Habitual Decision Making

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LEARNING THEORIES
Behaviorist
Cognitive
Classical Conditioning
Instrumental Conditioning
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Behaviorist/Associative Learning

• Learn to develop automatic Response to a Stimulus
  (stimulus-response learning)
• This type of learning occurs through forming
  associations between a new stimulus (CS) and an
  old stimulus (US)

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Instrumental (Operant) Conditioning

• Whether you perform a behavior again depends on
  what happened when you performed that behavior in
  the past
• Skinners bird experiment
• Suppose there are two buttons -- bird can choose
  button A or button B (so two different behaviors)
• Choice of A followed by food (reinforcer/reward)
• Choice of B followed by shock (punishment)

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Instrumental (Operant) Conditioning

• Over time, Button A will be chosen automatically!
• Button B will be avoided automatically!

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Learning has taken place

• Learning results in automatic response to a
  stimulus (avoiding or choosing button)
• Again stimulus-response learning

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Learning through Instrumental Conditioning

• Reward for behavior increases chances of behavior
• Punishment for behavior decreases chances of
  behavior

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Instrumental Conditioning also involves CS-US
association

• Classical Conditioning
• Cowboy --- Liked
• Marlboro --- Liked (US, CS, CR??)
• Instrumental conditioning
• Food ------- Like
• Button ------ Hitting button
• US, CS, CR??

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How can Marketers use IC?

• Instrumental conditioning is used to influence
  behaviors
• What behavior do you want consumers to do??
• How?
• Rewards?
• Punishments?

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Marketing Example of IC

• Buy Brand ---- Get Discount ---- Buy Brand again
• What is US, CS, CR?

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Marketing Example of IC

• Discount --------- Like
• Brand -------------- Buy Again

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If Successful.Instrumental Conditioning

• Can produce automatic buying and repurchase of
  your brand (just like bird will automatically hit
  button A and not B)
• Automatic repurchase (without consideration of
  other alternatives) what type of decision
  making?

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Issues in Instrumental Learning

• Reinforcement Schedules
• Continuous schedule reward every time behavior
  is performed
• partial schedule reward sometimes
• Example giving discount/coupons etc. after
  purchase
• Continuous reinforcement discount every time
• Partial schedule discount only occasionally.

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Continuous vs. Partial Schedule

• Which produces faster learning? (I.e., which one
  will make the consumers learn the brand
  discount association faster?)
• Which produces more permanent learning (I.e.,
  which one will lead to more long-term positive
  effects on consumers desired behavior buying
  your brand?)
• Airlines??

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Issues in Instrumental Conditioning

• Reinforcement vs. Punishment
• Instrumental Conditioning occurs when behavior is
  followed by reinforcement or punishment

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Reinforcement

• Reinforcement rewarding a behavior to increase
  future possibility of that behavior
• Two Types of Reinforcement

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Two types of Reinforcement

• Positive reinforcement (behavior followed by good
  consequence e.g., good after sales service)
• Here, Reward Getting something positive
  because of behavior
• Negative reinforcement
• Negative State First then Behavior then
  Removal of Negative Stage
• e.g., taking medicine for headache
• Here, Reward removal of negative state
  because of behavior

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Punishment

• Punishment Punishing a behavior to decrease
  future possibility of that behavior
• behavior followed by negative consequence e.g,
  bad after sales service
• Note Punishment is different from Negative
  Reinforcement (even though the words sound
  similar!)
• Negative Reinforcement increases chances of
  behavior
• Punishment decreases chances of behavior

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Reinforcement and Punishment

• Punishment can be used by marketer
• example???

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Issues in Instrumental ConditioningShaping

• Shaping Reinforcing a behavior at every step
• So break down an overall behavior into its
  component parts, and reward each component, so
  that the overall behavior is learnt
• Bird example?

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Shaping Marketing Example

• Suppose you own a car dealership (showroom). You
  want to make a consumer buy a car from your
  showroom
• Can you think of how you can use shaping to do
  this? (hint start from the consumer entering
  your showroom)

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Other Issues...

• Discriminative Stimulus Stimulus that occurs in
  the presence of a reinforcer but not in its
  absence
• Example buy Reebok---satisfaction (reward)
• Learn to associate the brand name Reebok with
  the reinforcer/reward (satisfaction)
• Brand name discriminative stimulus
• Helps to discriminate (differentiate) between
  different stimuli
• Reebok gives satisfaction, but Nike gives
  dissatisfaction
• I learn to discriminate based on brand name

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Stimulus Discrimination and Stimulus
Generalization

• Stimulus Discrimination
• Using a discriminative stimulus to differentiate
  between different stimuli (Nike vs. Reebok)
• Can also use discriminative stimulus to treat
  different items as similar (Stimulus
  Generalization)
• Reebok shoes give me satisfaction
• So I try Reebok clothing also, just based on
  brand name
• Here brand name is being used to treat different
  items as similar

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Classical vs. Instrumental

• Similarities
• both behavioral learning
• number of trials increases learning
• Differences
• passive learning vs. active learning
• Instrumental conditioning you have to perform
  an action before any learning can occur (behavior
  consequence learning)
• Classical conditioning your action is not
  needed. Learning will occur if the US and CS are
  presented together to you by some external agent
• Example (watching advertising)

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For Next Class

• For next class
• Extinction and Forgetting pg. 114-118
• Habit pg. 122-133