LEARNING

1. LEARNING • A relatively permanent change in behavior resulting from experience • Learning and performance -- Performance is an indirect measure of learning but is influenced by other factors such as motivation and fatigue

2. LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS • Formal learning • skill training • orientation • rules and regulations • Informal learning • norms • attitudes • shortcuts in doing your job

3. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING conditioned stimulus unconditioned stimulus reflex learned conditioned response unconditioned response Time 1 Time 2

4. SOME BASICS • Extinction -- eliminating the response • Generalization -- extending the response to similar stimuli • Discrimination -- limiting the response to a specific stimulus • Higher order conditioning -- extending the response to remote conditioned stimuli

5. OPERANT CONDITIONING CONSE- QUENCE ANTECED- ENT BEHAVIOR Positive reinforcement ex. attention Negative reinforcement ex. anxiety A cue about consequences ex. advice Desired organizational behavior ex. promptness

6. QUALITIES OF REINFORCEMENT • Immediate Vs. delayed • Contrived Vs natural • Large Vs small • Relative size

7. REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES • Interval schedules -- time based • fixed interval: ex. salary • variable interval: ex. spot inspections • Ratio schedules -- performance based • fixed ratio: ex. piece rate • variable ratio: ex. gambling on slot machines

8. SHAPING • Reinforcement of successive approximations of desired behavior • ex. shaping neatness by rewarding behaviors which gradually move towards keeping a workplace neat

9. BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS • Summing up: From a look at formal and informal learning to classical conditioning to operant conditioning of desired responses. Focus on qualities of reinforcement • Next time: Continuation of operant conditioning and examination of observational learning