Overview of Issues and Debates in Learning Theories (Edexcel A-Level Psychology): Revision Notes

Overview of Issues and Debates in Learning Theories

This section examines key issues and debates that arise from learning theories, drawing together themes that apply across classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning theory. These debates help evaluate the strengths and limitations of the learning approach as a whole.

Ethics and socially sensitive research

Use of animals in conditioning research

Research within learning theories frequently involves animals, particularly in conditioning experiments. Rats, birds, dogs, and monkeys have been used to investigate how stimulus-response links form. Laboratory-reared animals have been employed extensively, raising ethical questions about the use of aversive stimuli in research.

Testing concepts like negative reinforcement requires careful consideration. For instance, Skinner's work involved electrifying cage floors that activated when animals pressed a lever. This procedure deliberately exposed animals to aversive stimuli. Conditioning a rat to press a lever for food (where a light or sound signals food availability) is not inherently aversive, but sufficient motivation requires some degree of food restriction before the conditioning trial. This practice contravenes ethical guidelines on food deprivation.

The Little Albert study

Watson and Rayner's 1920 study represents one of the most controversial pieces of research in learning theory. The researchers deliberately distressed Little Albert to condition a phobic response, causing psychological harm. The situation worsened because Albert's mother withdrew him from the study before desensitisation to the white rat could occur. Consequently, we cannot know whether his rat phobia persisted into adulthood, as he died at age six from a childhood illness.

Albert Bandura has also faced criticism on ethical grounds for deliberately exposing children to aggressive models and causing distress when they were told they could not play with toys in a room.

Socially sensitive applications

Treatments based on learning theories can be considered socially sensitive because therapists directly manage clients' behaviour. Aversion therapy, for example, involves associating a behaviour with a negative stimulus, such as taking an emetic drug to cause nausea when smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol. Historically, aversion therapy was used as a treatment for homosexuality, which has negative consequences for individuals and raises concerns about societal judgements regarding acceptable or unacceptable behaviour.

Practical issues in research design and implementation

Generalisability from animal to human studies

The most prominent practical challenge when using animals in conditioning research concerns the generalisability of findings to humans. Whilst humans and animals share the same biological basis for their nervous systems, it can be argued that animals lack self-awareness and would therefore respond very differently from humans in conditioning experiments.

Humans' ability to be aware of being conditioned means they grasp the nature of an experiment's aims and respond accordingly by displaying demand characteristics. This awareness introduces a confounding variable that does not exist in animal studies, limiting the direct application of findings from animal research to human behaviour.

Reductionism

The reductionist nature of learning theories

Classical and operant conditioning explain learned behaviour as a result of stimulus-response connections being formed. These basic units of learned associations combine to explain the acquisition of complex behaviour, representing a highly reductionist approach.

Explaining human behaviour as a set of learned responses simplifies the study of behaviour because each stimulus-response link can be isolated and causation can be established. However, this represents only a partial explanation, as it ignores the role of other factors that affect how and what we learn.

Social learning theory as a partial solution

Bandura's social learning theory partially addresses the limitations of pure behaviourism by incorporating both behavioural and cognitive factors associated with learning through observation and imitation. This provides a more holistic account but still does not capture the full complexity of human behaviour and experience.

Comparisons between explanatory approaches

Learning theories can often explain the same human behaviour through different mechanisms.

For instance, observational learning can explain why someone might begin using heroin, whilst classical and operant conditioning explain why someone would continue using the drug for its rewarding and pleasurable effects.

Psychology as a science

Behaviourism as a scientific paradigm

The behaviourist approach represents psychology's closest approximation to a true paradigm, with the endeavour to be scientific as an underpinning principle. The Behaviourist Manifesto established clear rules about what could and should be studied in a scientific manner.

Behaviourists create testable hypotheses and collect empirical data using objective methods. They are principally concerned with only observable behaviour that can be scientifically studied and objectively recorded (for example, lever pressing). Internal processes and activities such as thinking, perception, and memory cannot be observed or objectively measured; therefore, they should not be studied according to strict behaviourist principles.

Culture and gender

Cultural influences on learned behaviour

Learning theories are based on the role of nurture, which concerns what we learn from our environment rather than what is innate. Different cultures provide different experiences that shape developing humans; specific behaviours familiar to a culture will be observed, and specific behaviours deemed acceptable will be reinforced.

American culture is argued to be more aggressive than other western cultures, which may be explained by aggression being reinforced or observed in role models. Huesmann (1999) found that students in a Detroit high school were more accepting of aggression if they had been born in America, compared to students who emigrated to America, particularly if they emigrated after age 11 years.

Gender socialisation

Learning theories can also explain gender differences. Male and female children are treated very differently by others and strongly socialised according to their gender. Children observe stereotypical male and female behaviour and are encouraged through reinforcement to adopt behaviours appropriate to their assigned gender. Gender-inappropriate behaviour may be ignored or even punished, shaping behaviour to conform to societal expectations.

Nature-nurture debate

Whilst many gender-appropriate behaviours can be attributed to learning, many are determined by biology, in terms of the sex we are born with and the evolution of gender-specific traits, such as male aggression and female nurturing.

The learning theories of classical and operant conditioning lie firmly on the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate, largely because they consider it unscientific to investigate cognitive processes or innate influences on behaviour.

Development of psychological knowledge over time

Learning theories have contributed to a phenomenal wealth of psychological knowledge over more than a century. Much of this knowledge has remained consistent; the principles of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning theory remain the same, but the areas of human life to which learning theories apply have changed.

Behaviourism dominated psychology at the beginning of the 20th century but was overshadowed by the cognitive revolution of the 1950s. Today, behaviourism is used in a more applied manner, known as behaviour analysis. Behaviour analysis applies the principles of learning theories in practical contexts and has been particularly successful in treating autism and other clinical disorders.

Issues of social control

Deterministic principles and manipulation

Learning theories adopt a deterministic stance, proposing that all behaviour can be shaped by environmental forces. This essentially suggests that human behaviour can be manipulated and therefore be subject to social control.

B.F. Skinner, a radical behaviourist, published works discussing how societies could exercise control over their citizens by using schedules of reinforcement. This extreme view is rejected by most and viewed as akin to the biological eugenics proposed by Hitler.

Ethical concerns in therapeutic applications

Learning theories become concerning when considering that numerous psychological therapies employing behaviourist principles manage the behaviour of vulnerable individuals. With power in the hands of the therapist, a client's behaviour is directly and deliberatively altered to conform to what is considered 'normal' or acceptable in society, or to ensure the client's well-being.

Flooding is a therapy that forces people to confront anxiety-provoking situations or objects from which they cannot escape. This treatment is based on the principles of classical conditioning and can be viewed as a distressing form of social control.

Token economy programmes have been employed in prisons to manage prisoners' behaviour, with no actual therapeutic benefit. These programmes can be regarded as a form of social control.

Use of psychological knowledge in society

Learning theories have been applied in many areas of real life to shape desired behaviour:

Education

In schools, teachers often employ a rewards system, such as stars for good work, which positively reinforces behaviour.

Advertising

John Watson moved into advertising and applied learning theory principles to shape consumer behaviour. Classical conditioning is a popular marketing strategy used to associate products with pleasurable feelings for consumers. This could also be regarded as a form of social control because our consumer behaviour is being influenced by companies wishing to make a profit.

Clinical settings

Learning theory principles have been used to treat individuals with anxiety, phobias, autism, eating disorders, and other mental health issues. These applications demonstrate the practical value of learning theories whilst also raising questions about therapeutic power and social control.