What is LEARNING in PSYCHOLOGY?

In psychology, the most common definition of learning is that it is a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience. However, this definition does not include behavioral changes due to physical injury, disease, drugs, or maturation processes.

Learning is, together with perception, one of the first cognitive processes to be studied by scientific psychology, to the point of that the first thirty years of the discipline's history can be studied through experiments and discoveries in this field of study. In this Psychology-Online article, we are going to try to answer precisely this question: What is learning in psychology?

Index

1. Meaning of learning in psychology
2. Learning theories in psychology
3. Types of learning in psychology
4. Learning styles in psychology
5. Learning factors in psychology

What is learning in psychology? A definition could be the following: modification, more or less stable and permanent, in the concrete behavior of a person that results from the experience of it.

The learning process in psychology involves the acquisition of a new and permanently different mode of response. However, this does not mean that the behaviors or patterns acquired are not prone to modifications, either in an augmentative or diminutive sense. In addition, the things learned, if they are not consolidated with repetition, can be lost and become unavailable over time.

The definition of learning in psychology is the result of an experience, since there is no learning that does not go through a perceptual and cognitive treatment of a stimulus. In this article, you will find more information about what is learning psychology.

Psychology and pedagogy have often been interested in learning processes, producing numerous and different interpretive theories classified in relation to the great schools of psychology of the century XX. Next, we will look at the main theories of learning in psychology:

• Behaviorism: at the base there is an associationist concept. The learning process in psychology, from the behavioral point of view, is the result of new associations between stimuli and behaviors in response to the stimuli themselves. A summative conception of learning, which considers the subject as essentially passive. The main authors of this current are J. B. Watson, I. P. Pavlov, E. Thorndike and B. Skinner.
• Cognitivism: In learning theories in psychology, according to cognitivism, attention shifts from the concept of association to that of an active subject in the elaboration of reality. Emphasizes internal processes of preparation and representation. Learning is redefined in relation to the different cognitive components involved. The reference authors of cognitivism are C. Hull, E. Tolman, W. Kohler, K. J. W. Craick, G. TO. Miller, E. Galanter, K. Pribram and U. Neisser.
• Constructivism: according to the constructivist school, the student assumes a central role in the learning process. This is an active part of the knowledge process, while the teacher plays a marginal role, destined to facilitate the construction of said process. The most important authors of learning in psychology of this current are L. Vygotskij, J. Piaget, J. Bruner and D. Merrill. In the following articles, you can consult Piaget's theory of learning Y learning theories according to Bruner.

To understand what learning is in psychology, it is important to take into account its different typologies. Let's see what are the types of learning in psychology.

• Non-associative learning: This is a relatively permanent change in response strength to a single stimulus after repeated exposure to it. Non-associative learning can be divided into habit and awareness.
• Associative learning: learning process in psychology in which someone learns an association between two stimuli, or a behavior and a stimulus. The two forms of associative learning are classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
• Active learning: occurs when a person takes control of their own learning experience.
• Imprinting: This type of learning in psychology occurs at a certain stage of life. It is quick and apparently independent of the consequences of the behavior.
• Imitation or vicarious learning: one of the examples of learning in psychology is this way. Specifically, it focuses on the process of imitation that exists between the observer and the observed.

You can expand the information on learning in psychology in this article on the types of learning strategies.

Learning is not the same standard path for everyone. Individual predispositions, life experiences, structure, and the demands of the environment shape particular ways of learning. In general, we refer to these ways by the term "learning styles."

In the literature there are many models and learning styles. One of the most popular models is that of Felder and Silverman (1988), within which we can distinguish five categories of students. Let's see what are the learning styles in psychology according to the mentioned model:

1. Sensory vs. Intuitive
2. Visualities vs. Verbal
3. Inductive vs. Deductives
4. Assets vs. Reflective
5. Sequential vs. Global

To understand the concept of learning in psychology, there are different components that must be taken into account. In this section, we will identify what are the learning factors in psychology.

• Previous cognitive prerequisites: include the contribution of previous experience and current learning processes related to the problem of cognitive transfer operations.
• Affective prerequisites: affective maturation consists of achieving the basic autonomy necessary to manage oneself and their things. It also consists of acquiring that serenity that allows you to concentrate on an activity for the time necessary to learn.
• Didactic experience: Another of the learning factors in psychology is the didactic experience. It can be the space, the participants, the activities, the groups or the management modalities.
• Quality of the family environment: this is one of the main learning factors involved in determining the differences between people in learning levels.
• Sociocultural factors: Since learning takes place in a social and cultural context, it is clear that we must deal with social and cultural factors and the group dynamics that influence it.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to What is learning in psychology?, we recommend that you enter our category of Cognitive psychology.

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