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To Alison and Ruth-Mary
First published in 1984 by
Methuen & Co. Ltd
11, New Fetter Lane, London EC4P4EE
Published in the USA by
Methuen & Co.
in association with Methuen, inc.
733 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
© 1984 Stephen Walker
Typeset by Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd
Bungay, Suffolk
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library
Cataloguing in Publication Data
Walker, Stephen
Learning theory and behaviour
modification. — (New essential
psychology)
1. Educational psychology
2. Behaviour modification
1. Title 11. Series
370.15 LB1051
ISBN 0-416-338110-0
Library of Congress
Cataloging in Publication Data
Walker, Stephen F. Learning theory and
behaviour modification.
(New essential psychology) Bibliography:
p. includes index. 1. Learning. 2. Behavior
modification.
i. Title. H. Series. LB1o6o. W34 1984
370.15'23
83-19475
ISBN 0-416-33810-0
(pbk.)
2
Learning Theory and Behaviour Modification
Contents
Cover
Dedication and copyright
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Introduction to learning theory
Common factors in learning theories
Pavlovian conditioning: reflexes, expectancies and involuntary emotional
associations
Goals, rewards and reinforcements
Punishment, avoidance, conflict and anxiety
Pavlov's applications of his conditioned reflex theory
Watson's applications of behaviourism to advertising and to children
Applications of stimulus-response theories from Thorndike to Wolpe
H.J. Eysenck and behaviour therapy at the Maudsley Hospital
B.F. Skinner on language and life
Plain behaviour modification: rewards and withdrawal of rewards
Behaviour therapy and cognitive behaviour
Suggestions for further reading
References and name index
Subject index
1-21
22-30
31-44
45-62
63-72
73-79
80-92
93-109
110-
122
123-
136
137-
144
145-
161
162-
163
164-
177
178-
184
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Introduction to Learning Theory
At some point, anyone reading this must have acquired a tendency to convert letters into sounds,
and to associate strings of letters with the meanings of words. We cannot be certain exactly how
this happened, but there is surely no doubt at all that it involved learning from experience. There
may be some aspects of human language that remain uninfluenced by individual experience, but
the spoken words I am using here are a result of my having learned English. There are many other
languages which could be written with the same script, such as French or Spanish, but anyone
who reads Russian, Greek or Hebrew will have had to learn a different set of visual signs as the
alphabet, while the Arabic script is even more unfamiliar, and reading (or writing) in ancient
Egyptian or Chinese is a different kettle of fish altogether.
Thus, the use of language requires a strong element of learning, and so does the knowledge
of social custom and ritual, and all beliefs, loyalties and values that can be shown to differ from
one culture to another, or from one generation to the next. And in many cases, it is quite obvious
that even in the same culture or
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sub-culture one family may differ from another, or one person from another person, because of
previous tragedies or traumas that may produce either weakness or strength of personality. More
positively, they may differ because of family traditions or personal histories of practice and
determination that may transmit or develop skills and expertise — whether musical, muscular or
social.
Whether in academic education, specialized training, or in the more informal and
unconscious adaptation to social and personal circumstances, there has always been a case to
make that human life is largely dependent on individual learning — it is the flux, not the fixity, of
human technologies and social institutions which most distinguishes our species from any other.
Therefore, those who believe that they have found general laws, or universal principles, which
apply to learning have often gone on to infer that the same general laws must underlie wider areas
of human psychology, and can be used as general principles of human behaviour. The idea that
the same theory can apply to all learning has often been attacked, both by those who think that
innate factors determine human nature and by those who reject any ‘reductionist’ approach which
tries to find underlying explanations for the complexities of life.
In spite of such criticisms, there are two quite separate reasons for continuing to study
learning theories. The first is that this is still a vigorous research area, with technical advances in
the design of experiments producing new answers to some of the old puzzles (Rescorla, 1980;
Dickinson, 1980). The second is that the old theories themselves, despite numerous logical and
metaphysical difficulties, have spawned a collection of practical measures, known as behaviour
modification, or behaviour therapy, which have made a significant contribution to such areas as
the treatment of severe neurotic phobias and the education of retarded or handicapped children.
The development of learning theory
Darwin
As I am writing in the centennial of the year of Darwin’s death —1882 — it is appropriate to
acknowledge the Darwinian roots of some of the features of learning theories. In the conclusion
to
The
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Origin of Species,
Darwin says: ‘In the distant future I see open fields for far more important
researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of
each mental power and capacity by gradation’ (Darwin, 1859/1968, p. 458). A new foundation
for psychology exactly like this seems distant still, and an emphasis on the gradual evolution of
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mental powers and capacities is not really a characteristic of the theories I shall shortly review.
But it is obvious that the Darwinian theory of evolution emphasizes the continuity of human and
animal psychology, and the use of evidence from laboratory experiments on animal learning to
test principles and specific hypotheses of supposedly wider application could almost be used as a
definition of a learning theory.
In
The Descent of Man
(1871/1901) Darwin has two chapters on ‘Comparison of the mental
powers of man and the lower animals’ whose aim is ‘to show that there is no fundamental
difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties’ (p. 99). Much of these
is taken up with anecdotal evidence for the existence of wonder, curiosity, complacency and
pride, as well as reason, abstraction and imagination, in mammals such as the baboon and the
domestic dog. The conclusion is that ‘The lower animals differ from man solely in his almost
infinitely larger power of associating together the most diversified sounds and ideas’ (Darwin,
1871/1901, p. 131), and ‘We must admit that there is a much wider interval between one of the
lowest fishes, as a lamprey or lancelet, and one of the higher apes, than between an ape and man’
(p. 99). These assertions are used by Darwin to support his theory that human abilities could have
evolved gradually from those of related species, rather than to forward the ‘new foundation’ for
psychology which he had referred to earlier. However, by identifying the power of associations as
a critical factor in human intelligence and firmly relating human mental capacities to those of
animals, Darwin prepared the way for later ‘associationist’ theories about psychology which
derive supporting evidence from animal experiments.
Pavlov and the conditioned reflex
When, in 1882, Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey, a leader in
The Times
expressed
full appreciation of his work. But, when
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The Descent of Man
first appeared in 1871,
The Times
had thundered that ‘morality would lose all
elements of stable authority’ if the public were to believe it. Few today suggest that the theory of
natural selection (or in the case of
The Descent of Man,
sexual selection) is a threat to public
order, although neither the religious Right nor the political Left have much enthusiasm for
modern varieties of Darwinism such as sociobiology (Wilson, 1975).
Another branch in the roots of learning theory also ran into ideological resistance early on.
In 1866 the St Petersburg Censorial Committee banned a popular book, and prosecuted its author
for undermining public morals. The author was neither a pornographer nor a political theorist, but
a physiologist called Sechenov, and the book was
Reflexes of the Brain,
which introduced the
controversial suggestion that ‘all acts of conscious or unconscious life are reflexes’. Perhaps the
authorities were especially sensitive, 1866 being the year of the first assassination attempt on
Alexander II, but the case against Sechenov soon collapsed, and
Reflexes of the Brain
later made
a deep impression on the young Ivan Pavlov (Gray, 1979).
Pavlov (1849—1936) was awarded a Nobel prize in 1904 for his work on digestion. In the
lecture he gave in Stockholm when he received it, he described some of his findings as
‘conditioned reflexes’, although many of the more detailed experiments were to come later, as
Pavlov became less concerned with digestion, and more concerned with ‘an investigation of the
physiological activity of the cerebral cortex’ (the subtitle to Pavlov’s
Conditioned Reflexes,
1927). Sechenov’s idea was that even the most complex manifestations of human psychology
were made up of reflexes, that is of ways of reacting to stimulation of the sensory nerves by
specific muscular or glandular activities. This gave Pavlov encouragement to build up from his
rigorous experiments on digestive reflexes a theory which he applied to all cerebral functions.
Although Pavlov’s work has been influential in a number of ways, the clearest contrast with
Darwin is in his application of rigorous experimental method. Darwin had relied on anecdotal
reports of casual and informal observations. For instance, he attributed abstract thought to dogs
on the basis of a game he played with his pet terrier: Darwin would say ‘Hi, hi, where is it?’ in an
eager tone, and the terrier would rush around, apparently hunting for something. ‘Now do not
these actions clearly show
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