Analysis of Three Theories of Learning: Social Learning, Classical, and Operant Conditioning

Leaning theories is an idea or concept that explain how human understand, learn and acquire knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes. This way of explaining allows you to gain classroom experiences and how can make an improvement or impact children's learning. Theory is a way of thinking about how we find out about things that we didn't know about before. There are 6 main theories which is, Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Social Learning Theory, Social Constructivism, Multiple Intelligences and Brain-Based Learning. In this task, we will explain and discuss the three type of learning theories, Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning and Social learning Theory, and each theory has a describe of what it is, the classical studies based on and examples of real life which explain the theory.

Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning is one of behaviorism learning theory and is a form of learning, and it’s a learning prosses that discovered by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian Physiologist. The classical conditioning is about a stimulus that presented in order to get a response. Classical conditioning is a reflexive or automatic type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus. This theory is about that conditioned stimulus becomes associated with an unrelated unconditioned stimulus, in order to produce a behavioral response known as a conditioned response.

Pavlov's dog experiments played a critical role in the discovery of one of the most important concepts in psychology. These famous experiments led to the discovery of classical conditioning. Its impact on our understanding of how learning take place as well as development of the school of behavioral psychology. Based on his observations, Pavlov suggested that the salivation was a learned response. The dogs were responding to the sight of the research assistants' white lab coats, which the animals had come to associate with the presentation of food. Unlike the salivary response to the presentation of food, which is an unconditioned reflex, salivating to the expectation of food is a conditioned reflex.

Pavlov then focused on investigating exactly how these conditioned responses are learned or acquired. In a series of experiments, Pavlov set out to provoke a conditioned response to a previously neutral stimulus. He opted to use food as the unconditioned stimulus, or the stimulus that evokes a response naturally and automatically. The sound of a metronome was chosen to be the neutral stimulus. The dogs would first be exposed to the sound of the ticking metronome, and then the food was immediately presented.

After several conditioning trials, Pavlov noted that the dogs began to salivate after hearing the metronome. "A stimulus which was neutral in and of itself had been superimposed upon the action of the inborn alimentary reflex, " Pavlov wrote of the results. "We observed that, after several repetitions of the combined stimulation, the sounds of the metronome had acquired the property of stimulating salivary secretion. " In other words, the previously neutral stimulus (the metronome) had become what is known as a conditioned stimulus that then provoked a conditioned response (salivation). We can use or apply this theory in our life. As a teacher will be, I can apply classical conditioning in my class by creating a positive classroom environment to help my students overcome anxiety, worry and fear. Pairing an anxiety-provoking situation, For example, performing in an group with pleasant surroundings helps the student learn new associations. Instead of feeling anxious and tense in these situations, the child will learn to stay relaxed and calm.

Another example of Classical Conditioning : A few days ago I was in a car with my boyfriend (he was driving), and all the sudden he goes, “Ugh, there’s a police car right next to us. ” I asked him why he was complaining even though I already knew why, and he tells me seeing a police car just makes him so nervous and sometimes even frustrated. About two years ago we used to have a long-distance relationship (he lived in Seattle and I went to school at SCC), so when he came to visit over the weekend he had to drive 5 hours to Spokane and then 5 hours back to Seattle. And during that year he got a few speeding tickets, and now a sight of a police car makes him feel nervous and uncomfortable. I would say it’s a quite strong conditioning too because you can become conditioned to it just after a single or a few trials, kind of like a conditioned taste aversion. He hasn’t got any speeding tickets since he moved to Spokane (no need to drive 4-5 hours straight!), but he still feels uncomfortable around police cars.

Social learning Theory

The theory of social learning in Bandura assumes that people learn from each other through observation and imitation, and because they include motivation, memory and attention, they have been called a bridge between behavioral and cognitive theories. The social learning theory combines cognitive learning theory (assuming learning with psychological factors) and behavioral learning theory (assuming that learning depends on environmental responses). The Pandora psychologist combined these two theories and concluded four learning requirements: environmental observation, cognitive retention, cognitive attainment and motivation. The approach is called social learning theory.

Bobo Doll, through this experience Bandura took a group of children and make theme watch a video about women hit the Bobo Doll after watching this video Bandura took a child to the corner and gave him a set of games, including this doll to see whether the child will do like the woman or not, In fact, the child abused Bobo's physical doll, such as kicking, hitting and throwing.

Real life situation: My little brother Zayed started playing video games about guns and fighters. He started buying guns and playing them at home. He also beat the other brother like they do in video games and when he does not find a pistol in front of him he takes things like books, remote control, phone and other things and imagines it A pistol is taking out the sounds of pistol shots from his mouth. - Also he when all members of my family pray, he do like them and pray like them even he don’t know what he should read of Quran but he do like us when we pray.

Operant Conditioning

It is the behavior that is governed by the subsequent stimuli of the school of Skinner on the relationship between the stimulant and the response to the same physical and material result on the individual and then realized and the procedural condition is summarized that the theory that if they have a happy result, such as registration or reward is more likely to occur, but if it may be right.

His experience on mouse behavior: Where a hungry mouse was placed in a box that could not be seen from the inside, it was observed that the mouse tried to be more? Its speed as a result of gaining experience.

His experience on the dove's behavior: Where he was putting two tablets, one red under the food, and the other green under which nothing. The pigeon wandered around for food and found it under the red disk, but if you clicked the green disk, you would not find anything

We draw from the following:

• The pigeon was eventually going to the red disc directly because it was accompanied by reinforcement.
• The pigeon was ignoring the green disk because there is no enhancement in the sense of extinguishing.

Example from real life: For example in university presentations are a thing that needed in every subject, so when you prepare yourself to present and you’re excited to show your presentation, there are two things may happen to you be during or after, First Applause and encourage from students or you may Exposure to criticism and ridicule, if the student is laughed at or criticized, future presentations are likely to be nothing but a formality.

In conclusion, we have evaluate each theory, for social learning theory I think it is a good theory and at the same time bad, and because the theory focusing on imitate, good because the child will imitate the correct behavior or the good attitude that is being put in front of him, either bad because the child will imitate the wrong behavior like what I mentioned earlier about the experience of Bandura in the child who heat the doll. Classical theory has a positive and negative situation, because we can't apply this theory on humans or animals and finally operant conditioning theory, and Operant Conditioning theory are very useful and effective in real life, and it could help the children to develop and improve their behavior, furthermore it’s will help them to be more.