Learning and Reinforcement Notes
Introduction
Learning Outcomes:
How do organizations offer appropriate rewards in a timely fashion?
What are the best practices that organizations utilize to train employees in new job skills?
How do managers and organizations reduce undesirable employee behavior while reinforcing desirable behavior?
How can employees be trained to assume more responsibility for self-improvement and job performance with the goal of creating a work environment characterized by continual self-learning and employee development?
Google's Approach to Continued Learning:
Attracts top talent, maintains employee satisfaction, and encourages creativity.
Companies with comprehensive training programs have 218% higher income per employee.
Companies with required training programs have a higher profit margin.
Investing in people and promoting self-learning is key for keeping employees' behavior in check, training new skills, and increasing employee development.
Google's simple principles:
Gives employees purpose and a career path.
Provides relevant and important information.
Information must be pertinent and presented at the right time and in the right format.
Archives important information, empowering employees to access it at any time.
Shares “dumb questions” to encourage the sharing of information and learning on all levels.
Employs the values of celebrated failure, allowing teams to learn from mistakes.
Formalized plans for continued learning are employed for “informal and continuous learning” to occur, such as allowing employees to pursue their own interests and utilizing coaching and support tools.
Basic Models of Learning
Definition of Learning: A relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience.
A person has learned something when they consistently exhibit a new behavior over time.
Aspects of the Definition
Learning involves a change in attitude or behavior.
This change doesn't necessarily have to be an improvement; it can include learning bad habits or forming prejudices.
The change that takes place must be relatively permanent.
Changes in behavior that result from fatigue or temporary adaptation to a unique situation would not be considered examples of learning.
Learning typically involves some form of practice or experience.
Change that results from physical maturation is not considered learning.
This practice or experience must be reinforced over time for learning to take place.
Where reinforcement does not follow practice or experience, the behavior will eventually diminish and disappear (“extinction”).
Learning is an inferred process; we cannot observe learning directly.
Instead, we must infer the existence of learning from observing changes in overt behavior.
Four Stages of Research on Learning
Early experiments of Pavlov focused on stimulus-response relationships and environmental determinants of observable behaviors.
Followed by the discovery of the law of effect, experiments in operant conditioning, and the formulation of social learning theory.
Classical Conditioning
Definition: The process whereby a stimulus-response (S-R) bond is developed between a conditioned stimulus and a conditioned response through the repeated linking of a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus.
Pavlov's Experiments:
Pavlov initially studied the digestive processes of dogs.
He noticed that the dogs started to salivate at the first signal of approaching food.
He then examined whether animals could be trained to draw a causal relationship between previously unconnected factors.
Experiment:
Began with unlearned, or unconditioned, stimulus-response relationships.
When a dog was presented with meat (unconditioned stimulus), the dog salivated (unconditioned response).
Pavlov paired the unconditioned stimulus (meat) with a neutral one (the ringing of a bell).
Over time, a learned linkage developed for the dog between the bell and meat, ultimately resulting in an S-R bond between the conditioned stimulus (the bell) and the response (salivation) without the presence of the unconditioned stimulus (the meat).
Classical Conditioning in the Workplace (Example):
An airplane pilot learning how to use a newly installed warning system.
The behavior to be learned is to respond to a warning light that indicates that the plane has dropped below a critical altitude on an assigned glide path.
The proper response is to increase the plane’s altitude.
The pilot already knows how to appropriately respond to the trainer’s warning to increase altitude (in this case we would say the trainer’s warning is an unconditioned stimulus and the corrective action of increasing altitude is an unconditioned response).
The training session consists of the trainer warning the pilot to increase altitude every time the warning light goes on.
Through repeated pairings of the warning light with the trainer’s warning, the pilot eventually learns to adjust the plane’s altitude in response to the warning light even though the trainer is not present.
Criticism: Classical conditioning explains only a limited part of total human learning.
Psychologist B. F. Skinner argues that classical conditioning focuses on respondent, or reflexive, behaviors and concentrates on explaining largely involuntary responses that result from stimuli.
More complex learning cannot be explained solely by classical conditioning.
As an alternative explanation, Skinner and others have proposed the operant conditioning model of learning.
Operant Conditioning
Focus: Effects of reinforcements, or rewards, on desired behaviors.
Thorndike’s Law of Effect: Of several responses made to the same situation, those that are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction (reinforcement) will be more likely to occur; those that are accompanied or closely followed by discomfort (punishment) will be less likely to occur.
Behavior that leads to positive or pleasurable outcomes tends to be repeated, whereas behavior that leads to negative outcomes or punishment tends to be avoided.
Basic Operant Model of Learning:
Drive: An internal state of disequilibrium; a felt need.
Drive increases with the strength of deprivation.
A drive, or desire, to learn must be present for learning to take place.
Habit: The experienced bond or connection between stimulus and response.
Habits determine the behaviors, or courses of action, we choose.
Reinforcement or Reward: The feedback individuals receive as a result of action.
Stimulus, Drive, and Habit:
A stimulus activates an individual’s motivation through its impact on drive and habit.
The stronger the drive and habit (S-R bond), the stronger the motivation to behave in a certain way.
As a result of this behavior:
The individual receives feedback that reduces the original drive.
The individual strengthens their belief in the veracity of the S-R bond to the extent that it proved successful.
Example: Training Chronically Unemployed Workers:
Using a daily pay system instead of weekly or monthly systems.
Workers can more quickly see the relationship between coming to work and receiving pay.
An S-R bond develops more quickly because of the frequency of the reinforcement, or reward.
Operant versus Classical Conditioning
Differences:
Cause of Behavior Change:
Classical Conditioning: Changes in behavior arise through changes in stimuli.
Operant Conditioning: Changes in behavior result from the consequences of previous behavior.
Role and Frequency of Rewards:
Classical Conditioning: The unconditioned stimulus, acting as a sort of reward, is administered during every trial.
Operant Conditioning: The reward results only when individuals choose the correct response.
Individuals must correctly operate on their environment before a reward is received.
The response is instrumental in obtaining the desired reward.
Social Learning Theory
Definition: The process of molding behavior through the reciprocal interaction of a person’s cognitions, behavior, and environment.
Done through reciprocal determinism.
People control their own environment as much as the environment controls people.
Learning is Seen As: a more active, interactive process in which the learner has at least some control.
Core Principles
Shares roots with operant conditioning.
Behavior is partly controlled by environmental cues and consequences.
Uses observable behavior as the primary unit of analysis.
Cognitive or mental processes affect our response to environmental cues.
Four Central Elements:
Attention: Before someone can learn something, they must notice or pay attention to the thing that is to be learned.
Retention: The process by which what you have noticed is encoded into your memory.
Reproduction: Involves the translation of what was recorded in your mind into overt actions or behaviors.
Incentives: Can influence all three processes.
If you are rewarded for paying attention, you will pay more attention.
If you are rewarded for remembering what you studied, you will retain more.
If you are rewarded for reproducing what you learned, you will produce that behavior more.
Vicarious Learning:
Learning that takes place through the imitation of other role models.
We observe and analyze what another person does and the resulting consequences.
We learn without having to experience the phenomenon firsthand.
Social Learning Processes Model:
Three factors—the person, the environment, and the behavior—interact through processes such as vicarious learning, symbolic representations, and self-control to cause actual learned behaviors.
Major Influences on Learning
General factors that can enhance our learning processes:
An individual’s desire to learn
Background knowledge of a subject
Length of the learning period
Five Major Influences on Learning Effectiveness:
High Motivation to Learn: Learning effectiveness is increased considerably when individuals have high motivation to learn.
Feedback on performance: Serves a gyroscopic function, showing individuals where they are correct or incorrect and furnishing them with the perspective to improve.
Prior Learning: Can increase the ability to learn new materials or tasks by providing needed background or foundation materials.
Whole versus Part Learning: When a task consists of several distinct and unrelated duties, part learning is more effective. When a task consists of several integrated and related parts, whole learning is more appropriate.
Concentrated versus Distributed Training Sessions: Distribution of practice—short learning periods at set intervals—is more effective for learning motor skills than for learning verbal or cognitive skills. Concentrated practice appears to work well where insight is required for task completion.
Reinforcement: The key to effective learning. If managers are concerned with eliciting desired behaviors from their subordinates, a knowledge of reinforcement techniques is essential.
Reinforcement and Behavioral Change
Reinforcement: Anything that causes a certain behavior to be repeated or inhibited.
Reinforcement versus Motivation:
Motivation: A primary psychological process that is largely cognitive in nature and largely internal.
Reinforcement: Typically observable and most often externally administered.
Strategies for Behavioral Change:
Positive Reinforcement: Presenting someone with an attractive outcome following a desired behavior.
Avoidance Learning (Negative Reinforcement): Seeking to avoid an unpleasant condition or outcome by following a desired behavior.
Extinction: Undesired behavior will decline as a result of a lack of positive reinforcement.
Punishment: The administration of unpleasant or adverse outcomes as a result of undesired behavior.
Ethics in Practice
Workplace Bullying:
Nearly 50% of employees in the U.S. workforce face bullying at one point in time.
Being able to take recourse against unwanted and disruptive employee behavior is an important action for any workplace manager.
Positive Reinforcement and Avoidance Learning vs. Extinction and Punishment
Positive reinforcement and avoidance learning focus on bringing about the desired response from the employee.
With positive reinforcement, the employee behaves in a certain way in order to gain desired rewards.
With avoidance learning, the employee behaves in order to avoid certain unpleasant outcomes.
Extinction and punishment focus on supervisory attempts to reduce the incidence of undesired behavior.
Schedules of Reinforcement
The speed with which learning takes place and also how lasting its effects will be is determined by the timing of reinforcement.
Two Groups:
Continuous Reinforcement Schedule: Rewards desired behavior every time it occurs.
Partial (or Intermittent) Reinforcement Schedule: Rewards desired behavior at specific intervals, not every time desired behavior is exhibited. Leads to slower learning but stronger retention.
Four Kinds:
Fixed-Interval Schedule: Rewards individuals at specified intervals for their performance.
Fixed-Ratio Schedule: The reward is administered only upon the completion of a given number of desired responses.
Variable-Interval Schedule: Rewards are administered at intervals of time that are based on an average.
Variable-Ratio Schedule: Rewards are administered only after an employee has performed the desired behavior a number of times, with the number changing from the administration of one reward to the next but averaging over time to a certain ratio of number of performances to rewards.
Shaping a Salesperson's Behavior (Managerial Leadership)
Shaping is the process where you reinforce a behavior that was “on the right track” to the ideal behavior
It'd subtle reinforcement of certain behaviors shapes their behavior over time; they will increasingly do the desired behavior.
Behavior Modification in Organizations
When the above principles and techniques are applied to the workplace, we generally see one of two approaches:
Behavior modification
Behavioral self-management.
Behavior Modification:
Definition: The use of operant conditioning principles to shape human behavior to conform to desired standards defined by superiors.
Emphasis on shaping behavior makes it a technique for motivating employees rather than as a theory of work motivation.
Assumptions of Behavior Modification
Individuals are basically passive and reactive (instead of proactive).
They tend to respond to stimuli in their environment rather than assuming personal responsibility in initiating behavior.
Focus on observable and measurable behavior instead of on unobservable needs, attitudes, goals, or motivational levels.
Permanent changes can be brought about only as a result of reinforcement.
Behaviors that are positively reinforced will be repeated (that is, learned), whereas behaviors not so reinforced will diminish.
Designing a Behavior Modification Program
Clear Behavioral Criteria: Management attempts to define and clearly specify the behavioral aspects of acceptable performance.
Performance Audit: Aims to identify discrepancies between what management sees as desired or acceptable behavior and actual behavior.
Specific Behavioral Goals: Must be set for each employee.
Evaluating Results: Employees and supervisors keep track of the employee’s performance record as compared to the preset behavioral criteria and goals.
Administering Feedback and Rewards: On the basis of the assessment of the employee’s performance record, the supervisor administers feedback and, where warranted, praise. Shaping is the process of improving performance incrementally, step by step.
Behavioral Self-Management (BSM)
Definition: The process of modifying one’s own behavior by systematically managing cues, cognitive processes, and contingent consequences.
An approach to learning and behavioral change that relies on the individual to take the initiative in controlling the change process.
Heavy emphasis on cognitive processes, reflecting the influence of Bandura’s social learning theory.
The Self-Regulation Process
Underlying BSM is a firm belief that individuals are capable of self-control.
People tend to go about their day’s activities fairly routinely until something unusual or unexpected occurs.
The individual initiates the self-regulation process:
Self-Monitoring: The individual tries to identify the problem.
Self-Evaluation: You would consider what you should be wearing.
Self-Reinforcement: You are now able to return to your normal routine.
Self-Management in Practice
Four Interactive Factors: Situational cues, the person, behaviors, and consequences.
Situational Cues: People respond to the cues surrounding them.
Through the use of six kinds of cue. people can set forth a series of positive reminders and goals concerning the desired behaviors.
Cognitive Supports: Psychological (as opposed to environmental) cues.
Symbolic Coding: Try to associate verbal or visual stimuli with the problem.
Rehearsal: Mentally rehearse the solution to the problem.
Self-Talk: Give themselves “pep talks” to continue their positive behavior.
Behavioral Dilemmas: Used almost exclusively to get people to do things that may be unappealing.
The challenge is to get people to substitute what have been called low-probability behaviors for high-probability behaviors.
Self-Reinforcement: The individual can provide self-reinforcement.
People can, in effect, pat themselves on the back and recognize that they accomplished what they set out to do.
Introduction
Learning involves rewarding employees and training them with new job skills.
Managers reduce undesirable behaviors, reinforce the desirable, and train employees to take responsibility for continual self-learning and job performance.
Google attracts top talent, maintains employee satisfaction, and encourages creativity through purpose, relevant information, accessible archives, shared learning, and celebrated failure.
Basic Models of Learning
Learning is a permanent behavioral change from experience, involving altered attitudes, permanence, practice, reinforcement, and inference.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning develops a stimulus-response bond through repeated linking of stimuli.
Pavlov's experiments showed dogs salivating to a bell paired with meat.
Limitation: It explains limited human learning, focusing on reflexive behaviors.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning focuses on reinforcement's effects on behavior.
Thorndike’s Law of Effect: Behavior leading to positive outcomes is repeated; negative outcomes are avoided. Drive, habit, and reinforcement are key.
Operant versus Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning changes behavior through stimuli; operant conditioning changes behavior through consequences.
Rewards differ: Classical conditioning administers rewards every trial; operant conditioning rewards correct responses only.
Social Learning Theory
Social learning theory molds behavior through reciprocal interaction of cognitions, behavior, and environment (reciprocal determinism).
Central elements include attention, retention, reproduction, and incentives. Vicarious learning occurs through imitation.
Three factors (person, environment, behavior) interact through vicarious learning, representations, and self-control.
Major Influences on Learning
Influences include motivation, feedback, prior learning, whole/part learning, and concentrated/distributed training. Reinforcement is key.
Reinforcement and Behavioral Change
Reinforcement causes behavior repetition or inhibition, differing from internal motivation.
Strategies include positive reinforcement, avoidance learning, extinction, and punishment.
Positive Reinforcement, Avoidance Learning, Extinction, and Punishment
Positive reinforcement gains rewards; avoidance learning avoids unpleasant outcomes. Extinction and punishment reduce undesired behavior.
Schedules of Reinforcement
Timing of reinforcement affects learning speed and retention.
Continuous reinforcement rewards every behavior; partial reinforcement rewards at intervals.
Types of partial reinforcement: fixed-interval, fixed-ratio, variable-interval, variable-ratio.
Shaping a Salesperson's Behavior
Shaping reinforces behaviors on the right track and subtle reinforcement over time.
Behavior Modification in Organizations
Behavior modification shapes behavior using operant conditioning.
Assumptions of Behavior Modification
Individuals are passive, reacting to stimuli, with a focus on observable behavior. Reinforcement drives change.
Designing a Behavior Modification Program
Includes clear criteria, performance audits, specific goals, evaluation of results, and feedback/rewards.
Behavioral Self-Management (BSM)
BSM modifies behavior by managing cues, cognitive processes, and consequences.
The Self-Regulation Process
Involves self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement.
Self-Management in Practice
Includes situational cues, cognitive supports (symbolic coding, rehearsal, self-talk), behavioral dilemmas, and self-reinforcement.