Operant conditioning is different to classical conditioning as described by Pavlov in that a desirable behaviour is reinforced and an undesirable behaviour, punished.  It is a highly specialised form of learning known as instrumental learning and is used in many contexts including good parenting and even training animals.   While the technique of operant conditioning […] Read more »

Piaget described processes by which we learn and grow, adapting to our social and physical environment. He names these processes Assimilation and Accommodation.  In assimilation, the experience or item is incorporated from the outside world into the inside world without interrupting or changing our pre-existing ideas or “schema”. This works particularly well where the new […] Read more »

It is widely acknowledged that Ivan Pavlov is the father of classical conditioning. His original work was in examining the digestive processes of dogs. However, keen eyed, he noticed that the dogs learned the sound of their keeper’s footsteps before the food was presented to them and began to salivate, even before they had seen or smelled […] Read more »

If psychology has the equivalent of the X Factor,  then  Professor Philip Zimbardo would probably be a candidate to win the contest. A 50-year career in serious, academic psychology at one of the world’s top universities, plus a  Ph.D. from Yale.  Yet alongside this ivory-towered existence,  he has also sought to make psychology accessible to […] Read more »

Little Albert was the fictitious name  given to an unknown child who was  subjected to an experiment in classical conditioning by John Watson and Rosalie Raynor at John Hopkins University in the USA, in 1919. By today’s standards in psychology, the experiment would not be allowed because of ethical violations, namely the lack of informed […] Read more »