Psychology - What Classical conditioning, operant conditioning

Psychology Question

Formatting your Writing Assignment:

Introduction: Write what Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning mean to you in your own words. 

Paragraph 2: Write a paragraph explaining an example of classical conditioning in your own life.

Identify something you learned through classical conditioning. (Remember, this will be something that is an automatic reaction.)

Describe what you learned. For example, a cat who has been abused may flinch whenever someone nearby raises their hand. The cat learned to react that way.

• Describe how you learned this automatic reaction and label each part (i.e., UCS, UCR, CS, CR) of the classical conditioning process. Continuing the above example, when the cat was hit (UCS) it would have curled up to protect its vital organs (UCR). The cat didn’t learn that behavior; it’s just instinct. The cat learned that when a person raises their hand above the cat that person is about to hit the cat. That makes the raised hand a CS because it indicates the UCS (hitting) is coming. So now the cat prepares for being hit by cowering when it sees a raised hand (CS). That makes cowering the CR because it is a reaction to the CS.

Paragraph 3:  Write a paragraph explaining an example of operant conditioning in your own life.

• Identify something you learned through operant conditioning. Remember, this will be something for which you were either rewarded or punished as a consequence of the behavior. 

Describe what you learned. For example, a puppy may learn not to jump on the furniture because its owner squirts it with water whenever it jumps on the furniture.

Describe how you learned to do or not do the behavior and indicate whether you learned through positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, or negative punishment. Continuing the above example, when the puppy jumps on the furniture it gets squirted with water, which it doesn’t like. Eventually, the puppy associates getting squirted with jumping on the furniture and stops doing it to avoid getting squirted. This would be an example of positive punishment. It’s positive because squirting the puppy is adding something to the situation. It’s punishment because the puppy doesn’t like the consequence and so it stops the behavior.

Paragraph 4:  Write a paragraph explaining an example of observational learning in your own life.

• Identify something you learned through observational learning. Remember, this will be something you learned to do by watching someone else do it. Possibly also you would have seen that person get rewarded or punished for the behavior. For example, an octopus may learn to open a jar to get food by watching another octopus do it.
• Describe how you learned to do or not do the behavior. For example, the octopus in the above example was unable to open a jar to get to food. Then it was placed in a situation where it could watch another octopus access the food (a reward) by opening the jar. The octopus watched once or twice and then imitated what it had seen. It opened the jar and accessed the food.