, Optometrists,
social workers, criminologists, Doctors and other
human-service workers need to understand how
certain experiences change people’s behaviors.
 Employers, politicians, and advertisers make use
of the principles of learning to influence the
behavior of workers, voters, and consumers.
LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D
Human learning involves higher- level learning
involving memory, comprehension, language,
and other information- rich mental processes.
 In Psychology, however, the topic of learning is
much broader, but in this lecture we shall be
concerned with a more basic form of learning
known as conditioning.


what is learning?
DEFINITION OF LEARNING
Various definitions. For e g. Coon (1992)***
defines learning as “any relatively permanent
change in behaviour that can be attributed to
experience” p. 189.
 Notice that this definition excludes temporary
changes caused by motivation, fatigue,
maturation, disease injury, drugs and so forth”
 Morris and Maesto (1999) define it as “a process
by which experience or practice results in a
relatively permanent change in behaviour or
potential behaviour, p 166.

LEARNING DEFINITION – CONT’D

NB: potential behaviour from Morris & Maesto

Hockenbury and Hockenbury (2001) see learning
as a process that produces a relatively enduring
change in behaviour or knowledge as a result of
an individual’s experience, p 163.

Kassin (2001; 174) referred to learning as a
relatively permanent change in knowledge or
behaviour that comes about as a result of
experience.
KEYWORDS



Relatively Permanent Change
Experience and
Behaviour/Potential behaviour



It implies that all sorts of events/experience
could result in changes in behaviour but not all
would be regarded as relatively permanent.
Some of these include fatigue, maturation (an
automatic biological unfolding of development
in an organism as a function of passage of
time), drugs injury.
All these may produce change in behaviour but
with particular reference to time (relatively
permanent etc), they cannot pass test by
standards of learning definition.
LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D
Learning is closely related to memory,
which is the storage of information in the
brain.
– Psychologists who study memory are
interested in how the brain stores knowledge,
where this storage takes place, and how the
brain later retrieves knowledge when we need
it.
In contrast, psychologists who study
learning are more interested in behavior
and how behavior changes as a result of a
person’s experiences.
LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D

There are many forms of learning, ranging from
simple to complex. (More complex forms of learning include
learning languages, concepts, and motor skills).

Simple forms of learning involve a single stimulus
(e.g.. habituation).
– A stimulus is anything perceptible to the senses, such as a
sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste.



In a form of learning known as classical
conditioning, people learn to associate two stimuli
that occur in sequence, such as lightning followed
by thunder.
In operant conditioning, people learn by forming an
association between a behavior and its
consequences (reward or punishment).
People and animals can also learn by observation—
that is, by watching others perform behaviors.
LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D

Habituation, one of the simplest types of learning, is
the tendency to become familiar with a stimulus after
repeated exposure to it.



A common example of habituation occurs in the orienting
response, in which a person’s attention is captured by a
loud or sudden stimulus.
For example, a person who moves to a house on a busy
street may initially be distracted (an orienting response)
every time a loud vehicle drives by.
After living in the house for some time, however, the
person will no longer be distracted by the street noise—
the person becomes habituated to it and the orienting
response disappears
LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D

Despite its simplicity, habituation is a very
useful type of learning.
 Because
our environments are full of sights and
sounds, we would waste a tremendous amount of
time and energy if we paid attention to every
stimulus each time we encountered it.
 Habituation allows us to ignore repetitive,
unimportant stimuli. Habituation occurs in nearly all
organisms, from human beings to animals with very
simple nervous systems.
 Even
some one-celled organisms will habituate to a
light, sound, or chemical stimulus that is presented
repeatedly.
LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D

Sensitization, another simple form of learning,
is the increase that occurs in an organism’s
responsiveness to stimuli following an
especially intense or irritating stimulus.
 For
example, a sea snail that receives a strong
electric shock will afterward withdraw its gill more
strongly than usual in response to a simple touch.
 If your electric iron gives you a shock what happens
to your response/ sensitivity to electric irons?
 Depending on the intensity and duration of the
original stimulus, the period of increased
responsiveness can last from several seconds to
several days.
LEARNING THEORIES
CONDITIONING &
SOCIAL LEARNING
Consider the following – how do you explain them?

Situation I

Susie enjoys opening the
door whenever the
doorbell goes .One
evening; she answered
the doorbell and at the
door was Julie who had
dressed up in a costume
like a monster.
Susie got so terrified that
she nearly passed out
when she screaming and
running back to lock
herself up in her room
upstairs. Later she got
terrified whenever the


Scenario II
 Kofi is a cancer patient
receiving treatment at
the KATH Cancer
center.
 Before each Chemotherapy session, he is
given a bowl of ice
cream. The
chemotherapy makes
Kofi Nauseated. Now
just seeing the bowl of
ice makes him feel
nauseated…ANSWER?
Consider the following – how do
you explain them?



Question!!
Why do most advertisers
use well known peoples
such as footballers, actors,
singers etc.
 Abedi Pele loves….
 Michael Powell
…Guinness the power.
 Bob Santo???
In her anger, Esther kicked
the machine while Gabriel
was still observing.


Scenario IV
Subsequently Esther
kicked the machine
anytime it delayed in
dispensing the drink?
Since Gabriel admired
Esther so much, he
adopted her behaviour
o obtain drinks from
delaying vending
machines.

Explanation??
ANSWER???
LEARNING THEORIES
SUBJECT OF OUR LECTURES
OVERVIEW – LEARNING THEORIES
• INTRODUCTION & DEFINITIONS
• SIMPLE FORMS OF LEARNING
– Habituation
– Sensitization
• CLASSICAL CONDITIONING… Ivan Pavlov
– Pavlov’s experiment
– Principles of classical conditioning
•
•
•
•
Acquisition,
Extinction,
Generalization &
Discrimination
– Applications of classical/ Pavlovian principles
PIX. OF IVAN PATROVICH PAVLOV
OVERVIEW – LEARNING THEORIES
• OPERANT CONDITIONING...E. L. Thorndike/
Skinner
– Thorndike's experiment & Laws of effect
– B.F Skinner’s research
– Principles of Operant Conditioning
•
•
•
•
•
•
Reinforcement
Schedules of Reinforcement
Punishment
Shaping
Extinction
Generalization & Discrimination
– Applications of operant/ Skinnerian conditioning
PIX. OF SKINNER / THORNDIKE
OVERVIEW – LEARNING THEORIES
• OBSERVATIONAL/ VICARIOUS LEARNING/
MODELING… Albert Bandura
– Bandura’s Experiment
– Bandura’s theory of Imitation\
– Factor’s affecting imitation
– Does TV have influence on behaviour
acquisition
PIX. OF ALBERT BANDURA
LEARNING THEORIES
CLASSICAL
CONDITIONING
DEFINING – key words
• CLASSICAL
– name Ivan Pavlov gave to the type of
learning he heuristically discovered
• CONDITIONING
– Refers to the fact that the learner is
“conditioned”; meaning the learner forms
an association, usually between a stimulus
and a response or between two stimuli.
LEARNING THEORIES – CONT’D
• Classical conditioning is a type of learning in
which an animal’s natural response to one
object or sensory stimulus transfers to
another stimulus (neutral).
– This illustration shows how a dog can learn to
salivate to the sound of a tuning fork,
• This was an experiment first carried out in the
early 1900s by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov.
– For conditioning to occur, the pairing of the food
with the tuning fork (step 3 in the illustration) must
be repeated many times, so that the dog
eventually learns to associate the two items.
L. THEORIES – Pavlov’s experiment
• Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
• Russian physiologist
Ivan Pavlov discovered a
major type of learning,
classical conditioning, by
accident while
conducting experiments
on digestion in the early
1900s. He devoted the
rest of his life to
discovering the
underlying principles of
classical conditioning.
L. THEORIES – Pavlov’s experiment
L. THEORIES – Pavlov’s experiment
• Pavlov was studying how saliva aids the
digestive process.
– He would give a dog some food and
measure the amount of saliva the dog
produced while it ate the meal.
• After the dog had gone through this procedure
a few times, however, it would begin to salivate
before receiving any food.
– Pavlov reasoned that some new stimulus, such
as the experimenter in his white coat, had
become associated with the food and produced
the response of salivation in the dog.
– Pavlov spent the rest of his life studying this basic
type of associative learning, which is now called
classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning.
Consider the following – how do
you explain them?
•
•
Situation I
Susie enjoys opening the
door whenever the doorbell
goes .One evening; she
answered the doorbell and
at the door was Julie who
had dressed up in a
costume like a monster.
Susie got so terrified that
she nearly passed out
when she screaming and
running back to lock
herself up in her room
upstairs. Later she got
terrified whenever the
doorbell rung.
• Scenario II
– Kofi is a cancer patient
receiving treatment at the
KATH Cancer center.
Before each
Chemotherapy session,
he is given a bowl of ice
cream. The chemotherapy
makes Kofi Nauseated.
Now just seeing the bowl
of ice makes him feel
nauseated.
– ANSWER?
SOLUTION USING CLASSICAL LEARNING THEORY
• PARADIGM II
PARADIGM I
• Before conditioning
– Doorbell  No fear in Susie
• NS
– Monster costume
• UCS
fear
UCR
• During Conditioning
(Pairing)
– Doorbell + Julie’s Monster
costume (UCS)  Fear in
Susie (UCR)
• After Conditioning (Pairing)
– Doorbell alone fear in Susie
• CS
CR
• Before conditioning
– Bowl of ice  No Nausea
• NS
– Chemotherapy Nausea
• UCS
UCR
During Conditioning (Pairing)
– Bowl of ice + Chemotherapy
(UCS)  Makes Kofi
nauseated (UCR)
After Conditioning (Pairing)
– Bowl of ice alone (CS) 
Makes Kofi feel nauseated
(CR)
Principles of Classical Conditioning
• Following his initial discovery, Pavlov spent
more than three decades studying the
processes underlying classical conditioning.
• He and his associates identified four main
processes:
–
–
–
–
acquisition,
extinction,
generalization, and
discrimination.
AQCUISITION – CONT’D
• The acquisition phase is the initial learning of
the conditioned response - for example, the dog
learning to salivate at the sound of the bell.
• Several factors influence the acquisition of CRs.
Among them are;
– The sequence of CS – UCS presentation,
– The intensity of the UCS and
– The number of times the CS and UCS are paired
AQCUISITION – CONT’D
AQCUISITION – CONT’D
• SEQUENCE OF CS – UCS PRESENTATION
– Influence the strength of the conditioning.
– Up to this point we have simply indicated that
that the CS should precede the US. (Imprecise).
– Rather several sequences for CS – UCS
presentation are possible.
•
•
•
•
Trace conditioning
Delayed conditioning
Simultaneous conditioning
Backward conditioning
AQCUISITION – CONT’D
• TRACE CONDITIONING
• Cs comes on and goes be4
the UCS is presented
• Here the UCS is
associated with a memory
trace of the CS, not with
the CS itself.
• This produces weaker
conditioning, but not as
weak as simultaneous or
backward conditioning.
AQCUISITION – CONT’D
• DELAYED CONDITIONING
• Comes and stays on, and then
the UCS is presented so that
they occur together for some time
• The presentation of UCS is
delayed for a specific interval
after the CS has been presented
• Researchers found that delayed
conditioning for a short interval
produces a strong conditioning,
whereas longer delays between
the CS & UCS produce weak
conditioning.
• Example, they found
450miliseconds is the optimal
interval for conditioning the eyelid
closure reflex. (One millisecond =
1/1000 of a second)
AQCUISITION – CONT’D
• SIMULTANEOUS
CONDITIONING
• CS comes on exactly the
same time as the US.
• Example a sound of a
metronome and the food
powder would be presented
to the dog simultaneously
• This type results in a weak
conditioning.
AQCUISITION – CONT’D
• BACKWARD
CONDITIONING
• CS comes on after the
UCS.
• Example the dog is given
food powder and thereafter
hear the sound of the
metronome
• Results in a very weak, if
any conditioning at all.
AQCUISITION – CONT’D
• Conditioning occurs most quickly when the
conditioned stimulus (the bell) precedes the
unconditioned stimulus (the food) by about half
a second.
• Conditioning takes longer and the response is
weaker when there is a long delay between the
presentation of the CS and the UCS
• If the conditioned stimulus follows the
unconditioned stimulus—for example, if the dog
receives the food before the bell is rung —
conditioning seldom occurs.
AQCUISITION – CONT’D
• STRENGTH OF CONDT
• The stronger the UCS , the
stronger the conditioning
– (Holloway & Domjan, 1993)
• When Pavlov gave his
dogs a small amount of
food powder, they did not
salivate as much as he
gave them a large amount
of food powder.
– Stronger USCs elicit stronger
URs;
– Weaker UCSs produce weaker
URs.
• NUMBER OF (CS- UCS)
PAIRINGS
• The more the CS and the
UCS are paired together,
the stronger the CR
becomes.
– If you have eaten at an
exceptionally fine
restaurant several times,
your CRs to the sight of the
restaurant and its menu will
be stronger than would be
if you had eaten there only
once. Always True?? ***
EXTINTION & SPONTANEOUS
RECOVERY
• Once learned, a conditioned response is not
necessarily permanent.
• The term extinction is used to describe the
elimination of the conditioned response by
repeatedly presenting the conditioned stimulus
(bell) without the unconditioned stimulus (food).
• If a dog has learned to salivate at the sound of a
bell, an experimenter can gradually extinguish
the dog’s response by repeatedly ringing the bell
without presenting food afterward.
• Does it mean that the dog has forgotten what its
learnt?
EXTINTION AND S. RECOVERY– cont’d
• Extinction does not mean,
however, that the dog has
simply unlearned or
forgotten the association
between the bell and the
food.
– After extinction, if the
experimenter lets a few
hours pass and then rings
the bell again, the dog will
usually salivate at the
sound of the bell once
again.
• SPONTANEOUS
RECOVERY
– The reappearance of an
extinguished response
after some time has
passed is called
spontaneous recovery.
Graph
STIMULUS GENERALIZATION
• After an animal has learned a conditioned
response to one stimulus, it may also respond to
similar stimuli without further training.
– If a child is bitten by a large black dog, the child may
fear not only that dog, but other large dogs.
– If your lecturer slaps you and you see someone who
resembles him….?
• This phenomenon is called generalization.
– Less similar stimuli will usually produce less
generalization. For example, the child may show little
fear of smaller dogs.
STIMULUS DISCRIMINATION
• The opposite of generalization is
discrimination,
– In this, an individual learns to produce a
conditioned response to one stimulus but not
to another stimulus that is similar.
– For example, a child may show a fear
response to freely roaming dogs, but may
show no fear when a dog is on a leash or
confined to a pen.
• How do we apply these principles to human? **
APPLICATION OF CLASSICAL
PRINCIPLES
• In an infamous 1921 experiment, John B.
Watson and his research assistant Rosalie
Rayner conditioned a baby named little Albert
(11 month old baby) to fear a small white rat.
– How did this happen?
– by pairing the sight of the rat with a loud noise.
• it showed for the first time that humans can learn
to fear seemingly unimportant stimuli when the
stimuli are associated with unpleasant
experiences.
APPLICATION – CONT’D
• The experiment also suggested that classical
conditioning accounts for some cases of
phobias,
– Phobia is an irrational or excessive fears of specific
objects or situations.
• Psychologists now know that classical
conditioning explains many emotional responses
such as
–
–
–
–
happiness,
excitement,
anger, and
Anxiety, that people have to specific stimuli.
APPLICATION – CONT’D
• For example, a child
who experiences
excitement on a roller
coaster may learn to
feel excited just at the
sight of a roller
coaster.
• For an adult who finds
a letter from a close
friend in the mailbox,
the mere sight of the
return address on the
envelope may elicit
feelings of joy and
warmth.
APPLICATION – CONT’D
• Psychologists use classical
conditioning procedures to
treat phobias and other
unwanted behaviors, such
as alcoholism and
addictions.
– In one treatment for
alcoholism, patients drink
an alcoholic beverage and
then ingest a drug that
produces nausea.
– Eventually they feel
nauseous at the sight or
smell of alcohol and stops
drinking it.
• To treat phobias of specific
objects,
• the therapist gradually and
repeatedly presents the
feared object to the patient
while the patient relaxes.
• Through extinction, the
patient loses his or her fear
of the object.
• The effectiveness of these
therapies varies depending
on the individual and on the
problem behavior
APPLICATION – Contemporary
views
Modern research has also shown that conditioning does not
always require a close pairing of the two stimuli.
In taste-aversion learning, people can develop disgust for a
specific food if they become sick after eating it, even if the
illness begins several hours after eating.
Psychologists today also recognize that classical conditioning
does not automatically occur whenever two stimuli are
repeatedly paired.
– For instance, suppose that an experimenter conditions a dog to salivate to a
light by repeatedly pairing the light with food.
– Next, the experimenter repeatedly pairs both the light and a tone with food.
When the experimenter presents the tone by itself, the dog will
show little or no conditioned response (salivation), because the
tone provides no new information. The light already allows the dog
to predict that food will be coming.***
LEARNING THEORIES
OPERANT CONDITIONING
DEFINING OPERANT/ SKINNERIAN/
INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING
• The type of learning in which behaviors are emitted (in
the presence of specific stimuli) to earn reward or
avoid punishment
• Or a form of learning in which the consequences of
behaviour produce changes in the probability of
behavior's occurrence… Why operant?
– Operant; describes the organism’s behaviour – behaviour
operates on the environment and the environment in turn
operate on behaviour.
– One essential element in operant conditioning is emitted
behaviour and this makes it different from classical
conditioning
– Thus, unlike classical conditioning in which a response is
automatically triggered by some stimulus, (food triggers
salivation) response is spontaneous in operant,
(voluntarily studying Behavioral Science to gain marks)
OPERANT CONDITIONING – cont’d
– Voluntary spontaneous actions are called Operant behaviors
because they “OPERATE ON THE ENVIRONMENT”
– Operant conditioning is usually better than classical at explaining
VOLUNTARY behaviour
• Unlike classical conditioning, operant conditioning requires
action on the part of the learner unlike classical
conditioning, in which the conditioned and unconditioned
stimuli are presented regardless of what the learner does.
• Operant conditioning requires action on the part of the
learner.
– A boy will not get his snack unless he first cleans up his room.
• So the term operant conditioning refers to the fact that the
learner must operate, or perform a certain behavior, before
receiving a reward or punishment.
OPERANT CONDITIONING-
cont’d
• Edward Lee Thorndike was one of the earliest
American psychologists to scientifically study animal
behaviour.
– Around the turn of the century, while Pavlov was busy
with his dogs, Thorndike (1898) was using a simple
wooden box cage “Puzzle box”*** to study how cats
learn. Procedure with hungry cats****
– RESULTS: Indicated that in the beginning it took the
cats quite a while to discover how to open the door.
But on each trial it took them less time, until
eventually they could escape from the box in almost
no time at all.
– Thorndike was the pioneer in studying this kind of
learning which involved making a certain response
because of the consequences it brought. (NAME:
Operant/ Instrumental Conditioning).
THORDIKES PUZZLE BOX
THORDIKES PUZZLE BOX –
cont’d
• He found that the first time an animal entered
the puzzle box, it usually took a long time to
make the response required to open the door.
Eventually, however, it would make the
appropriate response by accident and receive its
reward: escape and food.
• As Thorndike placed the same animal in the
puzzle box again and again, it would make the
correct response more and more quickly. Soon it
would take the animal just a few seconds to earn
its reward.
OPERANT CONDITIONING – cont’d
• A second essential element in operant
conditioning is the consequence following a
behaviour.
– Thorndike's cats gained freedom and a piece of fish
for escaping from the puzzle boxes.
– Your dogs may receive food for sitting on command
– A child may receive praise; a chance to ride the bike
or a chance to watch TV for helping in the kitchen
• Consequences like these increase the likelihood
that a behaviour will be repeated are called
REINFORCERS
• In contrast, consequences that decrease the
chances that a behaviour will be repeated are
called PUNISHERS
LAW OF EFFECT/ PRINCIPLES OF
REINFORCEMENT
• Thorndike summarized the influence of consequences in his
LAW OF EFFECT as follows;
– Behaviour that brings about a satisfying effect (reinforcement) is
apt to be performed again whereas
– A behaviour that brings a negative effect (punishment) is apt to be
suppressed
• Another name for law of effect is PRINCIPLES OF
REINFORCEMENT by contemporary Psychologists.
– Sometimes its difficult to tell whether a particular consequence will
be reinforcing or punishing. Why?
• Candy/ toffees might be reinforcing to all children.
• Some may not like it, so for them it will not be rewarding.
• Some children whom candy is initially reinforcing may eat too
much of it, until it becomes neutral to them or even punishing.
– We must therefore be careful when identifying consequences as
SUMMARY – LAW OF EFFECT
• Behaviors that are followed by pleasant
consequences will be strengthened, and
will be more likely to occur in the future.
• Conversely, behaviors that are followed by
unpleasant consequences will be
weakened, and will be less likely to be
repeated in the future.
OPERANT CONDITIONING
cont’d
In other words
 This
law states that behaviors that are followed by
pleasant consequences will be strengthened, and
will be more likely to occur in the future.
 Conversely, behaviors that are followed by
unpleasant consequences will be weakened, and
will be less likely to be repeated in the future.
 If
we were to judge by taste, then consumers of
Guinness will consume less but that is not the case,
why?



Obtain some reward
Social learning ( desire to be like Michael Powell)
Social influence (acceptance)
OPERANT CONDITIONING-
cont’d
– For example, if a mother starts giving a boy
his favorite snack every day that he cleans up
his room, before long the boy may spend
some time each day cleaning his room in
anticipation of the snack.
– In this example, the boy’s room-cleaning
behavior increases because it is followed by a
reward or reinforcer.
SKINNER’S RESEARCH
SKINNER’S RESEARCH



Skinner Box
American psychologist B. F.
Skinner designed an
apparatus, now called a
Skinner box, that allowed
him to formulate important
principles of animal
learning.
An animal (rat, pigeon etc)
placed inside the box is
rewarded with a small bit of
food each time it makes the
desired response, such as
pressing a lever or pecking a
key.

A device outside the box
records the animal’s
responses.
SKINNER’S RESEARCH


Like Thorndike’s puzzle box,
the Skinner box was a
barren chamber in which an
animal could earn food by
making simple responses,
such as pressing a lever or
a circular response key
The Skinner box differed
from the puzzle box in
three main ways:
 (1) upon making the
desired response, the
animal received food but
did not escape from the
chamber;



(2) the box delivered only a
small amount of food for each
response, so that many
reinforcers could be delivered
in a single test session; and
(3) the operant response
required very little effort, so
an animal could make
hundreds or thousands of
responses per hour.
Because of these changes,
Skinner could collect much
more data, and he could
observe how changing the
pattern of food delivery
affected the speed and
pattern of an animal’s
behavior.
SKINNER’S RESEARCH



Skinner became famous not just for his research with
animals, but also for his controversial claim that the
principles of learning he discovered using the Skinner
box also applied to the behavior of people in everyday
life.
Skinner acknowledged that many factors influence
human behavior, including heredity, basic types of
learning such as classical conditioning, and complex
learned behaviors such as language.
he however maintained that rewards and punishments
control the great majority of human behaviors, and
that the principles of operant conditioning can explain
these behaviors.
PRINCIPLES OF OPERANT CONDITIONING

Main principles to
be considered are
reinforcement,
 punishment,
 shaping,
 extinction,
 discrimination,
and
 generalization.




REINFORCEMENT
Means “to strengthen”
Is a consequence that
increases the probability
that a behaviour will
occur…Halonen and Santrock (1999:163)

Or simply any process/
event that strengthens a
particular behavior—that
is, increases the chances
that the behavior will
occur again.
PRINCIPLES OF OPERANT CONDITIONING


TWO TYPES OF
REINFORCEMENT
– POSITIVE, &
NEGATIVE
REINFORCEMENTS
Positive Reinforcement,
–


positive reinforcement,
is a method of
strengthening behavior
by following it with a
pleasant stimulus.
Thus, a behavior is
strengthened because a
pleasant/ pleasurable
stimulus followed it.


In experiments by
Thorndike and Skinner;
bar pressing and
pecking behaviors are
followed by food pellets
which are positive
In human, positive
reinforcers include basic
items such as food,
drink, sex, and physical
comfort.
Other positive reinforcers
include material
possessions, money,
friendship, love, praise,
attention, and success in
one’s career.
!!PRINCIPLES OF OPERANT CONDITIONING

Depending on the
circumstances, positive
reinforcement can
strengthen either
desirable or undesirable
behaviors.
– Children may work hard
at home or at school
because of the praise they
receive from parents and
teachers for good
performance.
– However, they may also
disrupt a class, try
dangerous stunts, or start
smoking because these
behaviors lead to
attention and approval
from their peers.


Negative reinforcement is a
method of strengthening a
behavior by following it with the
removal or omission of an
unpleasant stimulus.
There are two types of negative
reinforcement:
– Escape and
– Avoidance –ve reinforcements

In escape (already present),
performing a particular behavior
leads to the removal of an
unpleasant stimulus.
– For example, if a person with
a headache tries a new pain
reliever and the headache
quickly disappears, this
person will probably use the
medication again the next
time a headache occur
PRINCIPLES OF OPERANT CONDITIONING

Another e.g. for escape is
that your father nags at
you until you get tired &
you clean the garage.
– Your (garage cleaning)
response removes the
unpleasant stimulus
(nagging)
– Torture works the same
way… some lawyers or
interrogators use it a lot
– Medical Students learn in
order to avoid failure or
learn in order to obtain
distinction… how do you
classify the statement??

In Avoidance (not
present yet), people
perform a behavior to
avoid unpleasant
consequences.
– For example, drivers
may take side streets
to avoid congested
intersections,
– citizens may pay their
taxes to avoid fines
and penalties,
– and students may do
their homework to
avoid detention.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS –
Reinforcements (+ve & -ve)

+ve reinforcement
– BEHAVIOUR

Dress well
– CONSEQUENCE

Compliments from loved
ones/ friends

-ve reinforcement
– BEHAVIOUR


– CONSEQUENCE

– FUTURE BEHAVIOUR

Dressing behaviour
increases
Taking Paracetamol
Paying taxes

Pain removed
Avoiding finds/ prosecution
– FUTURE BEHAVIOUR


Para taking behaviour
increases
Tax paying increases
How do you distinguish between
Reinforcement and Punishment?
Before then, what is Punishment?
PRINCIPLES OF OPERANT CONDITIONING



Punishment
– Is any event whose
presence decreases the
likelihood that ongoing
behaviour will recur.
– Or any event which when
made contingent on a
behaviour decreases the
likelihood that that
behaviour will recur.
there are two kinds of
punishment, positive and
negative.
Positive punishment
involves reducing a behavior
by delivering an unpleasant
stimulus if the behavior
occurs.
– Parents use positive
punishment when they
spank, scold, or shout at
children for bad behavior.
Societies use positive
punishment when they fine
or imprison people who
break the law. (As if there
are no rule in the universities
!!)
 Negative punishment,
also called omission,
– involves reducing a
behavior by removing a
pleasant stimulus if the
behavior occurs.
– Parents’ tactics of
grounding teenagers or
taking away various
privileges because of bad
behavior are examples of
negative punishment.

– Is punishment an effective
means of controlling
behaviour?
PRINCIPLES OF OPERANT CONDITIONING


Experiments have shown 
that, when used
properly, punishment can
be a powerful and
effective method for
reducing behavior.
There are however some

disadvantages;
Punishment may eliminate
desirable behaviors along
with undesirable ones.
– For example, a child who is
scolded for making an error in
the classroom may not raise
his or her hand again.
May sometimes only minimize
it and not eliminate it (e.g.
Drivers & highway police
patrols).
For these and other reasons,
many psychologists
recommend that punishment
be used to control behavior
only when there is no realistic
– become angry,
aggressive, or have
other negative emotional

reactions.
– Does not teach the right
behaviour
– May have some negative
physical problems (hurt)
alternative.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN
REINFORMENT AND PUNISHMENT
 REINFORCEMENT
–Whether positive
or negative
results in an
increase in
behaviour.
 PUNISHMENT
–Whether
negative or
positive results
in decrease in
behaviour
PRINCIPLES CONT’D; …SHAPING
 Shaping is a reinforcement
technique that is used to teach
animals or people behaviors that
they have never performed before.
– The method (Successive
approximation) is used
whereby the teacher begins by
reinforcing a response the
learner can perform easily, and
then gradually requires more
and more difficult responses
– For example, to teach a rat to
press a lever that is over its
head, the trainer can first
reward any upward head
movement, then an upward
movement of at least one inch,
then two inches, and so on,
until the rat reaches the lever.
– Skinner used it to teach
pigeons to play pin- pong
 Psychologists have used
shaping to teach children
with severe mental
retardation
– to speak by first rewarding
any sounds they make, and
then gradually requiring
sounds that more and more
closely resemble the words
of the teacher.
 Animal trainers at circuses
and theme parks use
shaping to teach
– elephants to stand on one
leg,
– tigers to balance on a ball, &
– killer whales and dolphins to
jump through hoops.
PRINCIPLES CONT’D; …SHAPING
STIMULUS GENERALIZATION,
DISCRIMINATION &
EXTINCTION
SAME AS IN CLASSICAL
CONDITIONING … PLEASE
READ !!!
APPLICATION OF OPERANT
CONDITIONING

Operant conditioning techniques have practical
applications in many areas of human life.



Parents who understand the basic principles of
operant conditioning can reinforce their children’s
appropriate behaviors and punish inappropriate ones,
and they can use generalization and discrimination
techniques to teach which behaviors are appropriate
in particular situations.
In the classroom, many teachers reinforce good
academic performance with small rewards or
privileges.
Companies have used it to improve attendance,
productivity, and job safety among their employees.
APPLICATION OF OPERANT CONDITIONING

Behavior therapists use shaping techniques to
teach basic job skills to adults with mental
retardation.
Therapists use reinforcement techniques to teach selfcare skills to people with severe mental illnesses, such
as schizophrenia,
 and use punishment and extinction to reduce
aggressive and antisocial behaviors by these individuals.


Psychologists also use operant conditioning techniques
to treat drug addictions, stuttering, sexual disorders,
marital problems, impulsive spending, eating
disorders, and many other behavioral problems
APPLICATION OF OPERANT
CONDITIONING
Behavior Modification, psychological methods for
treating maladjustment and for changing
observable behavior patterns.
 A landmark event for behavior modification took
place when Pavlov's conditioning principles were
extended to humans.


In 1920 the American psychologists John B. Watson
and Rosalie Rayner reported an experimental study in
which an 11-month-old baby who had previously
played with a white laboratory rat was conditioned to
be fearful of the rat by associating a loud noise with
the animal, a process known as pairing.
APPLICATION OF OPERANT
CONDITIONING
The psychologist Mary Cover Jones later
performed experiments designed to reduce
already established fears in children.
 She found two methods particularly effective:




(1) associating a feared object with a different
stimulus capable of arousing a positive reaction, and
(2) placing the child who feared a certain object with
other children who did not.
This method is in use today by lots and lots of
therapists
APPLICATION OF LEARNING THEORIES



Psychologists questioned the  Systematic desensitization,
effectiveness of
 attempts to treat disturbances
psychotherapy for treating
having identifiable sources,
disturbed young adults,
such as a paralyzing fear of
especially those with
closed spaces.
disabling fear reactions.
 This method usually involves
To deal with anxiety
 Drawing up a hierarchy of
disturbances, they devised
fears
treatment procedures based
 training the individual to relax
in the while the patient
on Pavlov's classicalimagines the fear-producing
conditioning model.
stimuli.
Among them are
 The therapist assumes that
 systematic desensitization,
the anxiety reaction will be
replaced gradually with the
 Aversion therapy, and
new relaxation response; this
 Biofeedback
is called reciprocal inhibition.

…classical
APPLICATION OF LEARNING THEORIES

Aversion therapy is
used to break disabling
bad habits.
An aversive stimulus,
such as an electric
shock, is given together
with the “bad habit,”
such as an alcoholic
drink.
 Repeated pairings result
in changing the values
of such stimuli from
positive attraction to
repulsion… operant


Biofeedback is most often
used in treating disturbed
behavior that has a physical
basis.



It provides an individual with
information about an ongoing
physiological process such as
blood pressure or heartbeat
rate.
By the use of a mechanical
device (machine), indications of
moment-to-moment variations
in these bodily functioning can
be observed and monitored by
the individual.
The therapist may provide
some reward for desirable
changes, such as a decrease in
blood pressure… classical
APPLICATION OF OPERANT CONDITIONING


Applied behavior analysis
is used to develop
educational and treatment
techniques for individuals
people in need
Example of these
individuals may include


retarded or disturbed
children in a school or
residential setting,
or adults in a psychiatric
hospital or rehabilitation
center.

Five essential steps must be
considered:





(1) deciding what the individual
can do to ameliorate the
problem;
(2) devising a program to
weaken undesirable behavior and
strengthen desirable substitute
behavior;
(3) carrying out the treatment
program according to behavioral
principles;
(4) keeping careful and objective
records; and
(5) altering the program if
progress can thereby be
improved.
ASSIGNMENTS

Compare classical and operant
conditionings

Summarize the Cognitive views/
interpretations of Learning theories
SHAPING & CHAINING

CHAINING BEHAVIOUR


To produce more complex
sequence of behaviour, say to
produce a whole sequence of
behaviors, Psychologists use a
procedure called chaining. The
process is similar to shaping
what the trainer does is this;
First, the animal learns the
final behaviour for some
reinforcements; then it learns
the next- to- last behaviour,
which is reinforced by the
opportunity to perform the
final behaviour. And so on.
 A simplified example of
response chaining is provided
by Barnabus, a rat trained by
psychologists Pierrel and
Sherman, (1963) at Brown
university.



By carefully working from the
last response to the first,
Barnabus was trained to
make an ever-longer chain of
responses to obtain a single
food pellet.
When in top form, Barnabus
was able to











climb a spiral staircase,
cross a narrow bridge,
climb a ladder,
pull a toy car with chain,
get into the car,
pedal it to a second staircase,
climb the staircase,
wriggle through a tube,
climb onto an elevator and
descend to a platform,
press a lever to receive a food
pellet, and…start all over.
•COMPARISON OF CLASSICAL & OPERANT CONDITIONING
CLASSICAL CONDITION
OPERANT CONDITION
1.Nature of Response
Involuntary, reflex
Spontaneous Voluntary
2. Reinforcement
Occurs
before
response Occurs after response
(conditioned stimulus paired (Response is followed by
with UCS)
reinforcing stimulus or
events.
3. Role of Learner
Passive (Response is elicited Active
by US)
4. Nature of Leaning
Neutral stimulus becomes a C. Probability of making a
S through association with an response is altered by
UCS.
consequence that follows
it.
SUPERSTITIOUS BEHAVIOUR


Reinforcement affects not
only the last response we are
interested in, but also other
responses occurring shortly
before.
This helps account for
learning of many human
superstitions.


If a golfer taps her club on
the ground three times and
then hits an unusually fine
shot, the success of the shot
reinforces not the correct
swing but also the three
taps.
It happens in other sporting
activities as well.


During operant training,
animals often develop similar
unnecessary responses.


If Kotoko/ Hearts went for
Juju and they won, they are
likely to go for another one
before a crucial encounter in
which they wish to win
If a rat scratches its ear just
before its bar press, it may
continue to scratch its ear
before ensuring bar press.
In this case, the bar press is
all that is needed to produce
food, but the animal may
continue to “superstitiously”
scratch its ear each time, as
if this were also necessary.
OBSERVATIONAL
LEARNING
OTHER NAMES - VICARIOUS /
IMITATIONAL/ SOCIAL LEARNING
OBSERVATIONAL/ SOCIAL
LEARNING
People learn a large
portion of what they
know through
observation.
 Learning by observation
differs from classical and
operant conditioning
because


it does not require direct
personal experience with
stimuli, reinforcers, or
punishers.
OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING- CONT’D


Learning by observation
involves simply watching
the behavior of another
person, called a model, and
later imitating the model’s
behaviour.
Both children and adults
learn a great deal through
observation and imitation.
Young children learn
language, social skills,
habits, fears, and many
other everyday behaviors by
observing their parents and
older children.
 Many people learn
academic, athletic, and
musical skills by observing
and then imitating a
teacher.


Albert Bandura, was a
pioneer in the study of
observational learning.
According to him, this type of
learning plays an important
role in a child’s personality
development.
 Bandura found evidence that
traits such as honesty
industriousness, self-control,
aggressiveness, and
impulsiveness could be
learned by children from mere
observation
 Psychologists once thought
that only human beings could
learn by observation. They
now know that many kinds of
animals (birds, cats, dogs,
rodents, and primates) can
learn by observing other
members of their species***.

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING –
Any research evidence?
BANDURA’S EXPERIMENT
BANDURA’S RESEARCH


In one experiment, a
preschool child worked on a
drawing while a television
set showed an adult
behaving aggressively
toward a large inflated Bobo
doll (a clown doll that
bounces back up when
knocked down).
The adult pummeled*** the
doll with a mallet, kicked it,
flung it in the air, sat on it,
and beat it in the face,
while yelling such remarks
as "Sock him in the nose …
Kick him … Pow!"
BANDURA’S RESEARCH
The child was then left in another room filled
with interesting toys, including a Bobo doll.
 The experimenters observed the child through
one-way glass.
RESULTS;
 Compared with children who witnessed a

 nonviolent
adult model and
 those not exposed to any model,
 children who witnessed the aggressive display were
much more likely to show aggressive behaviors
toward the Bobo doll, and they often imitated the
model's exact behaviors and hostile words. Picture?
BANDURA’S RESEARCH
A VARIANT OF BANDURA’S RESEARCH

In a variant of the original
experiment, Bandura and
colleagues examined the
effect of observed
consequences on learning.

They showed four-year-old
children one of three films of
an adult acting violently
toward a Bobo doll.
 In one version of the film,
the adult was praised for
his or her aggressive
behavior and
REWARDED***
 In another version, the
adult was scolded,
spanked, and warned not
to behave that way again.
In a third version, the adult
was neither rewarded nor
punished.
After viewing the film, each
child was left alone in a room
that contained a Bobo doll and
other toys.
Many children imitated the
adult’s violent behaviors, but
children who saw the adult
punished imitated the behaviors
less often than children who
saw the other films.
When the researchers promised
the children a reward if they
could copy the adult’s behavior,
All three groups of children
showed large and equal
amounts of violent behavior
toward the Bobo doll.





BANDURA’S RESEARCH - conclusion

Bandura concluded that
 even
those children who did not see the adult
model receive a reward had learned through
observation,
 but these children (especially those who saw the
model being punished) would not display what they
had learned until they expected a reward for doing
so.

The term latent learning (Morris & Maesto;
Potential behaviour) describes cases in which
an individual learns a new behavior but does
not perform this behavior until there is the
possibility of obtaining a reward.
BANDURA’S THEORY OF IMITATION

According to Bandura’s
influential theory of
imitation, also called social
learning theory, four
factors are necessary for a
person to learn through
observation and then
imitate a behavior:
attention,
 retention,
 reproduction, and
 Motivation - important.




First, the learner must pay
attention to the crucial
details of the model’s
behavior.**

The second factor is
retention—the learner must be
able to retain all of this
information in memory until it
is time to use it.***
Third, the learner must have
the physical skills and
coordination needed for
reproduction of the
behavior.****
Finally, the learner must have
the motivation (reward) to
imitate the model.

That is, learners are more
likely to imitate a behavior if
they expect it to lead to some
type of reward or
reinforcement.*****
Theory of Generalized Imitation

Similarly, when children
imitate the behaviors of
people will imitate the
friends, sports stars, or
behaviors of others if the
celebrities, this imitation
situation is similar to
may be reinforced—by
cases in which their
the approval of their
imitation was reinforced
peers, if not their
in the past.
parents.
 For example, when a
young child imitates the
 Through the process of
behavior of a parent or an
generalization, the child
older sibling, this imitation
will start to imitate these
is often reinforced with
models in other
smiles, praise, or other
situations.
forms of approval.
**This theory states that

COMPARING BANDURA’S & IMITATION
THEORIES

Whereas Bandura’s theory
emphasizes the imitator’s
thought processes and
motivation, the theory of
generalized imitation relies
on two basic principles of
operant conditioning;



reinforcement and
generalization.
Factors Affecting
Imitation
 the model’s behavior
must have been
reinforced & not
expected consequences to
the learner. (reward?)**
 characteristics of the
model
 (pleasant and attentive
to them)
Likely to imitate models who
have
 substantial influence over
their lives, such as parents
and teachers,
 and those who seem
admired and successful,
such as celebrities and
athletes. Effect of TV!!


SOCIAL LEARNING & EFFECT OF TV


Both children and adults are
more likely to imitate models
who are similar to them in
sex, age, and background.
For this reason, when
behavior therapists use
modeling to teach new
behaviors or skills, they try
to use models who are
similar to the learners.

EFFECT OF TV

In modern society, television
provides many powerful
models for children and
abundant opportunities for
observational learning.
Many parents are
concerned about the
behaviors their children
can observe on TV.
 Many television
programs include
depictions of

sex,
 violence,
 drug and
 alcohol use, and vulgar
language—behaviors that
most parents do not want
their children to imitate.

SOCIAL LEARNING & EFFECT OF TV



A number of experiments,
both inside and outside the
laboratory, have found
evidence that viewing
television violence is related
to increased aggression in
children.
Some psychologists have
criticized this research,
maintaining that the
evidence is inconclusive.

Most psychologists now
believe, however, that
watching violence on
television can sometimes
lead to increased
aggressiveness in children.



+VE EFFECTS
The effects of television on
children’s behaviors are not
all negative. Educational
programs
opportunity to learn
letters of the alphabet,
words,
numbers,
 and social skills.



Some important programs
also show


people who solve problems
and
resolve differences through
cooperation and discussion
rather than through
aggression and hostility.
FACTORS INFLUENCING LEARNING ABILITY





A variety of factors determine an
individual’s ability to learn and the
speed of learning.
Four important factors are the
individual’s
 age,
 motivation,
 prior experience, and
intelligence.
In addition, certain developmental
and learning disorders can impair a
person’s ability to learn.
As children grow, they become
capable of learning more and more
sophisticated types of information.
Swiss developmental psychologist
Jean Piaget theorized that children
go through four different stages of
cognitive development.



the sensorimotor stage (from birth
to about 2 years of age), infants
use their senses to learn about
their bodies and about objects in
their immediate environments.
In the preoperational stage (about
2 to 7 years of age), children can
think about objects and events
that are not present, but their
thinking is primitive and selfcentered, and they have difficulty
seeing the world from another
person’s point of view
In the concrete operational stage
(about 7 to 11 years of age),
children learn general rules about
the physical world, such as the fact
that the amount of water remains
the same if it is poured between
containers of different shapes.
FACTORS INFLUENCING LEARNING ABILITY
Finally, in the formal
operational stage
(ages 11 and up),
children become
capable of logical
and abstract
thinking.
 Adults continue to
learn new knowledge
and skills throughout
their lives


Age-related illnesses
that involve a
deterioration of
mental functioning,
such as Alzheimer’s
disease, can severely
reduce a person’s
ability to learn.
FACTORS INFLUENCING LEARNING ABILITY



Learning is usually most
efficient and rapid when the
learner is motivated and
attentive.
Behavioral studies with both
animals and people have
shown that one effective way
to maintain the learner’s
motivation is to deliver
strong and immediate
reinforcers for correct
responses.
However, other research has
indicated that very high
levels of motivation are not
ideal.
Psychologists believe an
intermediate level of
motivation is best for many
learning tasks.
 If a person’s level of
motivation is too low, he
or she may give up
quickly.
 At the other extreme, a
very high level of
motivation may cause such
stress and distraction that
the learner cannot focus on
the task.

LEARNING ABILITY FACTORS – PRIOR EXPERIENCE
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How well a person learns a
new task may depend
heavily on the person’s
previous experience with
similar tasks.
Just as a response can
transfer from one stimulus to
another through the process
of generalization, people can
learn new behaviors more
quickly if the behaviors are
similar to those they can
already perform.
This phenomenon is called
positive transfer.
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Someone who has learned to
drive one car, for example,
will be able to drive other
cars, even though the feel
and handling of the cars will
differ.
In cases of negative transfer,
however, a person’s prior
experience can interfere with
learning something new.

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For instance, after memorizing
one shopping list, it may be
more difficult to memorize a
different shopping list.
Or reversing a car with a trailer
LEARNING ABILITY FACTORS – INTELLIGENCE

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Psychologists have long
known that people differ
individually in their level of
intelligence, in their ability to
learn and understand.
In the 1980s American
psychologist Howard Gardner
proposed that there are many
different forms of intelligence,
 including linguistic,
 logical-mathematical,
 musical, and interpersonal
intelligence.
 A person may easily learn
skills in some categories but
have difficulty learning in
others.
 Learning and
Developmental Disorders
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Learning and developmental
disorders usually first appear in
childhood and often persist into
adulthood.
Children with attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
may not be able to sit still long
enough to focus on specific tasks.
Children with autism typically
have difficulty speaking,
understanding language, and
interacting with people.
People with mental retardation,
characterized primarily by very
low intelligence, may have
trouble mastering basic living
tasks and academic skills.
Children with learning or
developmental disorders often
receive special education tailored
to their individual needs and
abilities.