HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND LEARNING

 

HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND LEARNING

BEHAVIOUR

Response to a stimulus or situation in the form of thought, belief, attitude, intension or act.

 Behaviour can be overt or convert

OVERT VS COVERT BEHAVIOUR

Overt behaviour: Observable, quantifiable, measurable  eg crying, smiling, laughing etc

Covert behaviour: Not directly observable (mental processes)

LEARNING

Acquiring a permanent new experience that improves your thoughts, attitudes or way of doing things.

 Learning affects any of the three aspects. Do you remember them?

•      Cognitive learning (new experience changes how you think)

•      Affective learning (new experience changes how you see things/your evaluation towards certain objects)

•      Psychomotor learning (new experience improves your performance)

BEHAVIOUR AND LEARNING

Every behaviour is learned (by reward, unconscious influence, motivation etc)

Acquisition of new experience (learning) influences your responses to stimuli or situation (behaviour).

Learning is the aspect of development that connotes modification of behaviour that results from practice and experience.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Development

Human development addresses these issues by understanding constancy and change of experiences from conception through adulthood

Development –biological, psychological and emotional changes that take place in the functions and activities of different organs of an individual from infancy to adulthood.

What do you think are the important aspects of human change/development?

DOMAINS OF DEVELOPMENT

Three broad domains are:

 Physical, cognitive and socio-emotional domains

These domains are not really distinct. They combine in an integrated, holistic fashion to yield the living, growing individual.

 Each domain influences and is influenced by the other.

For example, motor capacities such as reaching, sitting, and walking (physical) contribute to the infant’s understanding of their surrounding (cognitive)

When babies think and act, adults stimulate them with games, language and expression of delight at child’s new achievement (socio-emotional)

Physical Domain

 Also referred to as the psychomotor domain

 Refers to the growth and maturation of body parts leading to improved motor skills/performance.

Growth –quantitative irreversible changes which increase body mass. The increase of number of cells due to cell division increases the size of the body.

Growth refers to structural aspects of development (bones

Maturation –sequential qualitative changes in development that result from automatic, genetically determined signals.

 Maturation refers to functional changes of development (acquisition of skills) to help the person move closer towards the mature state.

 Maturation is independent on the environment but its timing can be influenced by environmental factors.Can not occur unless growth processes are involved.

 Includes brain development, skeletal and general body growth, coordination and use of motor skill areas and improvement of perception capabilities

 Cognitive Domain

 Inner processes and products of the mind that lead to ‘knowing.’

 Includes all mental activity –attending, remembering, language, symbolizing, reasoning, problem solving.

Includes moral reasoning

Understanding of the concept of right and wrong (making judgment about actions)

Socio-Emotional Domain

Development of emotional capacities, management of feelings.

Includes feeling of security, bonding with caregivers, sense of independence and expansion of social relationships

 Basic emotions:

 Happiness, interest, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disgust

 Emotional signals powerfully affect the behaviour of others .

 Similarly, emotional reaction of others regulate children’s social behaviours.

Morality has an emotional component, since powerful feeling cause us to empathize with another’s distress or feel guilty when are the cause of distress.

You judge what is right and wrong based on your emotions.

CONTINUOUS OR DISCONTINUOUS?

 Continuous development:

Process that consists of gradually adding more of the same types of skills that were there to begin with.

Discontinuous development:

A process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world (thoughts, emotions & behaviour) emerge at specific times.

Theories that accept discontinuous  perspective regard development as taking place in stages –qualitative changes in thinking, feeling and behaving that characterize specific periods of development.

PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT

Besides the three domains, another dilemma arises in discussing development: how to divide the flow of time into sensible manageable parts.

Human development is usually divided into the five periods (phases) –each brings new capacities and social expectations that serve as important transitions in major theories

PRE-NATAL (CONCEPTION – BIRTH)

One celled organism is transformed into a human baby with remarkable capacities for adjusting to life in the surrounding world.

INFANCY AND TODDLERHOOD

 Brings dramatic changes in the body and brain to support the emergence of capacities (language, motor, perceptual and intellectual)

(EARLY, MIDDLE, LATE) CHILDHOOD

 Body becomes longer and leaner, motor skills are refined and children become more self controlled and self sufficient.