Why is the psychology of learning a controversial topic? What are the implications of this controversy for organisations and management practice?
WHY IS THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING A CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC? WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS CONTROVERSY FOR ORGANISATIONS AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE?
There are so many diverse theories in psychology about how we learn, and which methods are most effective. Some theories contradict others, which makes it difficult for managers to decide which method is best suited for training their existing staff and new recruits. Consequently learning has considerable implications for organisations.
The main conflict is between associative and cognitive theories of learning, as associative theorists believe that complex learning can be understood in terms of fundamentally simple associative mechanisms, in contrast, cognitive theorists assume these processes are much more intricate. Recent research has shown that both these views may be right, learning may in fact involve simple habits and those which are a great deal more complex.
Behaviourism is a term introduced by John Watson, as he challenged introspection (a person's examination of their own feelings and thoughts). Introspection's first systematic application was the efforts of a German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. His technique was very straight forward, his subjects were exposed to a stimulus and then asked to report any sensations that the stimulus aroused. However this is very problematical to analyse as a naïve observer will report what they expect to see rather than what they actually see. Watson did not have faith that introspection produce quantifiable values on behaviour. He therefore began to study overt behaviour, that is behaviour we can see, rather than what we assume could be in occurrence inside a subject's head. This is often known as stimulus-response psychology, of which there are two main categories; classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning was developed by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist. His most renowned work was with his experiments on dogs. He conditioned dogs to produce a reflex response to a stimulus that it would not produce without the conditioning. Using meat, Pavlov would sound a buzzer and present a portion of meat to the dog, upon seeing the meat the dog would salivate and this would be collected in a tube. After many pairings of the meat with the sound of the buzzer the dogs eventually began to salivate to the buzzer alone. At first the buzzer was a neutral stimulus (NS) that when coupled with the presentation of the meat produced and unconditioned response (UCR) which was salivating. After a while the buzzer became a conditioned stimulus (CS) that produced a
conditioned response (CR) of salivating. The equation below illustrates this.
UCS (meat) UCR (salivation)
NS (buzzer) + UCS UCR
CS (buzzer) CR (salivation)
This method has proved to be an effective method of learning, it has also been used in treating people with alcohol abuse problems. In the above equation, substituting the UCS for a saline solution and an emetic drug, the UCR and the CR with vomiting and the NS and CS with alcohol, people learn to associate the drinking of alcohol with the vomiting, which discourages them from drinking.
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conditioned response (CR) of salivating. The equation below illustrates this.
UCS (meat) UCR (salivation)
NS (buzzer) + UCS UCR
CS (buzzer) CR (salivation)
This method has proved to be an effective method of learning, it has also been used in treating people with alcohol abuse problems. In the above equation, substituting the UCS for a saline solution and an emetic drug, the UCR and the CR with vomiting and the NS and CS with alcohol, people learn to associate the drinking of alcohol with the vomiting, which discourages them from drinking.
This form of learning can be adapted for use in the organisation. In order to complete a task efficiently and to the best of our ability we need to give it our full attention. In an organisation coercive or punitive supervisors may become the conditioned stimulus which produce negative emotions. This may be the result of generalization, meaning that the employee may associate the supervisor with a strict teacher which upset them in school. These bad feelings may be disruptive in the work place, hindering the progress completing tasks and may even be disturbing other employees.
Another form of conditioning is operant conditioning. B.F. Skinner's (1904-1990) work is especially famous in this field. Skinner was the first to insist on a distinction between classical and operant conditioning. He claimed that in classical conditioning the behaviour of the animal is elicited by the conditioned stimulus but in operant conditioning the subject has much more control as their reactions can be considered voluntary. Skinner referred to these responses by the subjects as operants. The subject operate on their environment to bring about a change which leads to a reward (Glietman) and the tendency for this response to be repeated depended on the behaviours consequences.
Using this method Skinner was able to condition rats to press levers, and pigeons to press discs. The pigeons were rewarded for pecking a disc when a light was illuminated. When the pigeons pecked the disc when the light was on it was rewarded with access to a bowl of food. Pigeons were also conditioned to peck a disc whenever they saw something orange, and after they had been conditioned they were used in rescue operations, where a plane would fly over the sea, with pigeons in a glass bottomed tank suspended below the plane, then when the pigeons spotted the orange from the life belt or raft they would peck the disc and the pilot would then know where they were.
The rats were placed inside a "Skinner-box" where there was a lever. After wandering around the box the rat would eventually press the lever, either accidentally or out of curiosity. Once the lever had been pressed a light would come illuminate and the rat would be given some food through a shoot. The rat eventually would associate the pressing of the lever with the presentation of food and hence the rat would press the lever more and more frequently in order to rewarded with the food. The pressing of the lever was what the researcher desired the rat to do, so when the rat performed this action, its behaviour was reinforced by the presentation of food. This is known as positive reinforcement as desirable behaviour was encouraged by introducing a positive consequence. In the context of the work place, managers may positively reinforce the preferred behaviour of employees by providing praise or even bonuses when they perform the desired tasks such as higher productivity. A manager could also negatively reinforce behavior. An example here could be an employee who was not working hard and was frequently getting in trouble for it may work hard one day and so avoid getting grief from their boss. The avoidance of this negative consequence is reinforcing the behaviour. The manager could also chastise the employee by scolding them or cutting their wages to stop them behaving in undesired ways, this is known as punishment. Another effective method is partial reinforcement, for example an employee would not get a bonus or praise after every task they complete but rather after a number of accomplished tasks. The effectiveness of this type of reinforcement is paradoxical. Since every reinforcement of the desired behaviour increases the likelihood that that behaviour will reoccur then a higher number of reinforcements should lead to more strongly established behaviour, however, research has shown that a group which is reinforced 100% of the time will reach extinction of that same behaviour much quicker than the group which was only reinforced 30% of the time. This could be used by managers more effectively than continuous reinforcement to promote efficient working.
A conflict managers may face when using reinforcement (especially negative reinforcement) is that even though the workers initially responded to the supervisor becoming more disciplinary and even tyrannical by being fearful and increasing productivity, they may eventually strike or sabotage their work or to flee the environment completely by changing jobs.
These theories have caused the development of a technique known as behaviour modification. According to Kazin, this is the systematic application of scientific principles of learning to change behaviour on a person-by-person or case-by-case basis. In management, individuals may seek the services of a qualified behaviour modifier to alter conduct that they personally consider dysfunctional and beyond their own ability to control without professional assistance. Supervisors can often be taught behaviour modification techniques to enable them determine why some subordinates have learned dysfunctional behaviour on the job. This enables the supervisors to create a new environmental experience for the employees that increase the rate of functional behaviour.
Socialisation is the process through which an individual's pattern of behaviour and their values, attitudes and motives are influenced to conform with those seen as desirable in a particular organisation, society or subculture (Huczynski and Buchahan). Albert Bandura was one of the most dominant supporters of the social learning theory. His "BoBo Doll Study:
Bandura made of film of one of his young female students beating up a bobo doll. The woman punched and kicked the clown, and hit it with a hammer while shouting sockeroo" . Bandura showed his film to groups of play school children who then were let out to play. In the playroom were several researchers observing and recording the actions of the children, a brand new bobo doll, and a few little hammers. The children punched it and shouted "sockeroo," kicked it, hit it with the little hammers, they imitated the young lady in the film.
These children changed their behaviour without first being rewarded for approximations to that behaviour. This does not fit in well with standard behaviouristic learning theory. He called the phenomenon observational learning or modelling, and his theory is usually called social learning theory.
In the work place, if a new recruit is watching someone else performing task, especially if they are an already established member of the workforce, they are likely to mimic these actions themselves. If that same "role-model" was to receive praise for their work we would be even more likely to copy them, as their behaviour had been reinforced.
However, if we adopt the behaviour of someone else and when we perform these actions to our managers and are punished for them it is unlikely that we would repeat them. A process of extinction may occur if our role model was to constantly receive praise for their behaviour that when we imitate, we do not receive any kind of reinforcement for doing. This behaviour would eventual become phased out.
Conversely, cognitive learning would claim that learning is a process of acquiring new knowledge and not a change in behaviour. The response is what illustrates that the knowledge has been gained but it is the cognition, rather than the response that is the essence of what has been learned (Dickinson (1987). The cognitive theory puts importance on mental processes that behaviourists disregard.
The controversy therefore has implications for organisations and management practices, as managers must decide how to train their employees. Training is when learning events are planned in a systematic fashion. These must be related to events in the work environment. This training is the methodical acquisition of new skills and concepts, which will result in more productive and efficient performance on the job. Training should be planned with an awareness of how people learn and what would facilitate learning, including what would help consolidate it.
This is more of a cognitive process. However, motivating employees I believe to be more a behaviourism forte, through the use of operant conditioning. Behaviour modification would appear to be slightly unethical to have imposed on a human and I think that socialisation would be more ecologically valid also.
REFERENCES
* Huczynski and Buchanan (2001) Organisational Behaviour Prentice Hall
* Lieberman D.A. (1993) Learning: Behaviour and Cognition, Brooks/Cole Publishing Company
* Blackman D. (1974) An Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Methuen and Co. Ltd
* Kazdin A.K. (1978) History of Behaviour Modification, University Park Press
* Glietman H. (1999) Psychology, Norton and Company Inc.
* Fincham R. and Rhodes P.S. (1999) Principles of Organisational Behaviour, Oxford University Press
J. Burnside
Word count: 1922
0309502 Business and Management, level one, assignment IGBO
