Learning - AP Psychology

When Skinner developed the operant conditioning box, it famously became known as the Skinner box. When a stimulus was presented, the box was designed such that a reward (or punishment) could be delivered depending on the subject's reaction to the stimulus. For example, when a light was shown, a mouse could push a lever and receive food.

The Bobo doll experiment serves as a groundbreaking study on aggression and demonstrates that children are able to learn by behavioral observation.

In the Bobo doll experiment, children who observed an adult acting agressively towards a blow up "Bobo doll" toy would emulate and mimic that behavior. This supports the social learning theory developed by Bandura.

Gardner claimed that a person's intelligence could be measured along these eight parameters: linguistic, logic-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. These eight different abilities correspond to three overarching categories of intelligence: the ability to create things of cultural value, problem solving, and the ability to gather knowledge. He informally considers there to be two additional intelligences: existential and pedagogical.

Many criticize Gardner for his lack of evidence to support his theory, as well as potentially confusing the difference between "intelligence" and "ability." Yet he has inspired many to think about intelligence from a less rigid and more holistic point of view.

Learned helplessness occurs when a person believes that they have no power to change their life for the better. Thus, Johnny will also have an external locus of control, defined as believing that fate is controlled by external forces (e.g., luck, other people).

The Flynn Effect refers to an increasing IQ average (by about three to four points) every ten years years. The Flynn Effect is a result of today’s advanced healthcare and improved living conditions. Also, increased emphasis on the importance of education in today’s culture has impacted this rising number.

Bandura's Bobo doll experiment involved children viewing adults act aggressively toward the Bobo doll. When left alone with the Bobo doll, the children acted in the same manner toward the doll as they had observed the adults doing. This supported the idea of children observing, then imitating, a certain behavior, which are two key factors in observational learning.

Hindsight bias refers to a person's tendency to overestimate one's past abilities after gaining new information that the person did not have at the time of acting. Jen gets mad at herself after looking up how to solve the math problem because she now knows how to do it and it seems easy to her in that moment, despite the fact that she did not have this information while taking the test.

Seligman's work on learned helplessness began as a traditional classical conditioning study pairing the ringing of a bell with an electric shock. What surprised Seligman and his team was what occurred in the later part of the study, when the team changed the dogs' environment to give them a chance to escape the area administering the shock: because the dogs had been conditioned to understand that a shock would always follow the bell's ringing, they did not even try to exit the dangerous area. That is to say, they had learned helplessness.

Evolving the theory of behaviorism to include a social component, Albert Bandura introduced the concept of observational learning. He declared that humans are quite capable of learning by observing the sequence of behaviors and consequences in others. For example, if a young lad watches his older brother receive a reprimand from his mother for picking flowers from the flowerbed, he will learn that the same consequences would apply to him if he were to do the same.

Self-efficacy is a concept introduced by Albert Bandura as part of his theory on observational learning. While much of his theory focused on social learning, he also described aspects of learning that involved just the individual. Personal determination and self-knowledge are not Bandurian terms. Reciprocal determinism is a term introduced by Bandura but is associated with the interaction between the individual and the social environment.

Bandura’s experiment demonstrated that children who observe aggressive behavior that is praised or encouraged are more likely to mimic what they see. Scientist reached this conclusion by comparing these aggressive behaviors with the relatively unaggressive behaviors of children who witnessed aggressive actions that were not praised and negatively reinforced.

Context-dependent memory is a theory that suggests that information is optimally remembered when it is recalled in the same place in which it was initially learned. So, this theory suggests that you will do best on an exam when you take it in the same classroom where you learned that information!

The recency effect occurs because there is less time to forget the words at the end of a list, as opposed to words at the beginning or in the middle of a list.

The sensory store is the first step of perception. It gathers all of the sensory information that is coming in through the five senses. Attention towards particular stimuli brings them out of the sensory store and into working memory/short-term memory. The rest of the sensory infomation decays very rapidly.

Crystallized intelligence is a measure of achievement, which can be tested by an IQ test. It includes facts and knowledge.

Fluid intelligence is a measure of how quickly an individual is able to learn. This cannot be tested on an IQ test. Fluid intelligence is often used as an indicator of future performance or academic potential.

The formula for IQ is:

This allows for a score of 100 to be the average regardless of age. A 9-year-old who has a mental age of 9 has an IQ of 100. A 9-year-old who has the mental age of an 8-year-old has an IQ of 89. Thanks to this formula, it can be assumed that the average citizen has an IQ of 100, regardless of age.

The formula for IQ is:

This allows for a score of 100 to be the average regardless of age. A 9-year-old who has a mental age of 9 has an IQ of 100. A 9-year-old who has the mental age of an 8-year-old has an IQ of 89. Thanks to this formula, it can be assumed that the average citizen has an IQ of 100.

Respondent behaviors occur as automatic responsees to stimuli. For example, dogs salivate in response to food, so the salivation is a respondent behavior. Additionally, the knee-jerk reflex is a popular example of a respondent behavior in humans.

In accordance with Bandura's social-learning theory, children who witnessed the aggressive behavior also acted aggressively toward the doll. The experiment also included an element of having the children watch the adults being rewarded, punished, or not experience any consequence whatsoever.