History of Personality Psychology
Classical conditioning was one form of simple association. Pavlov made it clear during experiments that when a subject is given a stimulus and is then either punished or rewarded, the subject learns to associate the reward or punishment with that particular stimulus. Pavlov used hungry dogs that would begin to salivate when a tone was played. This happened because the dogs were always fed immediately after hearing the tone. This is classical conditioning. Operant conditioning is a type of instrumental conditioning. This type of learning is what is known for setting limits. When a subject is given a set of directions and is positively or negatively reinforced for their behavior, they learn to express the behavior that gets them rewarded. This can still be seen today in most homes. Children learn this way in most homes. Another concept in social learning theory is expectancy. This happens when a subject performs a certain behavior because they expect that reinforcement will come afterwards. We also see this behavior with children. When a child does something once and it gets a laugh out of the people watching, the child will repeat the act over again to get the same reaction. This is expectancy. Observational learning is a simple process in which a subject is learned by watching others do it. This could also be called imitation. This type of learning is used daily by everyone. This theory was one of the first to claim that a subject did not need a reward in order to learn. The theory of self efficacy is the theory that people have in them the belief that they can do whatever it is that they put their mind to do. It is this theory that may explain why some people try to do things that they have never done before. It may also explain why they sometimes succeed.