Learning Principles

Why This Matters

Learning principles form the backbone of behavioral psychology and show up repeatedly on the AP Psychology exam—from multiple-choice questions testing your knowledge of Pavlov's dogs to FRQs asking you to apply reinforcement schedules to real-world scenarios. Understanding these concepts helps you connect the dots between classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and cognitive approaches to learning, which together explain how organisms acquire, maintain, and change behaviors over time.

You're being tested on more than definitions here. The exam wants you to distinguish between association-based learning, consequence-based learning, and observation-based learning—and to recognize when each applies. Don't just memorize that Skinner used a box or that Bandura had a Bobo doll. Know what mechanism each principle demonstrates and why it matters for understanding behavior. That's what earns you points.

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Learning Through Association

Classical conditioning explains how we learn to connect stimuli that occur together. When a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with something that naturally triggers a response, the neutral stimulus eventually triggers that response on its own.

Classical Conditioning

• Involuntary responses are learned through association—a neutral stimulus (like a bell) becomes a conditioned stimulus after repeated pairing with an unconditioned stimulus (like food)
• Pavlov's dog experiments demonstrated the core mechanism: dogs salivated to a tone after it was paired with food presentation
• Key processes include acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, and generalization—know these terms for distinguishing how conditioned responses form, fade, return, and spread to similar stimuli

Habituation

• Decreased response to repeated stimuli—this is the simplest form of learning, allowing organisms to ignore irrelevant environmental noise
• Different from sensory adaptation, which is physiological; habituation is a learned reduction in behavioral response
• Serves an adaptive function by freeing cognitive resources to focus on novel or threatening stimuli in the environment

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Learning Through Consequences

Operant conditioning focuses on how behaviors are strengthened or weakened based on what follows them. The consequences of our actions—whether rewarding or punishing—shape the likelihood that we'll repeat those behaviors.

Operant Conditioning

• Behavior is shaped by consequences—reinforcement increases behavior frequency while punishment decreases it
• B.F. Skinner's operant chamber (Skinner box) allowed precise measurement of how animals respond to different consequence schedules
• Schedules of reinforcement (fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, fixed-interval, variable-interval) predict how consistently and persistently organisms will perform behaviors

Reinforcement

• Positive reinforcement adds something desirable (giving a treat) to increase behavior; negative reinforcement removes something aversive (turning off an annoying alarm) to increase behavior
• Both types increase behavior—this is the key distinction from punishment; "positive" and "negative" refer to adding or subtracting, not good or bad
• Variable-ratio schedules produce the highest response rates and greatest resistance to extinction—think slot machines and social media notifications

Punishment

• Positive punishment adds something aversive (a speeding ticket) to decrease behavior; negative punishment removes something desirable (taking away phone privileges)
• Less effective than reinforcement for long-term behavior change and can produce unwanted side effects like fear, anxiety, and aggression
• Effectiveness depends on timing and consistency—immediate, predictable punishment works better than delayed or inconsistent consequences

Shaping

• Reinforces successive approximations toward a target behavior—essential for teaching complex behaviors that wouldn't occur spontaneously
• Used in animal training and therapy—from teaching pigeons to play ping-pong to helping children with autism develop communication skills
• Requires clear criteria for what counts as progress; the trainer must know exactly which steps to reinforce along the way

Extinction

• Occurs when reinforcement stops—in operant conditioning, a behavior that's no longer reinforced will gradually decrease in frequency
• Spontaneous recovery means the behavior may temporarily reappear after a rest period, even without reinforcement
• Works in both classical and operant conditioning—in classical, the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus; in operant, the behavior produces no consequence

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Learning Through Observation and Cognition

Not all learning requires direct experience. Cognitive approaches emphasize that mental processes—watching others, forming mental maps, and having sudden insights—play crucial roles in how we learn.

Observational Learning

• Learning by watching and imitating others—no direct reinforcement required for the observer to acquire new behaviors
• Bandura's Bobo doll experiment showed children imitated aggressive behavior they observed in adults, even without being reinforced for it
• Four components: attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation—you must notice the model, remember the behavior, be capable of performing it, and have reason to do so

Latent Learning

• Learning occurs without immediate reinforcement and remains hidden until there's motivation to demonstrate it
• Tolman's maze experiments showed rats formed cognitive maps of mazes even without food rewards—they just didn't show this knowledge until rewards were introduced
• Challenges pure behaviorism by demonstrating that learning and performance are not the same thing; internal cognitive processes matter

Cognitive Learning

• Emphasizes mental processes like thinking, problem-solving, and insight over simple stimulus-response associations
• Insight learning involves sudden "aha!" moments where solutions appear without trial-and-error—demonstrated in Köhler's studies with chimpanzees
• Challenges strict behaviorist views by showing that internal mental representations, not just observable behavior, are essential to understanding learning

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. What do classical conditioning and habituation have in common, and how do they differ in terms of the type of learning involved?

2. A student studies hard and receives an A on their exam. Their parents then remove the student's weekend chores as a reward. What type of consequence is this, and why does it increase studying behavior?

3. Compare and contrast how extinction works in classical conditioning versus operant conditioning—what specifically is being "broken" in each case?

4. Both observational learning and latent learning challenge strict behaviorism. What cognitive factor does each emphasize, and how did Bandura and Tolman demonstrate these concepts?

5. An FRQ asks you to explain how a child might learn to fear dogs. Using classical conditioning terminology, identify the UCS, UCR, CS, and CR in a scenario where a child is bitten by a dog and later fears all dogs.