Question

Explain classical, operant and social learning theories. Provide 1 example for each. Explain the differences between classical, operant and social learning theory.

Answer 1

Learning is a relatively permanent change in a person's knowledge or behavior due to experience.

Classical conditioning- given by Pavlov

A stimulus is presented in order to get a response. Pavlov's experiment very well explains conditioning through which an individual learns when stimulus is presented. Eg. Child when first sees a rat is not fearful ,when child faces a rat along with a loud bang of noise he gets fearful ,later when he sees a rat because of the conditioned stimulus now the child learns to fear rats.

Operant conditioning:- based on experiments of B.F Skinner

Learning occurs when a certain behaviour is awarded with a reward or reinforced.

Eg. If for every good behaviour a child is rewarded with a sweet ,he will repeat the behaviour as many times till he gets sweet eventually laerning a new behavior or something else.

Social learning theory: given by Bandura

It states that an individual learns by receiving inpusts from surrounding or modelling individual they see in their surrounding.

Eg. Child learning good behaviours by modelling their elder siblings.

Child laerning getting into fights by seeing their parents do so,etc.c

classical learning associate an involuntary response and a stimulus, while operant conditioning associate a voluntary bahaviour and a consequence. Social learning is based on learning through modelling others or quest from surrounding.