LEARNING:
Learning is another important psychological process determining human behaviour.
Learning can be defined as “relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience or reinforced practice”. There are four important points in the definition of learning:
1. Learning involves a change in behaviour, though this change is not necessarily an improvement over previous behaviour. Learning generally has the connotation of improved behaviour, but bad habits, prejudices, stereotypes, and work restrictions are also learned.
2. The behavioural change must be relatively permanent. Any temporary change in behaviour is not a part of learning.
3. The behavioural change must be based on some form of practice or experience.
4. The practice or experience must be reinforced in order for learning to occur.
Components of Learning Process
The components of learning process are: drive, cue stimuli, response, reinforcement and retention.
1. Drive
Learning frequently occurs in the presence of drive – any strong stimulus that impels action. Drives are basically of two types – primary or physiological drives and secondary or psychological drives. These two categories of drives often interact. Individuals operate under many drives at the same time. To predict behaviour, it is necessary to establish which drives are stimulating the most.
2. Cue Stimuli
Cue stimuli are any objects existing in the environment as perceived by the individual. The idea is to discover the conditions under which stimulus will increase the probability of eliciting a specific response. There may be two types of stimuli so far as their results in terms of response are concerned: generalisation and discrimination.
Generalisation occurs when a response is elicited by a similar but new stimulus. If two stimuli are exactly alike, they will have the same probability of evoking a specified response. The principle of generalisation has important implications for human learning. Because of generalisation, a person does not have to completely relearn each of the new tasks. It allows the members to adapt to overall changing conditions and specific new assignments. The individual
can borrow from past learning experiences to adjust more smoothly to new learning situations.
Discrimination is a process whereby an orgaisation learns to emit a response to a stimulus but avoids making the same response to a similar but somewhat different stimulus. Discrimination has wide applications in organisational behaviour. For example, a supervisor can discriminate between two equally high producing workers, one with low quality and other with high quality.
3. Responses
The stimulus results in responses. Responses may be in the physical form or may be in terms of attitudes, familiarity, perception or other complex phenomena. In the above example, the supervisor discriminates between the worker producing low quality products and the worker producing high quality products, and positively responds only to the quality conscious worker.
4. Reinforcement
Reinforcement is a fundamental condition of learning. Without reinforcement, no measurable modification of behaviour takes place. Reinforcement may be defined as environmental events affects the probability of occurrence of responses with which they are associated.
5. Retention
The stability of learned behaviour over time is defined as retention and the converse is forgetting. Some of the learning is retained over a period of time; while other may be forgotten.
Learning Theories
Classical Conditioning
The work of the famous Russian Physiologist Ivan Pavlov demonstrated the classical conditioning process. When Pavlov presented a piece of meat to the dog in the experiment, Pavlov noticed a great deal of salivation. He termed the food an unconditioned stimulus and the salivation an unconditioned response. When the dog saw the meat, it salivated. On the other hand, when Pavlov merely rang a bell, the dog did not salivate. Pavlov subsequently introduced the sound of a bell each time the meat was given to the dog. The dog eventually learned to salivate in response to the ringing of the bell even when there was no meat. Pavlov had conditioned the dog to respond to a learned stimulus. Thorndike called this the “law of exercise” which states that behaviour can be learned by repetitive association between a stimulus and a response.
Classical conditioning has a limited value in the study of organisational behaviour. As pointed out by Skinner, classical conditioning represents an insignificant part of total human learning. Classical conditional is passive. Something happens and we react in a specific or particular fashion. It is elicited in response to a specific, identifiable event and as such it explains simple and reflexive behaviours. But behaviour of people in organisations is emitted rather than elicited, and it is voluntary rather than reflexive. The learning of these complex behaviours can be explained or better understood by looking at operant conditioning.
Operant Conditioning
Operant is defined as behaviour that produces effects. Operant conditioning, basically a product of Skinnerian psychology, suggests that individuals emit responses that are either not rewarded or are punished. Operant conditioning is voluntary behaviour and it is determined, maintained and controlled by its consequences.
Operant conditioning is a powerful tool for managing people in organisations. Most behaviours in organisations are learned, controlled and altered by the consequences; i.e. operant behaviours. Management can use the operant conditioning process successfully to control and influence the behaviour of employees by manipulating its reward system. Reinforcement is anything that both increases the strength of response and tends to induce repetitions of the behaviour. Four types of reinforcement strategies can be employed by managers to influence the behaviour of the employees, viz., positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, extinction and punishment.
1. Positive Reinforcement:
Positive reinforcement strengthens and increases behaviour by the presentation of a desirable consequence (reward). In other words, a positive reinforcer is a reward that follows behaviour and is capable of increasing the frequency of that behaviour. There are two types of positive reinforces: primary and secondary.
Primary reinforcers such as food, water and sex are of biological importance and have effects which are independent of past experiences. For instance, a primary reinforcer like food satisfies hunger need and reinforced food-producing behaviour.
Secondary reinforcers like job advancement, recognition, praise and esteem result from previous association with a primary reinforcer. Primary reinforcers must be learned. In order to apply reinforcement procedures successfully, management must select reinforcers that are sufficiently
powerful and durable.
2. Negative Reinforcement:
The threat of punishment is known as negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcers also serve to strengthen desired behaviour responses leading to their removal or termination.
3. Extinction:
Extinction is an effective method of controlling undesirable behaviour. It refers to non-reinforcement. It is based on the principle that if a response is not reinforced, it will eventually disappear. Extinction is a behavioural strategy that does not promote desirable behaviours but can reduce undesirable behaviours.
4. Punishment:
Punishment is a control device employed in organisations to discourage and reduce annoying behaviours of employees.
Observational Learning
Observational learning results in as a result of watching the behaviour of another person and appraising the consequences of that behaviour. It does not require an overt response. When Mr. X observes that Y is rewarded for superior performance, X learns the positive relationship between performance and rewards without actually obtaining the reward himself. Observational
learning plays a crucial role in altering behaviours in organisations.
Cognitive Learning
Here the primary emphasis is on knowing how events and objects are related to each other. Most of the learning that takes place in the class room is cognitive learning. Cognitive learning is important because it increases the change that the learner will do the right thing first time, without going through a lengthy operant conditioning process.
Learning Theory and Organisation Behaviour
The relevance of the learning theories for explaining and predicting of organisational behaviour is marginal. This does not mean that learning theories are totally irrelevant. Learning concepts provide a basis for changing behaviours that are unacceptable and maintaining those that are acceptable. When individuals engage in various types of dysfunctional behaviour (late for work, disobeying orders, poor performance), the manager will attempt to educate more functional
behaviours.
Learning theory can also provide certain guidelines for conditioning organisational behaviour. Managers know that individuals capable of turning out superior performance must be given more reinforces than those with average or low performance. Managers can successfully use the operant conditioning process to control and influence the behaviour of employees by
manipulating its reward system.
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