Learning has been defined as a process where new form of knowledge is acquired. The acquired knowledge has the ability to change the behavior of the organism as well as to influence the cognitive processes of an actor. Learning can either be influenced by innate stimuli or an introduced stimulus.
Whatever the stimulus, the process of learning has been captured by various theorists who have explained the learning process through learning theories. This paper examines an informal learning experience that one may undergo and the experience may have long lasting consequences to the behavior of the person. This assignment examines how a particular food or smell of that food can make a person respond emotionally.
All animals have a natural instinct of hunger that makes these animals to look for food when they are hungry. Hunger is a neutral stimulus since it only evokes the need for food. As noted by Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning cited in Illeris (2009), this neutral stimulant is called the unconditioned stimulus.
It is referred to as unconditioned stimulus because it is stimulated through natural instincts. When the hungry person looks for food, the response is referred to as the unconditioned response, unconditioned because the act of looking for food to satisfy one’s hunger is an innate instinct in all animals. This therefore makes all animals to look for food once they are hungry to ensure that this hunger is satisfied.
However, in some instances, this unconditioned stimulus can be paired with a non associative stimulus that makes one to, say for example, associate the sight of food with certain emotions. For instance, the smell of a certain food or the presence of this food can lead to certain emotions since this food has a special condition to the actor.
For example, the favorite meal of a spouse or a girl/boyfriend can evoke emotions for love and passion to the involved subjects. Such associative responses have been defined by Pavlov in classical conditioning as the conditioned stimulus, the conditioned stimulus being the food that evokes the emotions in a person, while the emotions evoked by the sight or smell of the food being referred to as the conditioned response (Carpenter and Karen, 2010). This is because the occurrence of the responses is based on the associative conditions as opposed to the original stimulus.
For the identified conditioning to occur, there must be pairing of stimulus which results to associative behavior. In the identified example of smell of food that evokes certain emotions, the pairing can occur in the following manner.
Take an example of a bachelor whose girlfriend is fond of making certain food for him. Over time, the bachelor learns to associate the smell of food or the sight of this food with the girlfriend. The sight of this food or the smell of this particular type of food therefore becomes the conditioned stimuli and the evoked emotions become the conditioned response.
When such a person is exposed to this food even when the girlfriend is not near, the emotions that he generates while with the girlfriend are generated making the food being the conditioned stimulus for his affection to his girlfriend (Illeris, 2009). The emotions become the conditioned response.
The identified form of learning can also occur through operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is based on the system of rewards and punishment, whereby, behavior that is reinforced through positive reward is learnt, while the one that is discouraged through negative reward is slowly eliminated from an actor’s behavior
. In the identified case, the identified bachelor may respond to the sight of food or its smell because of the rewards that he gets from the person who prepares the food. Since the bachelor likes the reward, say emotional support that he gets from his girlfriend; he learns to associate the food with the girlfriend.
Since the identified bachelor already has an emotional attachment with the girlfriend, the sight of food strengthens a desired response. Skinners view of the identified case therefore is based on the rewards that come after the meal, which forms an associative behavior when the subject sees the sight of food or its smell because of the positive reinforcement that one’s get from the behavior.
The identified response can also be explained through the cognitive-social learning theory. This theory posits that a good portion of learned behavior can be attributed to what people observe from others. The identified bachelor can therefore respond to the sight of food or its smell due to what he has observed others do.
For instances, it is universally acceptable that when one is served with something good, say a good meal, he or she should respond by saying “thank you” or having a favor to the person who serves the food. The identified bachelor therefore may have learned from others that after being served the meal by his girlfriend, he should respond in a certain way. This therefore can result to the identified emotions from the actor.
In conclusion, it is evident that there are various ways of observing learnt behavior. The three identified learning theories have a way of explaining the identified behavior. Each of the three theories has some differences in the way they explain the process of learning behavior.
Classical conditioning deals with reflex actions. It explains learning from the involuntary behavior such as sexual instincts or hunger instincts. Operant conditioning on the other hand deals with operant behavior whereby behavior modification is explained from the voluntary actions point of view.
Cognitive-social learning approach on the other hand explains the process of learning behavior from the view that behavior can be learnt through observation and modeling. According to the cognitive-social learning theory, people behave the way they do because they observe what other people do hence they behave in a similar context. Cognitive-social learning therefore emphasizes observation and modeling of behavior as main forms of learning behavior.
References
Carpenter, S. and Karen, H. (2010). Visualizing Psychology. 3nd Ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Illeris, K. (2009). Contemporary theories of learning: learning theorists… in their own words. New York: Taylor & Francis.