9 sample essays on learning theories topics - exam questions worth 8 marks each.
including theories, treatments for phobias, classic and contemporary study, key question, Bandura's 1965 study evaluation.
● Evaluate classical conditioning (8)
One strength of classical conditioning (C.C.) is that it is scientifically
credible as every step in the conditioning process is observable and can
be measured. For example, in Pavlov’s experiment with dogs, the dog’s
reflex behaviour of salivating when the food was in their mouths and after
pairing food with a metronome was measured to see if the dog was
successfully conditioned. This means that C.C. is a valid theory for
explaining how we associate a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned
stimulus and produce a conditioned response, hence it can be
scientifically tested. On the other hand, this research was done on 35 dogs
over a period of 25 years, and generalising the findings from dogs to
humans may be problematic as humans have a different anatomy,
physiology and day to day experiences. For example, humans don’t seek
food all the time and there might be other factors that motivate them just
as strongly and conditioning them. This means that C.C. might only be
applied to laboratory animals.
One weakness of this theory is that it is only based on laboratory animals
which caused unnecessary suffering to animals. For example, Pavlov
(1927) stripped the dog into a harness and kept it still, with a tube
attached to its mouth that collected drops of saliva away into a measuring
bottle. This might have harmed the dog as it made them uncomfortable,
suggesting that the experiment was unethical. This means that the
, 2
research might have caused unnecessary harm as there may have been
other ways to test C.C. without placing dogs in uncomfortable positions.
However, the potential benefits of this research which are how animals
associate food with a sound might explain learning through association
and may hence outweigh the risks to the research animals. This is
because the findings may be used to apply the principles of C.C. to the
real world to treat undesirable behaviour such as addictions and phobias
through aversion therapy and systematic desensitisation which have been
proven to be somewhat successful to humans. These benefits to humans
may outweigh the unethical experimental procedures on research animals.
In conclusion, C.C. is a scientifically credible theory that can be measured
and tested by other researchers to get consistent results and can be apple
to the real world to treat phobias and addictions, even if the research
animals used might have been potentially harmed, but their risks were
outweighed by the potential benefits from this kind of research.
● Evaluate operant conditioning (8)
One strength of operant conditioning is that it is scientifically credible.
This is because every step in the conditioning process is observable. For
instance, Skinner’s box demonstrated that the rat was negatively
reinforced to press the lever after the light was switched on before the
unpleasant electric shock was delivered, and was positively reinforced to
press the lever after receiving a food pellet in another variation, after
learning that the lever was a means of receiving a primary reinforcer. This
makes it possible to test the theory in a scientific way. However, this
research was mostly conducted on rats, therefore the results may not be
generalised to humans since they have a different anatomy, physiology
and day-to-day experiences. For example, humans are not strongly
motivated to find food all the time and can stop repeating a certain
behaviour if they are told that they won’t receive a reward the second time,
but rats can’t comprehend language so they press the lever a long time
after the food has stopped coming. This means that the findings from
animal research can only be applied to rats as humans have complex
brain processes and motives driving them as strongly and conditioning
them.
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