ABSTRACT
In both classical conditioning and instrumental learning, some associations can be made more easily than others. In instrumental learning the response produces the reinforcement, so there is bound to be a contingency between the two. However, animals can also learn that there is no contingency between their behavior and events; that what they do makes no difference. This is known as learned helplessness. The simple view that instrumental learning involves the stamping in of stimulus-response (S-R) connections by reinforcement is challenged by a number of findings. According to S-R theory, the animal produces a response in the presence of a stimulus, and this connection is strengthened if it is followed by reinforcement. Contingency learning is mediated by a simpler process which determines that conditioned stimulus must be informative stimuli. The mechanism by which contingency learning occurs depends on a simpler phenomenon known as blocking.
