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LEARNING Learning is defined as a relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of direct or indirect experience."Learning Theory" is a discipline of psychology that attempts to explain how an organism learns. Four theories have been offered to explain the process by which we acquire patterns of behaviour. 1. Classical conditioning theory 2. Operant conditioning theory 3. Cognitive learning theory 4. Social learning theory 1. Classical conditioning theory: - It describes that when something happens, and we react in a specific way that means we are conditioned to behave in a certain way. Classical Conditioning is the type of learning made famous by Pavlov's experiments with dogs. The gist of the experiment is this: Pavlov presented dogs with food, and measured their salivary response (how much they drooled). Then he began ringing a bell just before presenting the food. At first, the dogs did not begin salivating until the food was presented. After a while, however, the dogs began to salivate when the sound of the bell was presented. They learned to associate the sound of the bell with the presentation of the food. As far as their immediate physiological responses were concerned, the sound of the bell became equivalent to the presentation of the food. Classical conditioning is used by trainers for two purposes: To condition autonomic responses, such as the drooling, or calming without using the stimuli that would naturally create such a response; and, to create an association between a stimulus that normally would not have any effect on the animal and a stimulus that would. Stimuli that animals react to without training are called primary or unconditioned stimuli (US). They include food, pain, and other "instinctive" stimuli. Stimuli that animals react to only after learning about them are called secondary or conditioned stimuli (CS). These are stimuli that have been associated with a primary stimulus. In Pavlov's experiment, the sound of the bell meant nothing to the dogs at first. After its sound was associated with the presentation of food, it became a conditioned stimulus. 2. Operant conditioning theory: - Operant conditioning forms an association between a behavior and a consequence. It induces a voluntary change in behaviour and learning occurs as a “consequence” of such change. Consequences have to be immediate, or clearly linked to the behavior. With verbal humans, we can explain the connection between the consequence and the behavior, even if they are separated in time. There are four possible consequences to any behavior. They are: Anything that increases a behavior - makes it occur more frequently, makes it stronger, or makes it more likely to occur - is termed a reinforcer. Anything that decreases a behavior - makes it occur less frequently, makes it weaker, or makes it less likely to occur - is termed a punisher.

3. Cognitive learning theory: - Cognitive focuses on an unobservable change in mental knowledge. Cognitive learning is learning achieved by thinking about the perceived relationship between events and individual goals and expectation. It refers to the individual’s ideas, thoughts, knowledge, interpretation and understanding about the individual and environment. 4. Social learning theory: - Social learning focuses on the learning that occurs within a social context. It considers how people learn from one another, encompassing such concepts as observational learning, imitation and modeling. Principles: People can learn by observing the behaviours of others and the outcomes of those behaviours.  Learning can occur without a change in behaviour.  The consequences of behaviour play a role in learning.  Cognition plays a role in learning. Personality When we talk of personality, we don’t mean a person has charm, a positive attitude toward life, or a constantly smiling face. When psychologists talk of personality, they mean a dynamic concept describing the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system. Defining Personality: The definition of personality we most frequently use was produced by Gordon Allport nearly 70 years ago. Allport said personality is “the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment.” For our purposes, you should think of personality as the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others. We most often describe it in terms of the measurable traits a person exhibits. Personality Determinants An early debate in personality research centered on whether an individual’s personality was the result of heredity or of environment. It appears to be a result of both. However, it might surprise you that research tends to support the importance of heredity over the environment. Heredity refers to factors determined at conception. Physical stature, facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy level, and biological rhythms are generally considered to be either completely or substantially influenced by who your parents are—that is, by their biological, physiological, and inherent psychological makeup. The heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual’s personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes. Researchers in many different countries have studied thousands of sets of identical twins who were separated at birth and raised separately. If heredity played little or no part in determining personality, you would expect to find few similarities between the separated twins. But twins raised apart have much in common, and a significant part of the behavioral similarity between them turns out to be associated with genetic factors. One set of twins separated for 39 years and raised 45 miles apart were found to drive the same model and color car. They chain-smoked the same brand of cigarette, owned dogs with the same name,

and regularly vacationed within three blocks of each other in a beach community 1,500 miles away. Researchers have found that genetics accounts for about 50 percent of the personality similarities between twins and more than 30 percent of the similarities in occupational and leisure interests. Interestingly, twin studies have suggested parents don’t add much to our personality development. The personalities of identical twins raised in different households are more similar to each other than to the personalities of siblings with whom the twins were raised. Ironically, the most important contribution our parents may make to our personalities is giving us their genes! This is not to suggest that personality never changes. People’s scores on measures of dependability tend to increase over time, as when young adults take on roles like starting a family and establishing a career that require great responsibility. However, strong individual differences in dependability remain; everyone tends to change by about the same amount, so their rank order stays roughly the same. An analogy to intelligence may make this clearer. Children become smarter as they age, so nearly everyone is smarter at age 20 than at age 10. Still, if Madison is smarter than Blake at age 10, she is likely to be so at age 20, too. Consistent with the notion that the teenage years are periods of great exploration and change, research has shown that personality is more changeable in adolescence and more stable among adults. Early work on the structure of personality tried to identify and label enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior, including shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitious, loyal, and timid. When someone exhibits these characteristics in a large number of situations, we call them personality traits of that person. The more consistent the characteristic over time, and the more frequently it occurs in diverse situations, the more important that trait is in describing the individual. Early efforts to identify the primary traits that govern behavior often resulted in long lists that were difficult to generalize from and provided little practical guidance to organizational decision makers. Two exceptions are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Big Five Model, now the dominant frameworks for identifying and classifying traits.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely used personality assessment instrument in the world. 10 It is a 100-question personality test that asks people how they usually feel or act in particular situations. Respondents are classified as extraverted or introverted (E or I), sensing or intuitive (S or N), thinking or feeling (T or F), and judging or perceiving (J or P). These terms are defined as follows: ● Extraverted (E) versus Introverted (I): Extraverted individuals are outgoing, sociable, and assertive. Introverts are quiet and shy. ● Sensing (S) versus Intuitive (N): Sensing types are practical and prefer routine and order. They focus on details. Intuitive rely on unconscious processes and look at the “big picture.” ● Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F): Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems. Feeling types rely on their personal values and emotions.

● Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P): Judging types want control and prefer their world to be ordered and structured. Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous. These classifications together describe 16 personality types, identifying every person by one trait from each of the four pairs. For example, Introverted/ Intuitive/Thinking/Judging people (INTJs) are visionaries with original minds and great drive. They are skeptical, critical, independent, determined, and often stubborn. ESTJs are organizers. They are realistic, logical, analytical, and decisive and have a natural head for business or mechanics. The ENTP type is a conceptualizer, innovative, individualistic, versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas. This person tends to be resourceful in solving challenging problems but may neglect routine assignments. The MBTI has been widely used by organizations including Apple Computer, AT&T, Citigroup, GE, 3M Co., many hospitals and educational institutions, and even the U.S. Armed Forces. Evidence is mixed about its validity as a measure of personality, however; most of the evidence is against it. One problem is that it forces a person into one type or another; that is, you’re either introverted or extraverted. There is no inbetween, though in reality people can be both extraverted and introverted to some degree. The best we can say is that the MBTI can be a valuable tool for increasing self-awareness and providing career guidance. But because results tend to be unrelated to job performance, managers probably shouldn’t use it as a selection test for job candidates. The Big Five Personality Model The MBTI may lack strong supporting evidence, but an impressive body of research supports the thesis of the Big Five Model —that five basic dimensions underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality. Moreover, test scores of these traits do a very good job of predicting how people behave in a variety of real-life situations. The following are the Big Five factors: ● Extraversion: The extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet. ● Agreeableness: The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic. ● Conscientiousness: The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable. ● Emotional stability: The emotional stability dimension—often labeled by its converse, neuroticism— taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, selfconfident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure. ● Openness to experience: The openness to experience dimension addresses range of interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of the category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar....