Basic Processes In Learning: Respondent Conditioning

Everyone is willing to concede that learning is an activity which takes place in school. The psychologist’s claim for the concept of learning is much wider. According to him, the human organism learns not only academic subjects, but also to dance, talk, and play baseball; to make friends and enemies; to persuade people and be persuaded by them; to act like a model child or like a brat; to be the life of the party or a social recluse; to fear cats or love them; to be neurotic or well-adjusted; to be a precise observer or a poor witness; to be an artist or a plumber; and so forth. There is also an increasing amount of evidence, as we shall see, that learning is at least implicated in, if not the major cause of, hallucinations, delusions, stuttering, and psychosomatic illnesses like ulcers, hysterical blindness, bedwetting, and depression.