2.
4 LEARNING
Foundations of Individual Behavior
Definition of Learning
Learning is “any relatively permanent
change in behavior that occurs as a result
of experience.”
This definition has several components
that deserve clarification.
Learning involves change. Change may
be good or bad from an organizational point
of view.
The change must be relatively
permanent. Immediate changes may be
only reflexive or a result of fatigue thus
may not represent learning.
Cont…
There must be change in actions. A
change in an individual's thought
processes or attitudes
Theories of Learning
• Three theories have been offered to explain the process by
which we acquire patterns of behavior in associative ways.
• These are classical conditioning, operant conditioning
and social learning.
1. Classical conditioning –grew out of experiments to teach
dogs to salivate in response to the ringing of a bell,
conducted in the early 1900s by Russian Psychologist Ivan
Pavlov.
• Learning a conditioned response involves building up an
association between a conditioned stimulus and an
unconditioned stimulus.
• When the stimuli, one compelling and the other one
neutral, are paired, the neutral one becomes a conditioned
stimulus and, hence, take on the properties of the
unconditioned stimulus.
Cont…
In an organizational setting, we can see
classical conditioning operating.
For example, at one manufacturing
plant, every time the top executives
from the head were scheduled to make a
visit, the plant management would clean
up the administrative offices and wash
the windows.
Cont…
Classical conditioning is passive.
Something happens and we react in a specific
way.
It is elicited, in response to a specific, identifiable
event.
It can explain simple reflexive behaviors.
Most behavior-particularly the complex
behavior it may be acquired of individuals in
organizations;
Is emitted rather than elicited.
It is voluntary rather than reflexive.
Classical Conditioning
2. Operant Conditioning
Operant Conditioning - argues that
behavior is a function of its consequences.
People learn to behave to get something they
want or to avoid something they don’t want.
Type of learning in which behavior is
strengthened if followed by reinforcement or
diminished if followed by punishment
Operant behavior means voluntary or
learned behavior in contrast to reflexive or
unlearned behavior.
Social Learning
Social Learning: States individuals can also
learn by observing what happens to other
people and just by being told about something,
as well as by direct experiences.
People can learn through both observation
and direct experience is called social-
learning theory.
Learning without direct experience
The influence of models is central to the social-
learning viewpoint.
Methods of Shaping Behavior
Positive reinforcement or Negative
reinforcement
desirable event that increases the behavior
that it follows
powerful controller of desirable behavior
Punishment(positive and negative) –
Decreases;
aversive event that decreases the behavior
that it follows
powerful controller of unwanted behavior
Extinction - Eliminating any reinforcement
that is maintaining a behavior
When the behavior is not reinforced, it tends to
gradually be extinguished
Impact of Reinforcement upon
Behavior in Organizations
Some type of reinforcement is necessary
to produce a change in behavior.
Some types of rewards are more effective
for use in organizations than others.
The speed with which learning takes place
and the permanence of its effects will be
determined by the timing of
reinforcement.
