5. THEORIES OF LEARNING
TRIAL AND ERROR LEARNING THEORY
THEORY OF CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
THEORY OF OPERANT CONDITIONING
THEORY OF INSIGHTFUL LEARNING/COGNITIVE LEARNING
THEORY OF SOCIAL LEARNING/BANDURA’s LEARNING THEORY
15. Sr No CLASSICAL CONDITIONING OPERANT CONDITIONING
1 Classical conditioning works on building
associations between a conditioned stimulus
and conditioned response
Operant conditioning works on building
associations between response and the
consequence of response
2 Behaviour is elicited by unconditioned or
conditioned stimulus
Behaviour is elicited voluntarily to produce a
desirable result
3 Individual/organism is passive Individual/organism is active
4 Conditioning is stimulus oriented Conditioning is response oriented
5 Before conditioning unconditioned stimulus
leads to unconditioned response after
conditioning conditioned stimulus leads to
conditioned response
Reinforcement leads to increase in
response/behaviour and Punishment leads to
decrease in response/behaviour
6 Example-after a doctor gives a painful
injection (unconditioned stimulus) to a child
that causes the baby to cry (unconditioned
stimulus)
The child develops fear such that on sight of
injection (conditioned stimulus) the baby
starts to cry (conditioned response)
Example- a student who after studying hard earns
good marks (reinforcement) is more likely to
study hard in the future,
A student who fails in exams (punishment) after
watching movie before the exams is less likely to
watch movie before the next exam
