Psychology Learning Theories

Psychology Learning Theories

1. Cognitivism

   • Authors: Jean Piaget, Lev Vigotsky, Jerome Bruner, Ausubel
   • Based on promoting mental processing. They accentuate more complex cognitive processes such as thinking, problem solving, language, conceptualization and information processing
     • Relation with Organizational learning
       • -Vigotsky: 1)Achieve cognitive developement. 2) Encourage learning.
         • Piaget stages: 1) Training (specific operations) 2) Development (Formal operations)
           • Bruner: Intellectual development is characterized by increasing independence from external stimuli
             • Ausubel: O.L must be meaningful to the employee.

2. Constructivism

   • Emphasize the interaction between the mind and the real world.
     • Relation with Organizational Learning
       • Gardner: Employees need to achieve the greatest possible knowledge
         • Freinet: Promotes free expression, cooperation and participation through life processes
           • Piaget: Build personal interactions of the world and base on individual experiences and interactions.

3. SocIal learning

   • Holds that portions of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly to observing other within the context of social interactions, experiences and outside media influences.
     • Examples: work in team, shared vision.
   • Author: Albert Bandura
     • Bobo doll experiment

4. Behaviorism

   • Is a worldview that operates on a principle of "Stimulus-response. All behavior caused by external stimuli (operant conditioning). All behevior can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness
   • Authors: Watson, Pavlov, Skinner,.
     • Classical conditioning (Pavlov): Process of reflex learning through which an unconditioned stimulus which produces an unconditioned response is presented together with a conditioned stimulus.
       • Operant conditioning: If, when an organism emits a behaviour (does something), the consequences of that behaviour are reinforcing, it is more likely to emit (do) it again. What counts as reinforcement, of course, is based on the evidence of the repeated behaviour, which makes the whole argument rather circular.