Basic Psychology

1. Basic Psychology Dr Gary Robinson Clinical Psychologist and Group Analyst Specialist Psychotherapy Service - TEWV NHS Trust Senior Academic Tutor – Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, Newcastle University

2. Basic Psychology • Learning Theory • Habituation • Classical conditioning • Operant conditioning • Cognitive models • Observational learning

3. Basic Psychology • Memory • Personality • Traits/type approach • Personal construct theory • Psychoanalytic theory • Humanistic approach

4. Basic Psychology • Emotion • James-Lange Theory • Cannon-Bard Theory • Schachter-Singer “Two-Factor” Theory • Lazarus Cognitive Appraisal

5. Learning Theory “Learning theories are an exam favourite. Easy marks can be gained here by revising some common themes, as outlined below” (Jaward, 2013; page 30)

6. Learning Theory • The association of events which allows for an understanding of what is likely to follow in any given situation, has obvious survival value.

7. Habituation • Habituation is the simplest form of all learning. • The decline in the tendency to respond to stimuli that have become familiar die to repeated exposure. • A sudden noise usually startles us . But over the time the startle will be diminished.

8. Classical Conditioning • Pavlov • Unconditional reflexes – inborn and innate (e.g. food in the mouth unconditionally elicits salivation). • Conditioned Reflexes – are acquired.

9. Classical Conditioning • Before Training • US (food in mouth) UR (salivation) • CS (e.g. Tone) No relevant response • Training • CS (tone)+ US (food in mouth) • After Training (that is, conditioning) • CS (tone) CR (salivation)

11. Classical Conditioning • To guarantee the salivatory response, the experimenter must present the food (conditioned stimulus) within 0.5 seconds of the tuning fork (conditioned stimulus) being struck. • The closer together intone the two stimuli are paired the more likely it is that the subject is able to make an association between the two and produce the desired response.

12. Major Phenomena of Classical Conditioning • Acquisition – when the subject is successfully able to make associations between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli they are said to have achieved acquisition. • Extinction – Pavlov showed that a conditioned reaction can be undone and weakened, ie the food is no longer presented with the bell.

13. Major Phenomena of Classical Conditioning • Spontaneous recovery – this refers top the process whereby presentation of the conditioned stimulus after extinction will suddenly elicit a previous learned response, ie salivation.

14. Major Phenomena of Classical Conditioning • Second order conditioning – once the CS-US relation is solidly established, the CS can serve to condition yet further stimuli. • Generalisation – animals do respond to stimuli other than the original CS, as long as they are sufficiently similar. • In the context of MRCPsych, a frequently used example is that of phobias.

16. Operant or Instrumental Conditioning • Skinner • Operants – behaviours that operate on the environment to bring about some change that leads to reward. • Law of effect (Thorndike) – the tendency to omit these operants is strengthened or weakened by its consequences (positive and negative reinforcement).

17. Instrumental Learning • E.L. Thorndike (1898) • Investigating animal intelligence • Puzzle Box

18. Instrumental Learning • Thorndike found cat’s able to escape in less time as trials increased The Law of Effect ‘Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by a state of satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will be more likely to recur.’ (Thorndike, 1911)

19. Operant Conditioning • B.F.Skinner (1938) • Operant: A behaviour that operates on the environment to being about some change that leads to a reward • Differs from Classical Conditioning -what is more important is what happens after the behaviour rather than before.

21. Operant or Instrumental Conditioning • Reinforcement – defined as a consequence which results in the subject increasing their behaviour. • In positive reinforcement the response produces an appetitive stimulus (a stimulus for which the animal so to speak “has an appetite”). A rat pressing a lever to get food. • In negative reinforcement the response eliminates or prevents an aversive stimulus – a rat pressing a lever to avoid a shock.

22. Secondary Reinforcement • Primary reinforcers are unconditioned and natural reinforcers (appear to equate to basic needs for survival and reproduction) • Food, shelter, water, sex • Secondary (conditioned) reinforcers acquire their reinforcing properties through association with primary reinforcers (learnt through classical conditioning) • Money, clothes, cars.

24. Schedules of Reinforcement • Continuous reinforcement – 1:1 contiguity of behaviour and reinforcement, results in very quick learning but also rapid extinction. • Intermittent reinforcement - Ratio schedules • Fixed ratio (FR2, FR20) – learning is slower but more robust • Variable ratio (VR) – VR 50, learning is slowest but with the slowest extinction rate (e.g. Slot machines in a casino)

25. Schedules of Reinforcement • Interval Schedules • Fixed interval schedule (FI) – animal is reinforced for the first response performed after a certain interval has passed following the last reinforcement. FI 2, after reinforcement response is low but speeds up as the end of the interval approaches.

26. Schedules of Reinforcement Interval Schedules • Variable interval schedule (VI) – interval varies irregularly around some average period, say 4 minutes (VI 4) • VI have been shown to produce more regular and more frequent responding than FI

27. Major Phenomena of Operant Conditioning • Chaining – a complex behaviour may be broken into a sequence of steps, with each step being learned separately – the entire chain of individual steps is then learned by bringing the steps together (either forward or backwards. • Shaping – similar to chaining but used when the desired behaviour is rare or absent and therefore unlikely to occur spontaneously.

28. Major Phenomena of Operant Conditioning • Cueing – a cue represents the object or stimulus that elicits the conditioned behaviour in operant conditioning. • In the case of treatment of phobias the same cue (ie the phobias object may be used to illicit an incompatible behaviour, such as relaxation).

29. Aversive Conditioning • Punishment • Positive punishment - here a response (or undesired behaviour) is followed by an aversive stimulus, which will then tend to suppress the response on subsequent occasions. • Negative punishment – remove a desired stimulus after an undesired behaviour.

30. Aversive Conditioning • Escape – the response stops some aversive event that has already begun – a rat learns to press a lever to get rid of an electric shock. • Avoidance – the subject can forestall the aversive event altogether – a dog learns to jump over a hurdle in a shuttle box when it hears a tone that signals impending shock.

31. Avoidance Learning in Human Life • An enormous amount of ordinary human activity involves avoidance. • Most of this is perfectively useful and adaptive. • But some avoidance learning is essentially maladaptive.

32. Avoidance Learning in Human Life • Behavioural techniques – exposure and response prevention. • Counter-conditioning; reciprocal inhibition – weakens the bond between stimuli and anxiety response – systematic desensitisation (Wolpe) – produce a hierarchy of fears and to pair them with positive responses. • Flooding – prolonged exposure to feared stimulus allowing fear to extinguish, use in the treatment of phobias.

33. Avoidance Learning in Human Life • Implosion – similar to flooding but rather than having the phobia present (in vitro) it is imagined (in vivo).

34. Learned Helplessness • Seligman (1975) • Conducted an experiment on dogs and found that if dogs are placed in a situation in which they cannot avoid receiving electric shocks, they fail to learn to escape when placed in a situation in which the electric shocks CAN be avoided.

35. Learned Helplessness • According to Seligman’s learned helplessness theory, depression occurs when a person learns that their attempts to escape negative situations make no difference. • As a consequence they become passive and will endure aversive stimuli or environments even when escape is possible. Seligman based his theory on research using dogs.

37. Cognitive Models • Cognitive theorists, such as Tolman, proposed that what really matters when animals and humans learn is not the change in behaviour as such, but the acquisition of new knowledge or cognitions. • Examples include explicit transmission of facts through teaching, and problem solving or insight learning.

38. Observational Learning • Social learning theorists – Bandura and Mischel. • Emphasise the role of situational factors in determining behaviour and learning. • The child observes another person who serves as a model and then proceeds to imitate what the model does, thus learning how to do something he didn't know before. • Modelling – Bobo doll study. • Optimal conditions for learning involve active participation in modelled behaviour rather than passive observation.

41. Memory • 3 processes involved in the formations and subsequent access of memories. • Encoding – sensory input which leads to formation of the initial memory trace. • Storage – retention of the memory. • Retrieval – ability to access memory from storage.

42. Types of Memory • Sensory memory – visual memory lasts for 0.5 seconds, auditory memory lasts for 2 seconds. • Short-term memory – without the use of aides-memories lasts 15-30 seconds. Capacity of 7 +/- 2 distinct items. Can be increased by chunking. • Long-term memory has unlimited capacity.

43. Types of Long-Term Memory • Declarative (explicit) memory. • Semantic memory - refers to general knowledge memory. • Episodic memory – memories related to the self. • Flashbulb memory – where individuals are able to specifically recall what they were doing at times of significant events.

44. Types of Long-Term Memory • Procedural (non-declarative) memory. • Memory for knowing how to perform a particular skill.

45. Forgetting • Several theories exist about how we forget previously learned information. • Interference with any of the 3 processes involved in memory formation can result in forgetting. • Encoding, storage, retrieval.

46. Forgetting • Decay (disuse) theory • Suggests without continued use or rehearsal, memories fade over time. • Displacement theory • Old material is replaced by new material. New material displaces previously learnt items. • Failure of Retrieval – difficult to recall items due to lack of cues.

47. Forgetting • Interference theory • Proactive interference – describes difficulty in learning new information due to the presence of older material. • Retroactive interference – describes difficulty in recalling old material due to learning of new material.

48. Memory Disorders • Anterograde Amnesia • Difficulty in forming new memories. • Hence information cannot be moved from short-term to long-term memory. • Damage to hippocampus typically presents with this.

49. Memory Disorders • Retrograde Amnesia • Difficulty in recalling older memoires. • Hence information cannot be moved from long-term to short-term memory. • Head trauma typically presents with this pattern of amnesia with failure to recall memories prior to the injury.

50. Memory Disorders • Korsakoff’s syndrome • Severe anterograde and retrograde amnesia. • Working memory and implicit (procedural) memory spared. • Associated with chronic alcohol abuse.