Psychology of learning and Memory

In this article we will learn about classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning and their applicability to online marketing and persuasion.

Classical conditioning

Do you find yourself salivating when you seat down to a tasty dinner? According to learning theorists, this biological response to a tasty plate of either chicken soup or any other tasty food could be a learned behavior learned through a process called classical conditioning. We dint learn to salivate until we learned how to do it, it is an automatic process that makes up part of our digestive system. The leaned element of this behavior is that you don’t have to eat an ice cream to start salivating anymore. You could just look at an ice cream or just think of it and the salivation happens. A Russian physiologist by the name Ivan Pavlov was the first person to apply the example of salivating to classical condition. The classical conditioning is at times also known as Pavlovian Conditioning named in remembrance of him.

Pavlov was conducting an experiment on dog’s gastric system. He noticed that the dogs that participated on the experiment would start salivating whenever they had or smelled food in eager anticipation of feeding.

Testing this observation further, Pavlov noticed that if he played sounds to the dogs before feeding, soon enough the dogs will start salivating to the otherwise neutral stimulus alone that would normally not make the dogs to respond if food was not present before conditioning them.

To explain it in a step by step process, before conditioning, the food which is unconditioned stimulus makes the dog to produce an unconditioned response which is salivating, also known as reflexive biology. However, during conditioning a neutral stimulus such as ringing of a bell and the original unconditioned stimulus become associated with each other that becomes a learned association. The neutral stimulus predicts the unconditioned stimulus which causes unconditioned response. The neutral stimulus gradually becomes conditioned stimulus that produces conditioned response, even if the original natural unconditioned stimulus is not present.

Another experiment conducted by John B Watson a pioneer of behaviorism did an experiment on a baby whom he named albert. Due to ethical grounds such experiment wouldn’t be permissible today. In this experiment the researcher would condition little albert to have phobia for white rats by paring the natural stimulus (the white rat) with an unconditioned stimulus (loud noise made through hitting with a hammer on a hard surface). Within days of repeated the same to Albert become afraid of white rats, and his fear generalized to all other furry white objects like a Santa Clause with white beards or a person with white hair.

Application of classical conditioning.

Relating classical condition of fear. Few years ago, on the eve day of Christmas I was drinking a local brew made of coconut. Very desperate to get drunk quickly I mixed it with some Jonny Walker whisky.

Eventually I developed some complication that made me not to have a good Christmas day. That day I ended up being sick not having the opportunity to enjoy the nice foods stuffs and drink normally available during that period.

Ever since, whenever someone tries to invite for the local coconut drink, I automatically reject the offer because is associate it with sickness. Another scenario that that although sounds awkward but it is a form of classical conditioning I believe. At some point I had a girlfriend whom I had an unforgettable romantic experience. Ever since we patted way, I have always had a soft spot for any girl whom I find to have a facial resemblance with her. Before I never understood why I keep feeling attracted towards this girls types of girls but now I understand.

Classical conditioning is application in advertising through pairing a product with other positive stimuli, such as sex, pleasant music, humor and attractive colors. Advertisers now that when they show you the picture of an attractive person automatically produces a response. The picture on this attractive person is unconditioned stimulus which in turn produces an unconditioned response, that feel good response that was generated as a result of the of the pretty person’s picture. They pairing of this picture that makes you feel good are paired with their product which eventually associating good feeling with their product which now becomes a conditioned response.

Operand conditioning

It is a process by which a response becomes more or less likely to occur depending on tis consequences. It is a process that attempts to modify behavior through the use of positive and negative reinforcement.

There are two consequences of behaviors, reinforcement and punishment. One of the most influential psychologists of all times for this work on operant conditioning went by the name B.F. Skinner.

He referred to anything that increased behavior as reinforcement. Reinforcement is divided in to positive reinforcement for example a kid is rewarded an ice cream when they are doing their homework, in return this increases likelihood of them completing their homework afterwards. Negative reinforcement is where you get punished to increase the likelihood of a behavior. For example, a kid is deprived the opportunity to play video game until they have done their homework is when that opportunity is restored. A more realistic example is when you have a headache you are advised to take aspirin, when the head stop you are going to increase the behavior of taking aspirin in future when the headache return.

Punishment is a form of operand conditioning induced to decrease behavior. With positive punishment an unpleasant consequence is added and unpleasant consequence follows a response making the response less likely to recur. For example, you are always the type of person who goes to the library to study and at one point your friends notice that and start telling you are a looser who doesn’t hangout with them anymore you are too busy. They even label you a looser. You eventually lose interest in studying as a result of the negative statements made by your friends. Negative punishment is when pleasant consequence is removed following a response, making the response less likely to recur.

idf.com (Interaction Design Foundation uses operand conditioning through positive reinforcement by rewarding news subscribers with 2 months free if you register for their annual subscription. A similar approach used by skillshare.com which also gives users three monthly for free before you pay for your subscriptions.

Observational learning

It is the process of learning that consist of learning and modeling another individuals behavior, attitude or emotional expressions. A tremendous amount learning occurs via observational learning particularly during childhood. An example is when a child observes at how their parent is folding clothes, they in turn imitate folding the clothes. We learn all kinds of social behaviors by observing and imitating models. Things like foods, cultures, traditions are all spread by one person copying another.

As demonstrated by Albert Bandura’s famous Bobo Doll experiment, it states that people imitate the actions of others without direct enforcement. In his experiment he observed that those children who watched adult models pummel the doll, modeled the adults behavior, but this would also increase unrelated violent behavior such us shooting.

Bandura explained the four processes that were necessary for the observational learning to effectively occur. These were attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. Attention is the degree to which the person observers the imitated behavior. The person must have the ability to memorize the imitated behavior.