ABSTRACT
Learning is the process by which various responses or behaviors become associated with particular stimuli or cues. Although learning theory was developed in the laboratory through the study of observable behaviors, primarily in animals, it was soon adopted as an alternate way of looking at human behavior from that of postulating forces, structure, and topography in personality. This chapter provides a general introduction to the theories; for more comprehensive study, the reader is referred to core personality texts, learning texts, and the authors' original works. Respondent behaviors or conditioned responses are naturally occurring reactions to appropriate environmental events that, through the process called classical conditioning, become associated with novel environmental events. One factor determining the occurrence of a particular behavior in the presence of a given stimulus is the effectiveness of that behavior in reducing a drive. The primary applications for modeling in health care have involved the instruction of patients in certain kinds of behavior.
