Session: Individual Learning

and Behavior
Dr. Kiran Sakkar Sudha
Overview
• Definition of Learning
• Theoretical process of learning
• Application of the learning theories for behavior modification
Setting the context
• How do people learn?
Video
Defining it
• Learning covers virtually all behaviors and is concerned with
• the acquisition of knowledge, attitudes and values, emotional
responses (such as happiness and fear), and motor skills

• (such as operating a computer keyboard or riding a bicycle).

Does learning affects human behavior?
• In an organizational setup,
• worker's skill, a manager's attitude, a supervisor's
motivation and an employees mode of dress- all are
learned.
• Our ability to learn is also important to organizations
preoccupied with controlled performance.
 What is Learning?

• Defined as: "any relatively permanent change in behavior or

behavioral potential produced by experience" –
• Relatively permanent Change: Maturation, aging,
• Experience: These experiences may be derived from inside the body or
they may be sensory, arising outside .
• Behavior have to be observed, learning cannot be measured
directly.

• *Under impact of psychoactive drugs, the behavior is tentative

How learning takes place?
• We learn by Association.
• Till we are awake: our minds are innately searching for
patterns/trends/connections in what we can see & we judge the
stimulus of each detail surrounding us in order to determine our
response.
• Indirectly through language, and through experience of others,
(vicariously/Observation)
Video - Types
What did you see?

• Special focus on
• Driving a two wheeler
• Remembering the routes of the jungle
What did you see?

• Special focus on
• Driving a two wheeler – Procedural memory
• Remembering the routes of the jungle- Declarative memory
 Types of learning
• Procedural learning- 'knowing how‘ (Procedure)
• ability to carry out particular skilled actions
• Other examples: riding a horse.

• Declarative learning - `knowing that',

• factual knowledge
• memories that can be consciously recalled (or "declared")
• Other examples : an understanding of the history of our use of the horse
• that J is the tenth letter of the alphabet,
Theories of learning
• Behaviorist Approach
• Classical Learning (Pavlov)
• Operant Learning (Skinner & Thorndike)

• Social Learning Theory (Bandura)

Behaviorist approach to learning
• Behaviorist psychologists - speak of the association between stimulus
and response.
• Stimulus - any event or situation that evokes a response
• Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), Classical / Pavlovian/ Respondent
Conditioning
• Involves learning a new behavior via the process of association. In simple
terms, two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response in
a person or animal.
Example
Pavlov’s Experiment
Five main components of Classical
conditioning
• Classical Conditioning always involves these parts. They are:
• Neutral Stimulus (NS)
• Any stimulus that produces no conditioned response prior to learning .
• Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
• A stimulus that automatically-without conditioning or learning- provokes a reflexive response
• Unconditioned Response (UR)
• A response resulting from an unconditioned stimulus without prior learning
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
• A CS is the formerly neutral stimulus that gains the
power to cause the response
• Conditioned Response (CR):
• A CR is a response elicited by a previously neutral stimulus that has become associated with the
unconditioned stimulus.
• With classical conditioning you can teach a dog to salivate, but
you cannot teach it to sit up or roll over. Why?
• Salivation is an involuntary reflex, while sitting up and rolling over
are far more complex responses that we think of as voluntary.
 Observational Learning- Experiment
• After observing adults seeming to enjoy punching, hitting and
kicking an inflated doll called Bobo, the children later showed
similar aggressive behavior toward the doll.

• Significantly, these children were more aggressive than those in

a control condition who did not witness the adult’s violence.

• People can learn through observation and direct experience.

Steps of learning in Observational learning
Learning in which new responses are acquired after other’s
behavior and the consequences of their behavior are observed.
• Attentional processes
• Retention processes- Mental
reproduction of an event
• Motor reproduction processes
• Reinforcement processes
• Edward Thorndike’s “Law of Effect”:
The idea that behaviors followed by favorable consequences are more likely
to happen again while behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences
become less likely.

• Operant Conditioning- B.F. Skinner (1938)

• Behavioral responses are strengthened when followed by a reinforce and
diminished when followed by a punisher

• A type of conditioning in which desired voluntary behavior leads to a reward or

prevents a punishment.
• Positive Reinforcement: giving a positive response when an individual shows
positive and required behavior

• Negative Reinforcement- rewarding an employee by removing undesirable

consequences.

• Eg: Putting on a seatbelt to make the annoying seatbelt buzzer stop.

• Both positive and negative reinforcement can be used for increasing desirable behavior.
• Note: When we are talking about reinforces or punishers, the word
“positive” means add or apply; “negative” is used to mean subtract
or remove.
• Punishment- an averse/disliked stimulus which occurs after a
behavior, and decreases the probability it will occur again.
• Positive Punishment: An undesirable event that follows a behavior:
like getting detention after cheating on a test.
• Negative Punishment: When a desirable event ends or when an
item is taken away after a behavior. Example: getting your cell
phone taken away after failing multiple classes on your progress
report.
 When to reinforce?
• Interval schedule: rewards subjects after a certain time interval.

• Ratio schedule: rewards subjects after a certain number of responses.

Scheduling is important to
reinforce the desired
behaviors
• Fixed Interval Schedule (FI):
• rewards a learner only for the first correct response after
some defined period of time.
• Example: B.F. Skinner put rats in a box with a lever connected to a feeder. It
only provided a reinforcement after 60 seconds. The rats quickly learned that it
didn’t matter how early or often it pushed the lever, it had to wait a set amount of
time. As the set amount of time came to an end, the rats became more active in
hitting the lever.
• Variable Interval Schedule (VI):
• A reinforcement system that rewards a correct response after
an unpredictable amount of time.
• Example: A pop-quiz
• Fixed Ratio Schedule (FR):
• A reinforcement schedule that rewards a response only after
a defined number of correct answers.
• Example: At many stores, if you use your member card or
frequent shopper card, you can get “free” rewards

• Variable Ratio Schedule (VR):

• A reinforcement schedule that rewards an unpredictable
number of correct responses.
• Example: Buying lottery scratch-off tickets
Question?
• To what extent should the punishment criteria be used by managers
when disciplining employees in an organizational context?
O.B. Modification- Setting the context
• “OB Mod is a programme where managers identify performance
related employee behaviors and then implement an intervention
strategy to strengthen desirable behavior and weaken undesirable
behaviors.”- Robbins, S.P.
• 2 aspects in O.B. Mod.-
i) The Antecedents. These are
the events preceding the
behavior.
(ii) The consequences i.e. the
events that follow a particular
behavior.
A-B-C model

Actual
Behavior

What Happens What the What happens

before the person says or after the
behavior does? behavior
For
bes
Arti
cle
 Application of Learning theories
• Well Pay versus Sick Pay
• Reduces absenteeism by rewarding attendance, not absence.
• Employee Discipline
• The use of punishment can be counter-productive. (Discussed)

HOW?
• Developing Training Programs
• OB MOD methods improve training effectiveness.
• Self-management
• Reduces the need for external management control

Critical-
Discussion
Behavioral Modification
• How to apply these reinforcement concepts to individuals in the work
setting?
• Five Step Problem-Solving Model
1.Identify critical behaviors - Identification
2.Develop baseline data - Measurement
3.Identify behavioral consequences - Analysis
4.Develop and apply intervention- Intervention
5.Evaluate performance improvement - Evaluation
Thanks