Behaviour and Learning - N G Nair Malanjkhand India

Behaviour and Learning

 If behaviour can be understood, then why can’t it be learnt? But, then the question is why at all should it be learnt? Herein lies the challenge for behavioral scientists, and the centrality of learning theories to the study of organizational behaviour. This can be answered with a small analogy – with a gift and its wrapper. A beautiful gift in untidy wrapper is not justification enough to throw away the gift along with the wrapper. However, in the organizational context, unwittingly, it so happens that, brilliant human competencies are done away with, just because, the wrapper in which they come – the behaviour of the employee – does not jell / match with the organizational tastes, liking and goals. Hence, attempts at making employees learn the desired behaviour is analogues with changing the wrapper of the gift. Psychologists are unanimous that learning is relatively permanent change in behaviour, resulting from the effects of practice and experience. However, learning is not the same as performance. Whereas learning is the acquisition of expectancy that certain behaviour, under certain conditions, will produce a particular response, performance is the translation of learning into behaviour. Hence learning may not always translate into performance. While behaviour can be learnt, it may remain latent till some reinforcement variables are introduced for the overt display of that behaviour.