Domain

Explanation

What is physiology?

• Physiology is the biology branch dealing with the processes & functions of living organisms & parts

What is learning behaviour?

• Learning is cognitive process that underlies the enculturation & personalisation of new patterns, concepts, effects & events into the consciousness & knowledge base
• Learning behaviour is thus the action-reaction process of learning the news & unlearning the olds

What are the different types of learning?

• There are four main classes of physiological learning:

1. Perceptual learning: learning to recognise a particular stimulus, thus becoming aware of the presence of that stimulus
2. Stimulus-response (SR) learning: learning to make automatic response to the stimulus; consists of classical conditioning (automatic) & instrumental conditioning (learned response depending on reinforcing or punishing effects)
3. Motor learning: learning to make response; only used for new changes to the motor system; especially in sports instinct
4. Complex relational learning: learning from multi-sensory excitation & expressing the relationships between stimuli & responses; a particular stimulus evokes response not only from the associated motor system, but also other systems; for example, the sight of a naked woman evokes sexuality as well as movies, related books, friends discussing puberty and feelings of emotions & love

What is the nature of learning?

• What is learnt is not stored, but cognited by altering physiological patterns & systems
• Neocortex has 1) basic automatic sensory-response mechanisms, 2) conscious responsive learning
• Rote learning through noting conclusions, the processes leading to those conclusions & synthesis of insights & implications
• Due to the influence of bodymind, the process of learning can be constrained & confined by the body & consciousness, thus with appropriate company, setting & effort, the learning experience can be enhanced or obstructed depending on the circumstances
• However, what is clear is that learning requires shedding the present & adopting the new
• All things being equal, learning is fundamentally change & change would lead to anxiety - a phenomenon due to natural complacence & emotional inertia
• Hence, learning on the individual & organisational levels have to address anxiety

Anxiety of Learning

• A Feb 2002 HBR article of the name has focused on this through an interview with the Father of Organisational Psychology, Edgar H. Schein
• Schein started his psychology research after the Korean war, where they discovered that 80% of POW survived the ordeal by being passive - that is, they neither cooperate with the captors (called collaborators) nor disobey completely (called resistors), 10% each for collaborators & resistors
• According to Schein, this is what is happening in modern learning organisations today - learning only occurs through coercion & persuasion
• There is a saying, "What some called thinking is just a re-arrangement of their prejudices"
• Fundamentally, learning is not superficial modifications, techniques or operations
• Learning should be transformational in every sense of the word - thoroughly unlearning the olds, then learning the news
• Schein pointed out two factors:

1. Learning anxiety: fear, inertia & complacency that obstruct changing
2. Survival anxiety: terminal fear that survival would be compromised without changing - learn, or else …

• For transformational learning to occur, survival anxiety > learning anxiety
• Hence, to aid in transformational learning, we can:

1. Increase survival anxiety: reward/penalty systems
2. Decrease learning anxiety: encouragement, promotions, campaigns, improved support, logistics & facilities

• On the corporate scale, transformational learning entails:

1. Changes in corporate culture: by giving up long-held assumptions & adopting radically new ones through changing the employee population &/or painful periods of coercive persuasion
2. From the top: acknowledge vulnerabilities & uncertainties, then give total commitment to changes
3. From the bottom: starts from small groups & propagate organisation-wide

• Fundamental of a modern learning organisation: focus on validity of what it is we are trying to reach