Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsWhat Is Learning?How Learning WorksChallenges to LearningHow to Improve Learning
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
What Is Learning?
How Learning Works
Challenges to Learning
How to Improve Learning
Close
Learningis a relatively lasting change in behavior resulting from observation and experience. It is the acquisition of information, knowledge, and problem-solving skills. When you think of learning, it’s easy to focus on formal education that takes place during childhood and early adulthood. However, learning is an ongoing process that takes place throughout life and isn’t confined to the classroom.
Learning became a significant focus of study in psychology during the early part of the twentieth century asbehaviorismrose to become a major school of thought. Today, learning remains an important concept in numerous areas of psychology, including cognitive, educational, social, anddevelopmental psychology.
Psychologists study how learning occurs, as well as how social, emotional, cultural, and biological variables might influence the learning process.
Learning Is an Active Process
Even if you learn something relatively quickly, it is still a multi-step process. To learn, you must encounter new information, pay attention to it, coordinate it with what you already know, store it in your memory, and apply it.
For example, say you want to fix a running toilet. You might search for a how-to video, watch it to see if it addresses your need, and then use the instructions to make the repair. Or, consider a time when you came across an unfamiliar word while reading. If you stopped to look up the meaning, then you learned a new word.
The term “active learning” is often used to describe an interactive process, such as doing a hands-on experiment to learn a concept rather than reading about it. But “passive learning” (reading a text, listening to a lecture, watching a movie) is still learning and can be just as effective.
Information Processing Theory in Psychology
Learning Leads to Lasting Change
Learning means retaining the knowledge that you gained. If you see that new vocabulary word in another context, you will understand its meaning. If the toilet starts running again in the future, you may need to watch the video again to refresh your memory on how to fix it, but you have some knowledge of what to do.
Learning Occurs As a Result of Experience
The learning process begins when you have a new experience, whether that is reading a new word, listening to someone explain a concept, or trying a new method for solving a problem. Once you’ve tried a technique for boiling eggs or a different route to work, you can determine whether it works for you and then use it in the future.
Learning Can Affect Attitudes, Knowledge, or Behavior
There’s far more to learning than “book learning.” Yes, you can learn new words, concepts, and facts. But you can also learn how to do things and how to feel about things.
It’s important to remember that learning can involve both beneficial and negative behaviors. Learning is a natural and ongoing part of life that takes place continually, both for better and for worse.
Sometimes learning means becoming more knowledgeable and leading a better life. In other instances, it means learningbehaviors that are detrimental to healthand well-being.
Kolb’s Cycle of Learning
The process of learning is not always the same. Learning can happen in a wide variety of ways. To explain how and when learning occurs, psychologists have proposed a number of different theories.
Learning Through Classical Conditioning
Learning through association is one of the most fundamental ways that people learn new things.Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov discovered one method of learning during hisexperiments on the digestive systems of dogs. He noted that the dogs would naturally salivate at the sight of food but that, eventually, the dogs also began to salivate whenever they spotted the experimenter’swhite lab coat.
Later experiments involved pairing the sight of food with the sound of a bell tone. After multiple pairings, the dogs eventually began to salivate to the sound of the bell alone.
Classical conditioning is a type of learning that takes place through the formation ofassociations.
An unconditioned stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response is paired with a neutral stimulus. Eventually, an association forms, and the previously neutral stimulus becomes known as a conditioned stimulus that then triggers a conditioned response.
How Classical Conditioning Works
Learning Through Operant Conditioning
The consequences of your actions can also play a role in determining how and what you learn. BehavioristB.F. Skinnernoted that while classical conditioning could explain some types of learning, it could not account for everything. Instead, he suggested thatreinforcementsandpunishmentswere responsible for some types of learning.
When something immediately follows a behavior, it can either increase or decrease the likelihood that the behavior will occur again in the future. This process is referred to asoperant conditioning.
For example, imagine that you just got a new puppy, and you would like to begin training it to behave in specific ways. Whenever the puppy does what you want it to do, you reward it with a small treat or a gentle pat. When the puppy misbehaves, you scold him and do not offer affection. Eventually, the reinforcement leads to an increase in the desired behaviors and a decrease in the unwanted behaviors.
Learning Through Observation
While classical conditioning and operant conditioning can help explain many instances of learning, you can probably immediately think of situations where you have learned something without being conditioned, reinforced, or punished.
PsychologistAlbert Banduranoted that many types of learning do not involve any conditioning and, in fact, evidence that learning has occurred might not even be immediately apparent.
In a series of famous experiments, Bandura was able to demonstrate the power of this observational learning. Children watched video clips of adults interacting with a large, inflatableBobo doll. In some instances, the adults simply ignored the doll, while in other clips, the adults would hit, kick, and yell at the doll.
When kids were later given the chance to play in a room with a Bobo doll present, those who had observed the adults abusing the doll were more likely to engage in similar actions.
How People Learn Through Observation
Learning doesn’t always come easily. Sometimes, you must overcome obstacles in order to gain new knowledge. These obstacles may take several different forms.
Environmental Challenges
Access to learning opportunities and different aspects of the learning environment play a role in how people learn. These can be big or small challenges. If you can’t find instructions or locate someone to ask about your running toilet, you don’t have the opportunity to learn how to fix it. In the classroom and the workplace, you may face physical, cultural, or economic barriers that inhibit your ability to learn.
How Poverty During Childhood Impacts the Adult Brain
Cognitive Challenges
Cognitive factors affect the learning process, For example, theability to memorizeorattend to informationcan either facilitate or hinder learning. Specificlearning disabilities, such asdyslexia, affect the way knowledge is processed and retained.
The Relationship Between ADHD and Learning Disabilities
Motivational Challenges
Motivation, including both intrinsic andextrinsic motivation, can affect how much people learn. People with a strongintrinsic motivationfeel compelled to learn for learning’s sake. They do not need rewards like grades or prizes to feel motivated to learn.
Of course, this may only apply to certain skills or subjects. Someone may need extrinsic motivators to complete math homework, for example, but be intrinsically motivated to research their family history. Challenges with motivation can stem fromADHD,depression, and other mental health conditions.
Whether you are involved in formal education or not, you are always learning throughout your life. And there are strategies you can use to improve how you learn and how well you retain and apply what you have learned.
First, keep learning. Learning is a skill that can be practiced. One study of older adults found that learning a new skill improvedworking memory,episodic memory, andreasoning. And the harder the new skill (participants learned quilting, digital photography, or both), the more it strengthened their brains.
How to Learn More Effectively
What Is Sleep Hygiene?
Final Thoughts
Learning is not a one-dimensional process. It takes place in many different ways, and a wide variety of factors can influence how and what people learn. While people often focus on the observable and measurable ways that learning takes place, it is also important to remember that we cannot always immediately detect what has been learned. People can learn concepts and skills that are not immediately observable but show up when needed.
Learn to Improve Your Social Intelligence
6 Sources
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Selbing I, Olsson A.Anxious behaviour in a demonstrator affects observational learning.Sci Rep. 2019;9(1):9181. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-45613-1
Meo SA.Basic steps in establishing effective small group teaching sessions in medical schools.Pak J Med Sci. 2013;29(4):1071-1076. doi:10.12669/pjms.294.3609
Cabus S, Ilieva-Trichkova P, Štefánik M.Multi-layered perspective on the barriers to learning participation of disadvantaged adults.ZfW. 2020;43(2):169-196. doi:10.1007/s40955-020-00162-3
Park DC, Lodi-Smith J, Drew L, et al.The impact of sustained engagement on cognitive function in older adults: The Synapse Project.Psychol Sci. 2014;25(1):103-112. doi:10.1177/0956797613499592
Cellini N, Torre J, Stegagno L, Sarlo M.Sleep before and after learning promotes the consolidation of both neutral and emotional information regardless of REM presence.Neurobiol Learn Mem.2016;133:136-144. doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2016.06.015
Meet Our Review Board
Share Feedback
Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit
Was this page helpful?
Thanks for your feedback!
What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit
What is your feedback?
