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Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes contribution is his notion of learning by insight. In human terms, a solution gained
through insight is more easily learned, less likely to be forgotten, and more readily
transferred to new problems than solution learned through rote memorization.
2. Edward Tolman (1886 - 1959): Latent Learning and Cognitive Maps:- Edward Tolman
differed with the prevailing ideas on learning

(a) He believed that learning could take place without reinforcing.
(b) He differentiated between learning and performance. He maintained that latent
learning could occur. That is learning could occur without apparent reinforcement
but not be demonstrated until the organism was motivated to do so.
The following experiment by Tolman and Honzik (1930) supported this position. The
experiment consisted of three groups of rats that were placed in a maze daily for 17 days.
The first group always received a food reward at the end of the maze. The second group
never received a reward, and the third group did not receive a food reward until the 11th
day. The first group showed a steady improvement in performance over the 17 day period.
The second group showed gradual improvement. The third group, after being rewarded
on the 11th day showed a marked improvement the next day and from then on
outperformed the rats that had been rewarded daily. The rapid improvement of the rats
that had been rewarded daily. The rapid improvement of the third group indicated to
Tolman that latent learning has occurred - that the rats had actually learned the maze
during the first 11 days.
In later studies, Tolman showed how rats quickly learned to rearrange learned cognitive
maps and find their way through increasingly complex mazes with ease.

9.4.4 Social Learning

Albert Bandura contends that many behaviours or responses are acquired through observational
learning. Observational learning, sometimes called modelling results when we observe the
behaviours of others and note the consequences of that behaviour. The person who demonstrates
behaviour or whose behaviour is imitated is called models. Parents, movie stars and sports
personalities are often powerful models. The effectiveness of a model is related to his or her
status, competence and power. Other important factors are the age, sex, attractiveness, and
ethnicity of the model.
Whether learned behaviours are actually performed depends largely on whether the person
expects to be rewarded for the behaviour.
Social learning integrates the cognitive and operant approaches to learning. It recognises that
learning does not take place only because of environmental stimuli (classical and operant
conditioning) or of individual determinism (cognitive approach) but is a blend of both views. It
also emphasises that people acquire new behaviours by observing or imitating others in a social
setting. In addition, learning can also be gained by discipline and self-control and an inner
desire to acquire knowledge or skills irrespective of the external rewards or consequences. This
process of self-control is also partially a reflection of societal and cultural influences on the
development and growth of human beings.

Usually, the following four processes determine the influence that a model will have on an
individual:
1. Attention Process: People can learn from their models provided they recognise and pay
attention to the critical features. In practice, the models that are attractive, repeatedly
available or important to us tend to influence us the most.

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