FISH Psychology 🐟 咸鱼心理学 🐟

What is Social Learning Theory? Social learning theory was first developed by Albert Bandura which suggests that people can acquire new behaviour through observing, modelling, and imitating others. This theory takes the interaction between environmental and cognitive factors into consideration on how it influences human learning and behaviour. In conjunction with the theory, Bandura and colleagues conducted an experiment to study learned behaviour in children and found that solely through observing the adults’ behaviour particularly aggressive behaviour, children would imitate and carry out the observed behaviour. This experiment not only indicated that aggressive behaviour can be learned, behaviour can also be learned through observation and imitation. The Bobo Doll Experiment The Bobo Doll experiment is a study of social learning theory. In the experiment, 76 children (aged 3 to 6 years old) were recruited with an equal number of females and males. The number of children was distr...

What is Operant Conditioning? Operant conditioning, which is also known as instrumental conditioning, is a method of learning that heavily relies on reward and punishment . Reward is used to increase the likelihood of the reoccurrence of behaviour, whereas punishment is used to decrease it. -- Origin of Operant Conditioning The concept of operant conditioning is based on Thorndike’s Law of Effect , where he coined this term after learning that animals are able to learn through trial and error. Thorndike’s Puzzle Box (Thorndike’s Cat) Thorndike studied animal learning using his cat and set up his experiment with a puzzle box as shown as below: He placed the cat in the puzzle box, observed 👀 and recorded 📝 the time taken for the cat to escape from the puzzle box. Once the cat has successfully escaped, he will then place the cat back in the same box and rerun the experiment until the time taken ⏳ for the cat to escape has reached its optimal point 💯. When the cat is placed in the box...

What is Classical Conditioning?  Classical conditioning is a form of associative learning between an automatic stimulus and a specific stimulus. * Classical conditioning would be referred to as CC in the remaining text. * How does Classical Conditioning work? Before we start, there are a few terms to know about: Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) - Any stimulus that will always and naturally elicit a response. Unconditioned Response (UCR) - Any response that always and naturally occurs upon the presentation of the UCS. Neutral Stimulus (NS) - Any stimulus that does not naturally elicit a response associated with the UCR. Conditioned Stimulus (CS) - Any stimulus that will, after association with a UCS, cause a conditioned response (CR) when present to a subject by itself. Conditioned Response (CR) - Any response that occurs upon the presentation of CS. So how do CC works? It involves presenting a neutral stimulus before an unconditioned stimulus (that produces an automatic, unconditioned ...

What is Behavioural Psychology? Behavioural psychology (also known as behaviourism) suggests that all behaviours are acquired through i nteracting with the environment , and conditioning , which is a learning process that is able to modify a response towards a given object or event. Successful conditioning would result in an increased frequency or predictability of a particular response in a given environment as a result of reinforcement. 3 Main Theories: 1. Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning Proposed by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, in the 1890s. It is a process of learning between two independent stimuli, where an automatic, conditioned response is paired with a specific stimulus. 2. Operant (Instrumental) conditioning Inspired by Thorndike's Law of Effect, operant conditioning was first proposed by Skinner. It suggests that when a behaviour is followed by reinforcement (reward), it is more likely to occur again in the future, and vice versa if the behaviour is followed by...