Learning Skills: 3 Key Theories

Learning skills requires learning how to learn. Here are three must understand theories. They are:

• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Vicarious Observation

By Murray Johannsen

Learning skills is no mystery to a psychologist. But for some reason, this knowledge has not filtered into the general public. Within the world of psychology, there are two general schools of thought regarding learning skills. On the cognitive side of things, there are many theories. But on the behaviorial side, there are only three theories.

The three behavioral learning theories are actually so important that psychologists (Franzoi, 2008) consider them to be both learning and motivational theories; since they help us understand why behavior is learned and why it continues.

This leads to a story

A lead hardware engineer, a lead software engineer, and their project manager are taking a walk outdoors during their lunch break when they come upon an old brass lamp. They pick it up and dust it off. Poof--out pops a genie. "Thank you for releasing me from my lamp-prison. I can grant you 3 wishes. Since there are 3 of you I will grant one wish to each of you." The hardware engineer thinks a moment and says, "I'd like to be sailing a yacht across the Pacific, racing before the wind, with an all-girl crew." "It is done," said the Genie, and poof, the hardware engineer disappears. The software engineer thinks a moment and says, "I'd like to be riding my Harley with a gang of beautiful women throughout the American Southwest." "It is done," said the Genie, and poof, the software engineer disappears. The project manager looks at where the other two had been standing and rubs his chin in thought. Then he tells the Genie, "I'd like those two back in the office after lunch.

Moral of the Story: It's hard to learn something new—People are truly creatures of habit.

Learning Theory 1: Classical Conditioning

Made famous by the Ivan Pavlov, who won the Noble prize in Medicine in 1904, this theory of skill learning explains how the mind learns to associate a stimulus and a response.

The original experiment was focused on conditioning in dogs, thus you sometimes hear people talk about “Pavlov’s dogs.” But what works on dogs, works on people.

The theory explains why companies spend big time money on branding. It also offers one explaination for the power of advertising to influence our purchase behavior.

Unfortunately, classical conditioning impacts are often subtle, often beyond conscious awareness, so one is not aware of the stimulus-response relationship.So it's not so well known, compared to the used and widely applied theory of learning skills known as operant conditioning.

Skills Learning Method 2: Operant Conditioning

“You can’t learn to swim by reading about it.” — Henry Mintzberg

There are theories, and then there is THE THEORY. Operant conditioning (often called behavioral modification) is widely used, especially in America. It’s power lies in the understanding how to use positive and negative consequences. Behavior modification is especially attractive since it’s an easy to apply and one of the easiest to learn of the learning theories.

Behavior modification works on both people and animals. You don't have to act like a therapist who sorts out the underlying beliefs, attitudes, motives, values, etc. driving behavior. Instead, all you have to do is consider the behaviors, antecedents and consequences.

Table 1: The ABCs of Behavior Modification

The theory says focus on a particular skill or behavior, not these ambiguous performance terms such as character, values, traits, etc. No one can fix "laziness," "bad attitude," or even "bad manners" if these are not grounded to a specific behavior. For example, does bad manners mean cleaning teeth with a tooth pick, coughing on the soup, or chewing food with an open mouth?

If we know how to change internal and external consequences, we can influence the ability to learn skills. It’s commonly used as part of a learning program to provide the motivation that driving the learning of skill.

Many people have contributed to this theory, the best known being Harvard psychologist B. F. Skinner.

Learning Theory 3: Vicarious Learning

“Lead by Example” — Common saying, United States Air Force

The third type of theory for learning skills is known as vicarious learning or modeling. It is sometimes called social proof (Cialdini, 1998), although some have argued that other mechanisms are at work (Bandura, 1977).

The college educated typically underestimate the importance of modeling. Being raised with books, they associate learning skills with the printed works. Of course, we do learn from books. Unfortunately, book learners tend to underestimate the skill learning potential of observational learning. And so, many miss the opportunity to influence conveyed by using this technique as related by the story below.

There is a story told about a Japanese company that had taken over a facility in Poland. As the factory manager walked across the the facility, he notices that people lacked pride, and would through all sorts of trash such as cigarettes on the floor. As he walked about the facility, he would pick up the trash on the floor. Pretty soon those around him did the same thing, as did others down the chain of command. Pretty soon the trash around the facility disappeared.

Human beings learn of a tremendous amount from watching and observing others. The most obvious example is young children, were a boy imitates the father and a little girl mother and imitates her mother. So the old saying, “Monkey see, monkey do,” rings true for humans.

The same process goes on in organizations. New employees don't know exactly how act and so observe others to figure out what they need to do.This role modeling occurs at all levels of the organization. In fact, the one person most watched in all organizations is one's boss.

Individuals possessing keen powers of observation posses an incredible advantage. They are able to see others behavior and learning skills by incorporating new behaviors into their behavioral repertoire. For example, one can model leaders by learning their persuasive and motivational skills.

“A fool never learns from their own mistakes; A average person sometimes learn from mistakes made; The exceptional learn from the mistakes of others.” — Murray Johannsen

Conclusion:

A number of theories explain the hows of learning skills. Knowledge is better than ignorance; but knowledge is never enough. One must also know how to build and learn skills. If one knows how to use each of these three techniques, you will be able to learn new skills must faster.

A Final Word . . .

References:

Bandura, A. (1977) Social Learning Theory. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Franzoi, Stephen (2006). Psychology: A journey of discover, 3 Edition, Atomic Dog Publishing.

Cialdini, Robert (2007). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Harper Collins.

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