WHAT IS LEARNING IN PSYCHOLOGY According to Peter Gray, psychologist and author of the introductory textbook "Psychology," learning is defined

broadly as "any process through which experience at one time can alter an individual's behavior at a future time." Most of psychology, according to Gray, is concerned with learning, as our behavior is a consequence of our experience. hile learning styles remain a topic of debate within psychology and education, that hasn't stopped the idea from becoming popular with both students and teachers. As a result, a number of different learning style inventories have emerged. These inventories are often structured as questionnaires designed to help people discover which style best describes their individual learning preferences. Learn more about how these tools work and some of the best-known types of learning style inventories.

Different Types of Learning in Psychology In psychology, there are a variety of different theories on the process of learning. Learning can be described as the process that leads a person to permanently or potentially change his or her behavior. In short, whatever you learn alters the way that you view your environment. In the field of psychology, behavioral psychology is a way to explain the learning process. The three main types of learning include classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning. Behavioral Psychology Definition - Study, Prediction, Methodology, Control of Behavior and Learning

Behavioral Psychology Definition: Perhaps the most fundamental assumption of psychodynamic theory is that what you see is not what you've got. Behavior and even feelings, insofar as they are conscious, are only the surface. The truth lies beneath, in inner and, usually, remote causes. It is in this matter of causative focus that behavioral psychology, the second major perspective we will consider, departs most radically from psychodynamic thought. For the behaviorists, the most important causes of behavior are proximal causes, causes that lie close to the behavior itself and can therefore be readily identified.

As in many other quarrels among the various perspectives, the difference is a matter of emphasis. Nevertheless, it is a very big difference. Faced with a student who is depressed following a poor showing on an exam, a psychodynamic theorist would not ignore the fact of the exam, but would consider it a jumping-off point for more fundamental explorations: How did failure during childhood affect his relationship with his parents? And what are the chances that his true emotion is not perhaps depression but something that the depression is coveringanger, for example, at his parents? Faced with the same student, the behavioral theorist would not ignore childhood

experiences with failure, but would be more interested in current experiences: What did the student say to himself before the exam, and after? What circumstances in his environment may have caused the failure, and what current perceptions and circumstances may now be operating to encourage the response of depression? Behavioral Psychology Definition What is difference from Psychodynamic

This difference in focus between psychodynamic and behavioral theorists is reflected in their methods. Psychodynamic theorists, interested in the inner reaches of the psyche, must frequently forgo scientific verifiability. The behaviorists' proximal focus, by contrast, is in part the result of their insistence on scientific method. The behavioral approach to specific patterns of abnormal behavior will be discussed in the chapters dealing with those patterns. The purpose of the present chapter is to outline the history of behavioral psychology, its basic assumptions, and its general interpretation of normal and abnormal behavior, along with the current movement toward the study of cognitive influences on behavior.

Behavioral Psychology Definition - THE Background of Behaviorism

Freud's was only one of many psychological theories in the late nineteenth century that depended on introspection, the study of the mind by analysis of one's own thought processes. Originating in Europe, the introspective method soon spread to the United States, where it became the dominant trend in academic psychology. It was in reaction to this trend that behaviorism arose, claiming that the causes of behavior need not be sought in the depths of the mind but could be found in the immediate environment, in stimuli that elicited, reinforced, and punished certain responses. The explanation, in other words, lay in learning, the process whereby behavior changes in response to the environment. In fact, learning had long been recognized as an important influence on human character. But it was not until the early twentieth century that scientists began to uncover the actual mechanisms of learning, thereby laying the theoretical foundation for behaviorism. The contributions of four particular scientists were especially crucial.

The Assumptions of Behavioral Psychology

Before we go on to discuss the mechanisms of learning, it will be useful to review briefly the basic assumptions of behaviorism as it developed in the hands of the scientists whose work we have just discussed.

The Study of Behavior

The first assumption is that the task of psychology is, as Watson claimed, the study of behavior that is, the study of the responses that an organism makes to the stimuli in its environment. Such stimuli may come from outside usfrom the people, objects, and events in our external environment. However, they may also be internal, such as back pain, which may elicit the response of going to the bathroom to take a pill, or the thought "Oops, I forgot to take my pill," which will elicit the same response. Likewise, responses may be external (e.g., pounding a table in anger) or internal (e.g., the thought "I'm not going to show her I'm angry"). And they can range from the simplest reflex, such as a blinking of the eyes in response to bright light, to a highly complex chain of actions such as hitting a baseball or writing an essay.

The Empirical Method

A second basic assumption has to do with methodology. According to classical behaviorism, both stimuli and responses are objective, empirical events that can be observed and measured, and that must be observed and measured in order to qualify as scientific evidence. Hence behavioral studies since the time of Pavlov have always attempted to include careful measurement of responses. Indeed, one of the major innovations of Pavlov's research was that he not only observed the dogs' responses but also quantified them as to magnitude (the amount of saliva that occurred in response to the stimulus) and latency (the amount of time it took for the salivation response to occur after the presentation of the stimulus). Another very important measurement is rate, the frequency with which a response occurs within a given period of time. Such measures have become the basic tools of behavioral research.

The Prediction and Control of Behavior

A third assumption, again formulated by Watson, is that the goal of psychology is the prediction and control of behavior. In declaring this goal, Watson placed behavioral psychology in direct alignment with the natural sciences, whose object is to discover and apply general laws. Just as a botanist can predict that a cactus will grow only in warm, dry weather, and could control the development of a sickly cactus by moving it from Massachusetts to Arizona, so the behaviorist attempts to predict how human beings will respond under different sets of environmental conditions and to control those responses by controlling the environmental stimuli that affect them.

For the behaviorist working in a laboratory, under carefully controlled environmental circumstances and with experimental animals whose conditioning history is known, prediction and control are a

fairly easy matter. But when the behaviorist moves out of the laboratory into the world at large and attempts to deal with human beings, prediction and control become more difficult. For the environmental stimuli of everyday life are infinitely more varied, complex, and uncontrollable than those of the laboratory. Furthermore, the responses of human beings are far more complicated-and their conditioning histories far less knowable-than those of the white rat. One might predict, for example, that a hungry boy, when called to dinner, might go directly to the dinner table. But if the boy has come to associate dinnertime with his parents' quarreling, then he may be just as likely to lock himself in his room as to go to the dinner table. In keeping with cognitive theory, many behaviorists would now argue that these more nebulous variables-associations, thoughts, feelings can also be pinpointed, just like the dinner call. In any case, the behavioral position is that human responses to various kinds of stimuli can be stated as general laws and that when a response is interfering with a person's adjustment, that response can be changed by careful alteration of the stimuli in question.

The Importance of Learning

The final basic assumption of behaviorism is that the major ingredient in behavior is learning. As we saw in the preceding section, behavioral psychology was founded on learning theory. The two are not synonymous, for behaviorism is method as well as theory. Behavioral psychology might best be defined as the application of learning theory and other experimentally derived principles to human behavior. Still, the behaviorists definitely regard learning as the central component of behavior, and it is primarily in terms of learning theory that they attempt to explain both normal and abnormal behavior.

These four assumptions are the pillars of classical behaviorism. As we just saw in the last example, they have been modified somewhat in keeping with cognitive theory. Indeed, merely by studying mental processes, the cognitive wing of behaviorism flies in the face of Watson's insistence that psychologists focus exclusively on observable phenomena. Furthermore, most cognitive theorists would now question the assertion that environmental stimuli control learning. Following Tolman, they would say that environmental stimuli merely control performance-that is, the likelihood of the organism's producing the response in any given set of circumstances. Learning, on the other hand, is the product of mental events. Despite these objections, however, the cognitive theorists still share the empirical tradition of behaviorism and try to study thoughts with as much precision and objectivity as if they were salivary responses. In general it can be said that the basic assumptions of classical behaviorism still function as guiding principles, if not as iron laws, for modern behaviorism.

Personality can be defined as consistency in a persons way of operating that is, long-term consistency in their particular ways of perceiving, thinking, acting and reacting as a person. Consistent patterns of thought and feeling and behaviour.

To some extent, people generally do tend to operate in a similar way day after day, year after year. Im not talking about specific behaviours being repeated again and again, but about overall patterns, tendencies, inclinations. Someone who has tended to be quiet and reserved up to now will probably still tend to be quiet and reserved in the future.

It is this individual consistency in thought patterns, behaviour patterns and emotional patterns which defines personality. A personality profile is a knowledge management tool used to provide an evaluation of an employee's personal attributes, values and life skills in an effort to maximize his or her job performance and contribution to the company. Questions in a personality profile test, which can be taken traditionally or online, are designed to seek out information about an employee's temperament, decision-making methods, communication style and general attitude towards work and recreation. The information is used to match the right employee to the right project or task, especially when group work or telecommuting is involved. There are two generally accepted categories of personality profile tests, trait and type . Trait personality profile tests, such as Orpheus, 16 PF, and OPQ, operate on the assumption that personality is made up of a number of characteristics. The goal of the test is to document the employee's characteristics and match the characteristics to appropriate roles within the company.

Type personality profile tests, such as Myers-Briggs, Insights Discovery, and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, propose that people fall into well-defined categories. The goal of the test is to identify the category the employee belongs to, share the information, and build team skills by having team members become aware of the talents associated with each category.

Advocates of personality profiling claim that it's a valuable reality check when viewed in the context of an employee's job performance. Critics claim that the advent of sophisticated knowledge management technology could put too much emphasis on the process involved in gathering and mining employee data, especially in large companies, and recommend that face-to-face communication and evaluation be valued above all else.

Theories of Personality: Psychoanalytic Theories:

Freud's Theory of Psychosexual Development Freud's theory of psychosexual development is on of the best known personality theories, but also one of the most controversial. Learn more about the psychosexual stages of development.

Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development According to Erik Erikson, each stage plays a major role in the development of personality and psychological skills. During each stage, the individual faces a developmental crisis that serves as a turning point in development.

Horney's Theory of Neurotic Needs Theorist Karen Horney developed a list of neurotic needs that arise from overusing coping strategies to deal with basic anxiety. Learn more about these neurotic needs described by Horney.

Behavioral Theories:

Classical Conditioning Classical conditioning is one of the best-known concepts of behavioral learning theory. In this type of conditioning, a neutral stimulus is paired with a naturally occurring response. Once an association has been formed, the previously neutral stimulus will come to evoke the response.

Operant Conditioning Operant conditioning is one of the fundamental concepts in behavioral psychology. This process involves strengthening or weakening a behavior using reinforcement and punishment.

Humanist Theories:

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs emphasizes the importance of self-actualization and is often pictured as a pyramid. The base of the pyramid consist of basic survival needs, while the top of the pyramid is focused on self-actualizing needs. Personality Disorders:

An estimated 10 to 15% of adults in the United States experience symptoms of at least one personality disorder. What are personality disorders? A personality disorder is a chronic and pervasive mental disorder that affects thoughts, behaviors, and interpersonal functioning. The DSMIV currently lists 10 different personality disorders, which you can learn more about in the following article: Overview of Personality Disorders Personality Tests:

You can find a number of personality tests here on the About Psychology site. These tests and quizzes are designed to give readers an idea of how formal assessments are used. However, these personality tests are not intended for use in assessment or diagnosis.