Shaping and Chaining, Reinforcement Schedules and One-Trial Learning

Teaching new tasks to organisms can be a difficult process for any individual to undertake. Psychologists, parents, teachers, and a wealth of other individuals attempt to teach new tasks through a variety of methods such as by shaping the new desired task, through reinforcement of it, or even through one-trail learning.  The different methods that are used each have their benefits depending on what a person is attempting to teach and can be better suited for different tasks dependent on what the tasks are. The paper is going to cover the concepts of shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules, and one-trial learning as well as current understanding of application of these concepts in order to gain a better understanding into learning techniques and teaching new tasks.

Shaping and Chaining

Shaping and chaining both are linked together in a way that allows the processes to be broken down into steps that allow for learning or changes in behaviors. Shaping and chaining are similar processes that allow for a change in a person or organisms behavior by allowing for small changes in behaviors or responses.  In shaping an existing response or behavior is changed gradually over time through trials that direct the response toward a targeted behavior through the rewarding of segments of behavior (Schunk, 2012). In shaping all the small responses that direct the organism or person toward a behavior is rewarded until it is built up to the desired behavior.  For instance if a person wants a rat to press a button then all movement that directs the rat toward the button is rewarded until the rat is finally trained in pressing the button. The researcher getting the rat to learn to press the button may start with just pointing the rat in the way of the button and then work toward slowly moving the rat over to the button. Each step is small but geared toward the rat going to the button and pressing it.

In chaining one response leads to the occurrence of another response (Mackie, n.d.). Chaining is much like the name sounds and a chain of responses that lead from one to another occurring in a sequence or a chain and lead up to the bigger complex response. Whereas in shaping each step is broken down until the organism works up to the desired behavior in chaining there are multiple steps linked together.  The rat that presses the button may be lead to the button in chaining to begin with as one step instead of multiple steps like it is in shaping.

Reinforcement Schedules

Reinforcement schedules according to Schunk (2012), are ways which rewards are given but are in a structured manner. This structure provides when each reward should be given to the organism whose behavior is being changed or while learning a new thing. There are different levels of structure including continuous, intermittent, interval, fixed-interval, variable-interval, ratio, variable-ratio, and fixed-ratio (Schunk, 2012).  Basically the rewards given to the rat learning to press the button can be continuous rewards happening with each response, intermittently with only some responses, in interval with only correct responses, or ratio with a specific rate of responding.  The reward structure could fluctuate among the main reward structures to whatever the researcher wants or what they believe is working best. If a rat gets continuous at first but doesn’t progress toward pressing the button the researcher may switch the reward structure to be more if the rat makes a correct response or if the rat makes a correct response so many times (Schunk, 2012). In this way the researcher is still providing rewards to the rat as the responses get the rat closer to pressing the button and the rat learns that it is not always getting a reward if it does not do what it needs to do.

One-trial learning

One-trial learning is a theory much like the name sounds, learning that takes place in one pairing of a response and a stimulus but is not strengthened over time by repeated exposure to a stimulus (“One-Trial Learning”, 2014). This theory was developed by American psychology Edwin Guthrie that believed individuals learned from cues which tell a person to do a behavior rather than from being conditioned through rewards that followed the behaviors. Many conditioned responses occur as a result of the one-trial learning such as taste aversion to certain foods. The response happens through a single pairing of the stimulus and response with no need for repetition.  Taking the rat pressing the button Guthrie would believe that rat would learn through cues that told the rat to press the button and no reward would be given to the rat in order to get the rat to press the button.  In the case of the rat, the rat may be shown about pressing the button and then would be expected to be able to do the behavior, thus learning from the single showing or one-trial. 

Development Psychologists

Development psychologists study how humans grow and develop throughout their lifespan including physically, cognitively, intellectually, and even social (Love, 2009). This field of psychology is especially important in education processes that help individuals such as developmentally delayed children. The psychologist can evaluate children for a learning disability and then go about using some of the learning techniques like shaping or reinforcements to assist the child in their learning endeavors. For instance, a developmentally delayed child may have a hard time grasping their alphabet or going to the bathroom on their own.  Through shaping though each step of going to the bathroom from walking in and closing the door to washing their hands can be broken down for the child.  The child learns the new task slowly and in a way that allows them to do it on their own. 

Conclusion

Shaping and chaining are both learning techniques which break down new learning tasks into steps that allow a person or organism to learn the new tasks.  In shaping the specific responses leading a person to learn are broken into small steps while in chaining multiple steps are linked together to assist with learning. Reinforcement provides a structured reward system to an organism and through repetitive trying and reward the organism learns the new task.  One-trial learning is a theory much like the name sounds, learning that takes place in one pairing of a response and a stimulus but is not strengthened over time by repeated exposure to a stimulus (“One-Trial Learning”, 2014). Each of these techniques can help assist a psychologist with teaching an organism or person to learn a new task, dependent on what is trying to be taught. The more effective methods for development psychologists teaching development delayed children include shaping and reinforcement.

References

Love, P. (2009). Educational psychologists: the early search for an identity. Educational Psychology In Practice, 25(1), 3-8.

Mackie, C. (n.d.). BF Skinner. Retrieved from http://www.massey.ac.nz/~wwpapajl/evolution/assign2/CM/oper.html#Shaping and Chaining

One-Trial Learning . (2014). Retrieved from http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=One-Trial%20Learning

Schunk, D. A. (2012). Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson Education, Inc.

Explaining Learning Theory to Clients

There are different theories to use when it comes to learning, one of the most influential theories is most common used in companies and in their organizations is psychological learning theory, also known as organizational learning theory. Organizational learning theory has traces of other learning theories that works with the idea that not all learning is has to have reinforcement as a motivation for learning. This learning theory takes into account a social element which debates that individuals learn new things through social interactions by watching people and modeling in order to learn about new behaviors and information. Because the outcome of the combination of social elements this theory of learning has extended the understanding of how learning in individuals works and has become an influential tool for psychologists to use in different fields such as in government or corporations.  During this presentation will cover the social learning theory as it applies to the Industrial organizational field of psychology covering how the basic tenants of the theory reinforce the study of learning.  Will also speak about how the theory can be applied to the Industrial Organizational psychology field and provide examples of how research methods care used to study learning processes.  Finally, will cover the APA ethical guidelines which would be relevant to the presentation being given.

When looking into a learning theory, one expect that the theory will provide context for studying, understanding and interpreting how an employee will process relates to learning. The organizational learning theory according to Schunk (2012), learning occurs when an organization utilizes new information in such a way that it results in observable changes to both individuals that make up the organization and the organization itself. 

Learning in an employee does not always produce a change in behavior but the goal of learning in an organization is to make an impact and possibly alter the way things work.  According to Schunk (2012), organizational learning studies theories and models about the way a company learns as well as adapts. .    Organizations are social by nature requiring interaction on some level in order for the organization to grow and be successful, which requires an understanding on how the company as well as the employee work there learn.  Organizational learning allows a company to learn through context and history how to improve services and training not only with the current employees working there but with future employees. Through using organizational learning theory, a company can break down different aspects of learning such as observation, experience, reflection and transference in order to find out how the company and individual members learns and apply the information to programs which assist in learning new information. 

            

In organizational development a company is able to expect changes or see that things are moving in a certain direction and the organization adapts to the changes in order to persist.  In organizational learning theory influences the study of learning by providing a new aspect to how employees learn.  In an organization learning is done in order to change behaviors to better a company and the services that the company may provide. Learning theories seek to understand and interpret how individuals learn. In organizational learning it is the same with the exception that the organization itself is also learning. In organizational learning theory it describes the processed an organization and its members go through to acquire new information, process it, and utilize it. The implications of this can be seen in the way individuals learn and pass new information on, from trainer to trainee.  According to Schnunk (2012), a transfer of knowledge or skills like this in which a person applies to new content or in new ways and situations benefits the organization in allowing it to adapt.  The new skills or abilities translates to new information or practices in the organization which results in observable changes in both organization and members.

            Organizational learning theory provides a means for studying the effectiveness of learning in the organization as well as providing different ways in order to increase effective learning and performance.  If the company is looking to integrate a new computer system which is completely different from the pen and paper method that they are used to using then there are going to be factors that need to be looked at. An organization is going to want to effectively train individuals on how to use the new system and provide trainers who are proficient with the new system. Organizational learning theory allows the company to look at aspects like providing information on how the change is contributing to the larger good of everyone making the jobs easier so that individuals are more invested and motivated to learn the information.  Additionally, through use of the organizational method researchers can find out information about how timeframes may make learning new information and implementing it hard for the company.  If a company needs to have everyone trained on the new computer system within a week because it is being implemented the following week then the company needs to know how the short timeframe is going to impact the employees and learning the new information.

            As researchers learn information like this they can devise a way to test theories though projects such as how followers may be influenced by strong leader or how individuals retain new information and learn to do new jobs effectively.  The more the researchers are able to observe and experiment the more information they are able to receive about how individuals learn and work in organizations. Argote (1999), states that factors such as learning how groups influence organizational learning provide insight to how a group breaks down work on a project.  Through observing the project researchers are able to study how individuals interact and communicate in the group, they can see strategies, leaders and followers, brainstorming, and motivation as the group works to complete the project.  After completion researchers can evaluate how effective the group was, the group’s performance, the outcome, and the productivity (Argote, 1999).  This allows researchers in organizational psychology to study how the individuals work together and learn from one another, motivating each other, and communicating in order to complete tasks.  In one study done by Bontis, Crossan, and Hulland (2002), the researchers wanted to test empirically the stocks and flows of organizational learning through knowledge being given across an individual, a team, and the organization.  Through this study the researchers were able to show a negative relationship between organizational performance and a misalignment of stocks and flows. 

            In the APA ethical guidelines for the industrial organizational psychology field there are 10 areas of standard conduct (Knapp, 2003).  The areas are generally the same for most fields of psychology dealing with individuals in the nature of learning, helping, or observing.  The first few areas include resolving ethical issues, competence, and human relations which should be some of the fields making concerns because the ease of violation in these areas is of concern for individuals that may not be familiar with the code itself (Knapp, 2003).  In industrial organizational psychology, it is important to maintain confidentiality with employees, especially when presenting ideas to management of a company about how to better train employees, motivate them, or go about adjusting behavioral issues. Additionally, when psychologists are educating others or researching information confidentiality should be kept which makes it so that one company is not given up in research without its permission.  Ethically if a psychologist wants to publish results of research, the company should approve to allow its name to be published, or the psychologist should only refer to the company in an anonymous. There are a few reasons a company may not want to be listed such as propriety information. A researcher has to make sure to maintain confidentiality for both organizations and employees involved.

•      Argote, L. (1999). Organizational learning: Creating, retaining and transferring knowledge. Norwell, MA, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

•      Bontis, N., Crossan, M., Hulland, J. (2002). Managing an organizational learning system by aligning stocks and flows. Journal of Management Studies 39(4). 437-469.

•      Knapp, D., (2003). The ethical practice of I-O psychology. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist. 40(4). 164-165.

•      Schunk, D. H. (2012). Learning theories: An educational perspective (6^th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education. 

Industrial/Organizational Psychology Journal Article

When trying to change, change is not something that comes easy for anyone, not even for the company, but every employee working in that company. Every company has to have the change for employees to improve and advance in the company. There are many employees that will be resistant to change, and will affect the work environment with their negativity and refusal to the change. It is of great importance that a company has the right tools to introduce change, for the company to have a minimum of resistant is to change.

Learning Theories

Companies have the battle to face when it comes to implementing changes. Some employees may be resistant to changes preferring to do things they’ve always done and some may not be motivated to change. To assist a company making the change, the company needs to motivate their employees to become change agents. According to Courts (n.d.), change agents are individuals who act as promoters for change by leading the charge for change.  Change agents can prompt growth in a company, leading the charge for change, and opening change to happen much quicker. These employees rely heavily on the contribution of others in the company to help with change through delivering a clear vision to change, being patient yet persistent with the change, asking tough questions to help employees think, and being knowledgeable about the changes as well as leading by example (Couros, n.d.).  

A company needs more than just individuals willing to lead the change; they need tools and methods that help motivate individuals to change.  This is where the theory of operant conditioning can help the organization in change.  In operant conditioning learning is reinforced in a person through systems of rewards and consequences, an individuals’ behavior can be modified through the use of rewards and consequences (Schuck, 2012). Operant conditioning would be easy to implement into any environment as it looks reinforcement that increases the behavior that is desired or punishment that decreases the behaviors.

In reinforcement, there is positive or negative which both increase the behavior but in different ways.  According to McLeod (2007), positive reinforcement is the presentation of a favorable event or outcome after the behavior has been displayed.  Positive reinforcement could be anything really from an awarded certificate for an employee completing training on the changes or a free soda or food item if the employee can help others with questions on the changes.  The benefit of this method is that a company just needs little imagination to motivate individuals to change as well as get the individuals to help each other in the change. In negative reinforcement according to McLeod (2007), this is the removal of something unfavorable after the display of behavior. If a manager is constantly walking the floor during training, this may be unfavorable to individuals so by removing the manager and only having them walk the floor occasionally it would strengthen the desire to get the changes down.

Punishment is different than reinforcement as it looks to decrease a behavior.  Individuals not open to change may have punishment used to increase the individual wanting to change and decrease the resistance to the change. Punishment also deals with positive and negative punishment with positive punishment being the presentation of an unfavorable thing and negative being the removal of a favorable thing (McLeod, 2007).  Punishment would be opposite of what we see for reinforcement as a person or group of persons display unwanted behaviors the rewards that the got like the certificates and the sodas would be removed, negative punishment. When the manager was removed it was reinforcement for doing the right behavior, however, the wrong behavior could result in more scrutiny as the manager is placed back or more managers are placed on the floor.

Employee Resistance

Despite preparing employees for change within the company through informing them and trying to motivate them to change there can still be resistance felt when it comes to change. According to Scott (2007), in general, employees tend to resist change because of a lack of knowledge about what will happen or due to the manner in which the change was communicated. Employees may feel that they are unable to adapt to the new changes, or there may have been a lack of communication about the changes that has caused confusion for the individuals. If employees are expected to change sufficiently, the employees need to be fully prepared on changes and informed of how and when things will happen. Managers should be up front with these employees prepared to answer their questions and assist with any reservations the employees might have about the changes. Managers also need to be trustworthy to their employees so that they can effectively manage resistance to changes. If the employees do not trust the manager then no matter how much the manager reassures them and answers their questions the employees will not trust the information. Another reason for employees to be resistant to change is that they believe that more work will be required of them for the same pay, or they will have fewer tools to accomplish their work. This is again where communication is key as communication can ease this fear.  Additionally, training on the changes can show employees the benefits to the changes, so employees can see that the opposite is true, and they are not being required to do more with less.

External Resistance

External resistance is also a problem. Forces such as laws and regulations, technology, and labor markets can also have an impact on a company being able to change (Scott, 2007). These external forces may provide resistance to change that the company did not take into account.  Laws and regulations, for instance, are put in place by governments on how a company should conduct business practices (Scott, 2007).  If these regulations are not in line with the changes the company wants to implement or they are telling the company what changes the company needs to make then resistance can be seen on both sides.  The company may feel resistance trying to go against the regulations to implement changes, or they may feel resistant being told what needs to change.  Technology is another factor that may provide resistance for a company looking to make changes. Technology can impact change for a company by advancing more quickly than the company can implement changes, employees may not feel comfortable with newer technology, or the company may need something that technology has not advanced at this point in time (Scott, 2007).  

Conclusion

Change is something that can be difficult for anyone, not just a business but for every individual within that business.  Change is something that naturally must occur though for individuals to progress through their lived and for businesses to adapt to offer tools and services for the ever-changing world. Organizations have the battle to face when it comes to implementing changes. Some individuals may be resistant to changes preferring to do things they've always done, and some may not be motivated to change. In operant conditioning learning is reinforced in a person through systems of rewards and consequences, an individuals' behavior can be modified through the use of rewards and consequences (Schuck, 2012). Operant conditioning would be easy to implement into any environment as it looks reinforcement that increases the behavior that is desired or punishment that decreases the behaviors.  According to Scott (2007), in general, employees tend to resist change because of a lack of knowledge about what will happen or due to the manner in which the change was communicated. Employees may feel that they are unable to adapt to the new changes, or there may have been a lack of communication about the changes that has caused confusion for the individuals. Forces such as laws and regulations, technology, and labor markets can also have an impact on a company being able to change (Scott, 2007). These external forces may provide resistance to change that the company did not take into account.

References

Couros, G. (n.d.). 5 Characteristics of a change agent. Retrieved from http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/3615

McLeod, S. A. (2007). Skinner - Operant Conditioning. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html

Schunk, D. H. (2012). Learning theories: An educational perspective (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education

Scott, T. (2007). Resistance to change. Retrieved from http://tscott.typeperformanceappraisaid.com/tsp/2007/04/resistance_to_c.html