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group saw the model rewarded, another group saw no consequences, the third group saw the model punished. Each child then went to a room with a bobo doll and other toys. The children who saw the model punished kicked, punched, and hit the bobo doll less than the other children. Later, when they were offered rewards to imitate what they had seen the model do, that group of children was as able to imitate the behavior as the others. Further research indicated viewing violence reduces our sensitivity to the sight of violence, increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior, and decreases our concerns about the suffering of victims. Feeling pride or shame in ourselves for doing something can be important internal reinforcers that influence our behavior.

Abstract learning goes beyond classical and operant conditioning and shows that animals such as pigeons and dolphins can understand simple concepts and apply simple decision rules. In one experiment, pigeons pecked at different-colored squares. The pigeon was first shown a red square and then two squares—one red and the other green. In matching-to-sample problems, pecking the red square, or “same,” was rewarded. In oddity tasks, pecking the green square, or “different,” would bring the reward. To prove this wasn’t merely operant conditioning, the stimuli were changed, and in 80% of the trials, the pigeons proved successful in making the transfer of “same” or “different.”

Biological Factors in Learning

Mirror neurons in the premotor cortex and other portions of the temporal and parietal lobes provide a biological basis for observational learning. The neurons are activated not only when you perform an action, but also when you observe someone else perform a similar action. These neurons transform the sight of someone else’s action into the motor program you would use to do the same thing and to experience similar sensations or emotions, the basis for empathy.

Preparedness Evolves

Taste aversions are an interesting biological application of classical conditioning. A few hours after your friend ate brussels sprouts for the first time, she vomited. Although a stomach virus (UCS) caused the vomiting (UCR), your friend refuses to eat brussels sprouts again. She developed a conditioned taste aversion, an intense dislike and avoidance of a food because of its association with an unpleasant or painful stimulus through backward conditioning. According to some psychologists, conditioned taste aversions are probably adaptive responses of organisms to foods that could sicken or kill them. Evolutionarily successful organisms are biologically predisposed or biologically prepared to associate illness with bitter and sour foods. Preparedness means that through evolution, animals are biologically predisposed to easily learn behaviors related to their survival as a species, and that behaviors contrary to an animal’s natural tendencies are learned slowly or not at all. People are more likely to learn to fear snakes or spiders than flowers or happy faces. John Garcia and colleagues experimented with rats exposed to radiation, and others exposed to poisons. They found that rats developed conditioned taste aversions even when they did not become nauseated until hours after being exposed to a taste, which is sometimes referred to as the Garcia effect. Similarly, cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy develop loss of appetite. They also found that there are biological constraints on the ease with which particular stimuli can be associated with particular responses. Rats have a tendency to associate nausea and dizziness with tastes, but not with sights and sounds. Rats also tend to associate pain with sights and sounds, but not with tastes.

Instinctive Drift

Sometimes, operantly conditioned animals failed to behave as expected. Wild rats already conditioned in Skinner boxes sometimes reverted to scratching and biting the lever. In different experiments, Keller and Marian Breland found that stimuli that represented food were treated as actual food by chickens and raccoons. The Brelands attributed