SBS 105 Module 4 Learning Example

Audiobooks Only at the Gym: Using Classical, Operant and Observational Learning to Build an Exercise Habit

Student Name

Psychology and Addiction Studies Program, Aspen University

SBS 105: Introduction to Psychology

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Audiobooks Only at the Gym: Using Classical, Operant and Observational Learning to Build an Exercise Habit

Renee is thirty-four, works full time as a medical office coordinator and takes evening classes online. Every Sunday she plans to exercise on Monday, Wednesday and Friday after work. In the past two months she has gone twice. Her evenings follow a pattern: she arrives home tired, sits on the couch, puts on her favorite true crime podcast and stays there. Renee does not lack information about why exercise is good for her. Her problem is a learned pattern of behavior, and learning principles can help change it. Renee and her plan are invented for this paper; the research is real.

Three Kinds of Learning

Psychologists define learning as a relatively lasting change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience. Three kinds are central to this course. In classical conditioning, something that once meant nothing to a person starts to produce a reaction after it has repeatedly occurred together with something that produces that reaction on its own, the way a dentist's drill can make a patient tense before it touches a tooth. In operant conditioning, behavior is shaped by its consequences: behavior followed by reinforcement becomes more likely, and behavior followed by punishment becomes less likely. Reinforcement can be positive, adding something pleasant, or negative, removing something unpleasant. In observational learning, people learn by watching others, called models, and the consequences those models experience.

How Renee's Routine Was Learned

Renee's evening routine was learned through all three. Through classical conditioning, the couch, paired over many evenings with relief from the day's fatigue, has become a cue that triggers relaxation the moment she sees it. Through operant conditioning, sitting down is reinforced immediately: it removes the discomfort of tiredness, a form of negative reinforcement, and adds the enjoyment of the podcast, a positive reinforcer. Exercise, by contrast, has costs now and benefits later, which makes it weakly reinforced. Through observational learning, Renee grew up in a household where adults rested after work and did not exercise, and her current coworkers mostly do the same.

Learning by Watching

Bandura et al. (1961) conducted a classic experiment on observational learning. Preschool children watched an adult behave either aggressively or calmly toward a large inflatable doll, while other children saw no model. Later, after a mild frustration, children who had watched the aggressive model were much more likely to imitate the adult's specific aggressive acts, hitting and kicking the doll and repeating the model's words, than children in the other groups. The study showed that people can learn new behaviors simply by watching others, without being reinforced themselves.

The same process can work in a healthy direction. A coworker who exercises regularly and talks about it can serve as a model for Renee, showing that exercise fits into a busy life.

Paying for a Habit

Charness and Gneezy (2009) tested whether incentives could create a lasting exercise habit. University students were paid to attend the gym, with one group paid for a single visit and another paid for eight visits within a month. After the payments ended, students in the eight-visit group continued to attend the gym more often than before, and the effect was concentrated among students who had not been regular gym-goers. Repeated reinforced visits appear to have built a habit that continued once the reward stopped, at least for some weeks.

For Renee, the finding suggests that rewarding repeated exercise over a period of weeks can establish the behavior, and that the goal of early rewards is to build enough repetitions for the habit to take hold.

Bundling a Temptation

Milkman et al. (2014) studied temptation bundling, which pairs an activity people want to do but should limit with one they should do but tend to avoid. Participants who could listen to tempting audiobooks only while at the gym visited the gym more often than a control group, especially in the first weeks of the study. The effect weakened after a holiday break interrupted the routine, but many participants said they would pay to have access to such an arrangement. In learning terms, the audiobook became a reinforcer contingent on exercise.

Renee's Plan

Anticipating Setbacks

Learning research also predicts where the plan may falter. The Milkman, Minson and Volpp study found that the bundling effect weakened after a holiday break interrupted participants' routines, and Renee's work schedule includes a busy month-end close. To protect the habit, the plan includes a shorter backup walk of fifteen minutes on the busiest days, which keeps the cue and the reinforcer in place even when time is short. If Renee misses a walk, the next scheduled day simply resumes the routine; there is no penalty, since punishment tends to produce avoidance rather than new behavior. Over time, as walking becomes associated with the end of the workday, the hope is that the routine will be maintained by its own rewards, better sleep and less stress, rather than by the podcast.

Tracking Progress

Renee will mark each walk on a calendar on her refrigerator and record its length. The target is three walks a week of at least thirty minutes for four weeks. If she meets the target in three of the four weeks, the reward schedule will thin to one reward after every six walks, a step designed to keep the behavior going as it becomes a habit. If she misses, she will look at which cue or reinforcer failed, rather than concluding that she lacks willpower.

Conclusion

Renee's evenings on the couch were learned through cues, reinforcement and the examples around her, and the same principles can build a new habit. Bandura, Ross and Ross show that people learn by watching models, Charness and Gneezy show that rewarding repeated behavior can establish a lasting habit and Milkman, Minson and Volpp show that pairing a temptation with exercise increases it. A plan that changes cues, moves reinforcers and adds a model applies the psychology of learning to an everyday goal.

References

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63(3), 575-582. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045925

Charness, G., & Gneezy, U. (2009). Incentives to exercise. Econometrica, 77(3), 909-931. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA7416

Milkman, K. L., Minson, J. A., & Volpp, K. G. M. (2014). Holding the Hunger Games hostage at the gym: An evaluation of temptation bundling. Management Science, 60(2), 283-299. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1784