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E. C. Tolman emphasized the purposiveness of behavior — the idea that much of our behavior is goal-directed. For instance, employees who aim for a promotion work diligently to meet their targets. Tolman argued that when classical conditioning and operant conditioning occur, the organism acquires certain expectations. In classical conditioning, a child might fear a dog because they expect it to bite. In operant conditioning, a person might consistently work overtime because they expect a...
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Cognitive learning is based on purposive behavior, incidental learning, and insight learning.
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Trust development as an expectancy-learning process: Testing contingency effects.

Guy Bosmans1, Theodore E A Waters2, Chloe Finet1,2

  • 1Clinical Psychology, KU Leuven, Belgium.

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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Trust in caregivers develops through learning that support is reliably available. This expectancy-learning process explains how children develop secure attachment and seek help when needed.

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Attachment Theory
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Secure attachment, characterized by trust in parental support and help-seeking behavior, originates from sensitive parenting during distress.
  • The precise developmental mechanisms underlying the formation of trust in attachment relationships are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the hypothesis that trust is formed via an expectancy-learning process, contingent on the reliability of caregiver support.
  • To explore the developmental pathway from caregiver support contingency to trust and subsequent help-seeking behaviors.

Main Methods:

  • A novel experimental paradigm was created where participants interacted with a novel caregiver providing problem-solving assistance.
  • The contingency (probability of positive support outcome) of the caregiver's help was systematically manipulated.
  • Participant trust in the caregiver and their willingness to seek help were measured across three independent samples.

Main Results:

  • The results supported the hypothesis, indicating that trust and help-seeking behaviors are indeed outcomes of an expectancy-learning process.
  • A significant relationship was found between the manipulated contingency of caregiver support and participants' developed trust and help-seeking.

Conclusions:

  • Trust and the propensity to seek support are learned through an expectancy-based mechanism, where the reliability of support is a key factor.
  • These findings offer a mechanistic explanation for the development of secure attachment and have implications for attachment theory.
  • The study highlights the role of learning processes in the formation of relational expectancies crucial for social development.