Learning to make a response in order to escape from an aversive event. Closely related to avoidance learning. Both types of learning occur as a consequence of negative reinforcement. An example of escape learning is giving in to the demands of a figure of authority in order to escape from conditioned distress. Learning to avoid such a person as a means of reducing the threat of anxiety-inducing encounters constitutes an example of avoidance learning. Escape learning can be converted into avoidance learning through the provision of a warning signal prior to an aversive stimulus. Both types of learning find their origins in the two-factor theory of avoidance learning proposed by Orval Hobart Mowrer (1907-1982).
See Avoidance learning, Classical conditioning, Learned helplessness, Learning, Reinforcer