Learning theory and the acquisition of attitudinal responses

Abstract

Greenwald foreshadows here the pressure that was to build up on learning theorists generally, and not just on those concerned with applications of learning theory to the field of attitudes, for the adoption of less narrowly behavioristic conceptual language. In fact, much recent research on animal learning uses conceptual language that can be surprisingly familiar, even congenial, to social psychologists. In a word, such conceptual language is frequently cognitive, notwithstanding the fact that one is talking mainly about rats, pigeons and such like. Following a tradition that may be traced back to Tolman, learning may be viewed as the acquisition of expectancies (e.g. Tarpy, 1982).