Theories of Learning
Theories of Learning: The connection of one experience with another desired occurrence, which results in a behaviour, is known as classical conditioning. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist who earned the Nobel Prize for his work on classical conditioning, performed the most well-known tests on the topic. Pavlov used dogs in an experiment to try to develop a Stimulus-Response (S-R) relationship. He sought to make a connection between the dog’s salivation and the bell ringing. He placed meat in front of dogs in his tests.
The dogs salivated in response to this stimuli. This was an unconditioned or instinctive reaction. Pavlov then proceeded to strike a bell in sync with the presentation of the meat. The mere ringing of the bell, without the introduction of meat, elicited no reactions. Pavlov created a link between the two stimuli—the bell and the meat—in the minds of the dogs by ringing the bell at the same time as the presentation of meat. By repeating this practise, even when no meat was present, the ringing of the bell provided sufficient trigger to promote salivation. As a consequence, the bell became a conditioned stimulus, eliciting a learnt or conditioned response.
The meat was an unconditioned stimulus, as seen in the figure above. It made the dog respond in a certain manner, such as an increase in salivation. The unconditioned response is the name given to this kind of reaction. The bell was a conditioned stimulus or an artificial stimulus. However, when the bell was combined with the meat (an unconditioned stimuli), a response was finally elicited. The dog began salivating in response to the ringing of the bell alone after training. As a result, the conditioned stimulus resulted in the conditioned response.
We may witness classical conditioning at action in an organisational environment. For example, when a senior executive from the head office came to visit one manufacturing unit, the plant management cleaned up the administrative offices and washed the windows. This carried on for a long time.
Employees would eventually put on their best act and seem prim and proper whenever the windows were washed, even if the cleaning was not accompanied by a visit from the top brass. People have come to equate window washing with a visit from the corporate headquarters.
Classical conditioning accounts for just a tiny percentage of all human learning. As a result, it is only of limited use in the study of organisational behaviour. Classical conditioning is just a spectator sport. Only if anything occurs will we respond in a certain manner. People’s behaviour in organisations, on the other hand, is choice rather than reflexive. Their behaviour isn’t produced in reaction to a single, recognisable incident, rather it’s released in general. The study of operant conditioning may help us better understand how complicated behaviour is learned.
Theories of Learning
Conditioned Operation:
Operant behaviour is defined as behaviour that has an impact. Operant conditioning is based on the work of B.F. Skinner, who claimed that people would only emit rewarded replies and will not emit non-rewarded or penalised responses. According to operant conditioning, behaviour is a result of its consequences. If the outcomes are positive, the behaviour is likely to be repeated. If the consequences are negative, the behaviour is unlikely to be repeated. As a result, the core of operant conditioning is the link between behaviour and consequences.
Management may research and find this direct link between consequences and behaviour in order to adjust and regulate behaviour based on this direct relationship. As a result, some kinds of consequences may be used to raise the incidence of desired behaviour while others can be used to reduce the occurrence of undesirable behaviour.
In the workplace, operant conditioning may be seen in action. Working hard and receiving a promotion, for example, will almost certainly lead to the individual continuing to work hard in the future. If, on the other hand, a manager guarantees a subordinate that he will be appropriately paid in the next performance assessment if the employee works beyond time, the employee will be satisfied.
However, when it comes time for the review, the boss fails to deliver on his promise to his subordinate, despite the fact that the latter had worked extra. When the supervisor asks him to work extra the next time, the subordinate politely rejects. As a result, it may be stated that rewarding behaviour consequences enhance the rate of reaction, but unpleasant behaviour consequences lower the rate of response. Clinical and educational research, as well as the treatment of alcoholism and the management of wayward children in the classroom, all involve operant conditioning methods.
Learning via cognition
Edward Tolman is the father of cognitive learning theory. Through controlled tests, he created and tested this notion. In his experiment, he demonstrated that rats could learn to navigate a complex labyrinth in order to get their objective of food. Rats acquired expectancies at each option point in the labyrinth, according to the researchers. As a result, they learned to anticipate particular cognitive signals associated to the decision point leading to food. Because the signals lead to predicted objectives, the learning occurred when the link between the cues and anticipation was enhanced.
The cognitive theory acknowledges an organism’s part in receiving, remembering, recalling, interpreting, and responding to a stimuli. Classic conditioning (stimulus response learning) and operant conditioning have different cognitive explanations for learning (response stimulus learning). Tolman defines cognitive approach as a stimulus approach, in which one stimulus leads to another.
Thinking about the apparent link between occurrences and individual objectives and expectations is how cognitive learning is accomplished. The cognitive theory of learning holds that the organism learns the meaning of diverse objects and events, and that learnt responses are determined by the meaning given to stimuli.
According to cognitive theorists, the learner creates a cognitive structure in memory that stores and organises information about the numerous events that occur during a learning setting. The participant must encode the test stimuli and scan it against his memory to identify an appropriate action when a test is administered to assess how much has been learnt. What is done will be determined by the cognitive structure that has been recovered from memory.
The cognitive theory is still very much alive and well today. The cognitive method has mostly been used to motivation theories in organisational behaviour. Expectations, attributions, locus of control, and goal setting are all cognitive notions that describe the intention behind organisational behaviour. The link or connection between cognitions and organisational behaviour is now causing concern among many scholars.
Learning via social interaction
Individuals may also learn by seeing what occurs to others and just being informed about something, in addition to having firsthand experiences. Much of what we know comes from seeing and emulating role models, such as parents, teachers, classmates, superiors, and movie stars. Social learning theory refers to the idea that humans may learn via both observation and direct experience.
This theory believes that learning is not a matter of environmental or individual determinism (classical and operant viewpoints) (The cognitive view). Rather, it’s a hybrid of the two. As a result, the interacting nature of cognitive, behavioural, and environmental variables is emphasised in social learning theory. In the context of social learning, the model’s impact is crucial. There are four procedures that may be used to determine the impact of a model on a person.
(a) The Process of Concentration
People can only learn from a model if they notice and pay attention to its key characteristics. Models that are appealing, readily accessible, significant to us, or comparable to usage in our estimate have the most impact on us.
(b) Retention Techniques
The impact of a model is determined by how well a person recalls the model’s actions when the model is no longer accessible.
(c) Processes of Motor Reproduction
After viewing the model and witnessing a new behaviour, the watching must be turned to action. The individual’s ability to do the modelled tasks is then shown via this method.
(d) Processes of Reinforcement
If positive incentives or prizes are offered, people will be more likely to mimic the modelled behaviour. Positively rewarded behaviours will get more attention, will be better taught, and will be done more often.
The impact of the social learning model on a person is shown in the figure below:
- Changing People’s Attitudes
Individuals learn on the job as well as before they start working. Managers in any firm will be concerned with how they can train workers to act in the most productive manner for the company. When a manager attempts to mould people by leading their learning in graded stages, he is attempting to shape their behaviour.
A manager may influence behaviour by encouraging each subsequent action that brings the person closer to the desired response in a methodical way. For example, if an employee who leaves the workplace half an hour early on a regular basis begins leaving just twenty minutes early, the manager might encourage his behaviour to get it closer to the desired behaviour of leaving the office on time. E.L. Thorndike’s basic rule of effect is the first theoretical study of reinforcement in learning and the framework that still prevails today.
- The Effects Law
“Of multiple responses made to the same scenario, those which are accompanied or closely followed by pleasure (Reinforcement)-will be more likely to repeat, those which are accompanied or closely followed by discomfort (Punishment)-will be less likely to reoccur,” Thorndike says. The law of effect underpins the operant conditioning or learning approach to behaviour
It has been repeatedly proved in well controlled learning studies and is immediately visible in ordinary learning situations. Employees that work hard to attain organisational goals, for example, are appropriately rewarded economically or otherwise, they are more likely to repeat their efforts when new goals are established.