GCSE Psychology 9-1

Psychology 9-1 GCSE -  6.1.1 - Understand learning theories as an explanation of criminality, including strengths and weaknesses of each theory: Operant Conditioning (Skinner, 1948) - a) Positive Reinforcement -  This strengthens behavior by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding. He used a rat in a box to prove this with a lever that released food. b) Negative Reinforcement -  The removal of an unpleasant reinforce can also strengthen behavior. This is known as negative reinforcement because it is the removal of adverse stimulus.  c) Positive Punishment -  Positive punishment removes a positive reinforce to weaken a response.  d) Negative Punishment -  This is applying an unpleasant stimulus to weaken a response. e) Primary Reinforcers -  There is no learning necessary for these to be reinforcing. These are things like eating, sleeping etc. f) Secondary Reinforcers -  This ...

Psychology 9-1 GCSE -  3.1.6 - The use of learning theory as an explanation of addiction, including strengths and weaknesses of the explanation -  According to learning theory, addiction is simply a learned behaviour. In other words people learn to engage in addictive behaviour according to well established principles. There are three fundamental types of learning that apply to humans and animals alike. 1) Learning by paired association (classical conditioning). 2) Learning from the consequences of behavioural choice (operant conditioning). 3) Social learning (observing others). With classical conditioning you form associations between things and environmental cues. For example, if you smoke after work, you will pair smoking with finishing your work, the time or even the place you go to smoke, these cues create powerful cravings. We can unlearn these associations by time or by replacing the activity the cue is associated with. Counter-conditioning is a special type of con...