Principles of Learning and Behavior - Hardcover

Domjan, Michael P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0534189121 ISBN 13: 9780534189129

Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing, 1992

Synopsis

This popular text gives students a comprehensive and readable introduction to contemporary issues in learning and behavior. The books balanced coverage, careful organization, and focus on animal learning have made it a favorite for years with professors and students alike. The book provides a systematic introduction to elementary forms of learning that have been the focus of research for much of the twentieth century: habituation, classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, stimulus control, aversive control, and their applications to the study of cognition and to the alleviation of behavior problems. Biological constraints on learning are integrated throughout the text, as are applications boxes that relate animal research to human learning and behavior. The book is organized so that each chapter builds on the previous one, and simpler phenomena (habituation and sensitization) are described before more complicated ones. Within each chapter, information is also presented in increasing order of complexity. Throughout, analogies and examples help simplify and clarify concepts.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Domjan is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Domjan specializes in various areas of learning including animal learning, biological constraints on learning, learning mechanisms in reproductive behavior, and comparative psychology. He has been recognized with the MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1993, the G. Stanley Hall Award from the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1995, and election as President of the Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology of the APA (1999-2000). He is the recipient of numerous grants for research from the National Science Foundation, NIMH, and other agencies and has published more than 100 papers and presented in his area of specialization at more than 115 conventions. He served as editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes for six years and continues to serve on editorial boards of various journals in the United States and other countries. He is a past president of the Pavlovian Society and also served as president of the Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology of the American Psychological Association.

Review

"The author has added many interesting new and modern theoretical approaches without compromising the older theories within the context of the data available at the time."

"Domjan's book is extraordinarily well organized. He has taken this work through several revisions, and his efforts have paid off. ... Domjan succeeds at providing brief, clear descriptions of most of the important approaches to the principles of learning."

"Excellent narrative style, very readable. It is by far the best for my students."

About this edition

• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0534189121
• ISBN 13: 9780534189129
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 360