HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Development – is defined as a progressive series of orderly, coherent and life long process of physical,
cognitive, emotional, social, and language changes throughout the life span of an individual due to
nature and nurture.

Growth – refers to the quantitative changes in the process of human development. It is concerned with
changes in size (height, weight, width, and physiological function), complexity (cell division and
multiplication of cell within), and proportion (ratio of changes in different parts of your body).

Maturation- refers to genetically programmed, naturally occurring changes in the course of human
development.

Learning – is a relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of practice or experience
in the interaction with environment.

Generally, growth, maturation, and learning are changes in the individual and mutually contribute to
her/her development. Development, in this connection, is the result of the totality of the contribution of
heredity and environment.

Reflection

Dear student, can you discuss the relationship between growth, maturation, learning, and development, please?

2.2.Principles of Human Development

There are principles that characterize the pattern and process of growth and development. These
principles or characteristics describe typical development as a predictable and orderly process. That is,
we can predict how most children will develop and they will develop at the same rate and at about the
same time as other children. Although there are individual differences in children’s personalities, activity
levels, and timing of developmental milestones such as ages and stages, the principles and
characteristics of development are universal patterns. Some of the major principles of human
development are:

Development proceeds from head to tail –This is called the cephalocaudal principle. According to this
principle, human development proceeds from head to lower body parts and extremities. The
cephalocaudal principle applies to both physical and functional development.

Development proceeds from the center of the body outward – This is the principle of proximodistal
development. According to this principle, human development proceeds from the center of the body
(the proximal region) to the outer body parts and extremities (distal region).

Development depends on maturation and learning – Human growth and development are influenced
by both maturation and learning.

Development proceeds from the simple to complex- Children perform simple tasks before doing
complex ones. For example, children learn letters before words.
Development is a continuous process – As a child develops, he or she adds to the skills already acquired
and the new skills become the basis for further achievement and mastery of skills. Most children follow
a similar pattern. Also, one stage of development lays the foundation for the next stage of development.

Development proceeds from the general to specific – development occurs from large muscle
movements to more refined (smaller) muscle movements. For example, in motor development, the
infant will be able to grasp an object with the whole hand before using only the thumb and
forefinger. There are different individual rates of development. Each child is different and the rates at
which individual children develops is different. Although the patterns and sequences for development
are usually the same for all children, the rates at which individual children reach developmental stages
will be different. For instance, some children walk at ten months while others walk a few months older
at eighteen months of age.

2.3. Aspects of Human Development

The aspects of development could be many but the most important development aspects are physical
development, cognitive development, language development, social development, emotional
development, moral development, and gender development.

 Physical development – refers to changes in the bodily structures and functions of different body
parts.

 Cognitive development – refers to intellectual development; it deals with abilities, such as

processing information that includes thinking, imagination, memorizing, learning, reasoning,
decision making.

 Language development – refers to changes in the use of speech

 Social development – refers to changes in forming relationships/interaction with others.

 Emotional development – refers to changes in feelings; causes, and expressions of emotions/

feelings.

 Moral development – refers to changes in reasoning about “Right” or “Wrong”.

 Gender development – refers to changes in understanding the roles played by males and
females.
 2.4.Theories of Human Development

2.1.1. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

Early researcher Jean Piaget developed his theory from detailed observations of infants and children,
most especially his own three children. He made significant contributions to the understanding of how
children think about the world around them and shifted the view of children’s thinking from that of
“little adults” to something quite different from adult thinking. Piaget believed that children from
mental concepts or schemes as they experience new situations and events. Piaget argued that children
cognitively adapt to their environment through two interrelated processes, assimilation and
accommodation.

Assimilation is interpretation of actions or events in terms of one’s present schemas—that is, fitting
reality into one’s existing ways of understanding. For example, if a mother points to a picture of an apple
and tells her child, “that’s an apple”, the child forms a scheme for “apple” that looks something like the
picture. Piaget also believed that children first try to understand new things in terms of schemes they
already possess, a process called assimilation.

Accommodation is the modification of schemas to fit reality. For instance, in the above example, the
child might see an orange and say “apple” because both objects are round. When corrected, the child
might alter or adjust old schemes to fit new information and experience; that is accommodation.

Piaget proposed that four stages of cognitive development occur from infancy to adolescence.

1. Sensorimotor stage (Birth to two years)

In this stage, children base their understanding of the world primarily on touching, sucking, chewing,
shaking, and manipulating objects. In this stage, children have relatively little competence in
representing the environment by using images, language, or other kinds of symbols. Consequently,
infants lack what Piaget calls object permanence. Object permanence is the awareness that objects and
people continue to exist even if they are out of sight. Until the age of about 9 months, children will make
no attempt to locate the hidden toy believing that “out of sight is out of mind”. However, soon after
that age they will begin an active search for the missing object, indicating that they have developed a
mental representation of the toy. Object permanence, then, is a critical development during the
sensorimotor stage.

2. Preoperational stage (2 to 7 years)

This stage is called preoperational because the child cannot perform what Piaget called operations or
mental manipulations of reality. Operation refers to the thought process governed by rules/ logic. It is a
time of developing language and concepts. Children at this stage can understand through symbolic
thinking. This means that at this stage, a child can use a word or a symbol to represent things around
them. E.g. a word can symbolize a car or a house. The common limitations of the preoperational stage
of thought are:
 I. Ego-centrism: refers to the inability to perceive reality from the viewpoint of another person.
For example, children of this period mostly cover their eyes and say “you cannot see me”. Since
they cover their eyes and are unable to see, they think other persons as unable to see.

II. Lack of ability to decenter: children of this stage cannot perform mental operations
concentrating on many things at the same time because they cannot review and integrate a
variety of inputs. The mental addition and subtraction of objects and the operation of logical
thought is not yet developed. Example, is a child is asked to choose among two cups of juice
which are of equal volume but one in a taller and thinner and the other shorter and wider,
she/he prefers to take the taller instead of the shorter ignoring its

III. Lack of ability to reverse: At this period they are not able to reverse logical operations. They
cannot move forth and back or return to the point of origin. E.g. the child of this stage does not
follow sensibly that 3+7=10, then 10-7=3.

IV. Lack of concept of conservation: in this stage children cannot understand the concept of
conservation. Conservation shows the understanding, for instance, that a given quantity of a
substance remains the same despite the difference in the appearance. For example, if milk is
first kept in two cups of the same size, and then the milk of the one cup is poured into a broad
and short glass and the other is to along and thin glass, the child of this stage prefers to take the
milk in a long glass. This is because the child is unable to recognize that the amount of milk is the
same despite the containers are changed.

V. Animism: the tendency of preoperational children to consider everything as living and attribute
life to animate objects, i.e., they have the tendency to think inanimate objects as having human
power like thinking, emotion, etc. E.g., the child might think of the wind as alive because it
moves. The Sun, the Moon, Stars, Clouds etc., are regarded as living organizations.

I. Realism: is the tendency of preoperational stage children to think pictures, concepts, and
symbols as real objects. They do have also tendency to see the Psychological events like dreams
and thoughts as physical events. For example, they believe that whatever they dreamt could
happen to them in actual life.

II. Artificialism: is the tendency to interpret all phenomena, including natural phenomena as made
by human beings, e.g Sun, Moon etc.

III. Concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years)

The cognitive abilities of the concrete operational stage children undergo dramatic changes. Piaget calls
this stage first operational stage. This stage’s children think logically about concrete objects and
problems but not about abstract problems. At this stage, the major characteristics of children include:
increased freedom of control in thinking, and understanding of relationships between events and
symbols, logical and objectivity of mental operation, the ability to add, subtract, classify, order, and deal
with numbers and the ability to apply rules to the social situation. However, children’s thinking is limited
in flexibility and they tend to think about concrete rather than abstract thinking instead children in this
stage understand the world at a concrete/tangible level.
4. Formal operational stage (11 and above years to adulthood)

In this stage, young people begin reasoning about an abstract form of ideas and not only about their
concrete content: hence it is named as formal operational stage. At this stage, the thought process of
children becomes quite abstract, systematic and reasonable, and well-integrated. Now, they solve
problems more systematically and the bases of actions are not trial and error. Children may begin to
think abstractly and see possibilities beyond the here and now, and immediate and concrete
environment. These abilities continue to develop into adulthood.

Individuals of this stage can organize information, reason scientifically, formulate concepts, build
hypotheses based on the understanding of causality, and test their hypothesis. E.g., “if children are
asked a bit complicated cases like “Teferi is shorter than Gemechu and Teferi is taller than Ahmed, and
asked, “who is the tallest of the three?” The formal operational stage children can imagine several
different relationships between the heights of Teferi, Gemechu and Ahmed beyond answering the
specific question raised.

Though the formal operational stage children /adolescents/ is logical, they have cognitive limitation
called adolescent egocentrism (imaginary audience and personal fable). Adolescent egocentrism is the
ability to distinguish one’s point of view from that of another person.

Imaginary audience: The belief that other people are preoccupied with one’s appearance and behavior.
Young teenagers assume that other people are as concerned about them as they are themselves. E.g. if
a girl decided she looks attractive, she may believe not only that everyone else considers her
attractiveness but also that they spend as much time thinking about her attractiveness as she does.

Personal fable: This is one’s immortal and unique existence. It is the belief that one’s own life is more
unique, dramatic and heroic than other people’s lives. It also shows the belief that the moral laws of
nature that apply to other people don’t apply to adolescents. E.g. the following are some comments by
adolescents that represent this thinking. “Mom, you don’t know what it is to be in love!” “Other people
may become addicted to drugs, but not me”.

Reflection

Dear student, how do you explain the cognitive changes of individuals across the four stages of Piaget?

Please visit children of preoperational stage at a nearby Kindergarten and check their cognitive limitations

(E.g., Conservation).
 2.4.2.Freud’s psychosexual theories of development

Brainstorming Questions

How do you think human personality is developed through time?

Psychosexual development refers to a shift in areas of gratification, known as erogenous zones or area
of the body that produces pleasure. At each stage, a different erogenous zone becomes a source of
pleasure, as well as conflicts. Conflicts that are not fully resolved can result in fixation. Fixation is getting
“stuck” to some degree in an early stage of development. The child may grow into an adult but will still
carry emotional and psychological state of mind from that earlier fixed stage. According to Freud, during
development, each person passes through five psychosexual stages.

The oral stage (Birth to one year) – In this stage, the erogenous zone is the area around the mouth,
through which the baby gets pleasure from eating, sucking, and biting. According to Freud, the most
important social conflict of this stage is weaning (taking the mother’s breast away from the child, who
will now drink from a cup). Weaning that occurs too soon or too late can result in too little or too much
satisfaction of the child’s needs, which leads to fixated adult personality. Fixation because of
overindulge results in over eating, drinking too much, chain smoking, talking too much, nail biting, gum
chewing and a tendency to be either too dependent or optimistic. On the other hand, fixation because
of under indulge leads individuals to be too aggressive and pessimistic.

The Anal stage (One to three years) – In this stage, the erogenous zone moves from the mouth area to
the anus. Freud believed that children in this stage got a great deal pleasure from both withholding and
then releasing their feces at will. This allows children to develop self-control as well as please their
parents, both desirable goals for children of this stage. The main area of conflict here is toile training,
the demand that the child use the toilet at a particular time in a particular way. Fixation in the anal stage
comes from too harsh toilet training can take one of two forms.

The child who rebels openly against the demands of the parents and other adults will refuse to go in the
toilet, instead defecating where and when he/she feels like doing it. This fixation leads to adult as a
person who sees messiness as a statement of personal control and who is somewhat destructive and
hostile. The other anal fixation is the child who is terrified of making a mess and rebels passively-
refusing to go at all or retaining the feces. No mess, no punishment. As adults they are stingy,

The phallic stage (Three to six years) – In this stage, the erogenous zone shifts to the genital organs and
the child feels pleasure from the stimulation of the genital regions. Phallic During this stage, the young
boy must resolve the Oedipus complex and the girls must resolve the Electra complex. Oedipus complex
refers to the feeling of attraction of a male child for his mother and rivalry towards his father. Electra
complex refers to the female counterpart of the Oedipus complex in which the little girl feels attraction
for her father and rivalry toward her mother.

If children are grown without same sex parent and their love for the opposite sex parent is encouraged,
fixation will be there. People who are fixated at this stage, according to Freud, will often exhibit
promiscuous sexual behavior and very vain. The vanity is seemed as a covering for feelings of low self-
worth arising from the failure of identification and the inadequate formation of superego. Additionally,
men with this fixation may be “mamma’s boys” who never quite grow up, and women may look for
much older father figures to marry. Phallic stage conflict is resolved with two processes: Repression of
children’s sexual desire towards their opposite sex parents and identification with same same-sex
parent (girl pretends her mother and boy pretends his father).

The latency stage (Six-years to puberty). At the end of the phallic stage children’s sexual desire towards
their opposite sex parents are repressed back and identification with same sex parent takes place.
Hence, this stage is a period of relatively child is free of erotic/sexual feelings. Instead they expend their
efforts on acquiring cultural and social skills through play.

The Genital stage (Puberty to Adulthood). In this stage, heterosexual desire becomes more active. The
stage is characterized by the entry into mature sexuality wherein the adolescence is on the way towards
a “normal” life. Normal life here indicates the attraction of adolescents towards their opposite sex peers.

2.4.3.Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development

General Psychology and Life Skill CHAPTER TWO 2.4.3.Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development

Brainstorming Question

Dear student, can imagine what people need to perform at different age levels while interacting with others?

Erikson developed one of the more comprehensive theories of social development. Psychosocial
development involves changes in our interactions and understanding of one another as well as in our
knowledge and understanding of ourselves as members of society.

Erikson (1963) viewed the developmental changes that occur throughout life as a series of eight stages
of psychosocial development. Erikson suggests that passage through each of the stages necessitates the
resolution of a crisis or conflict. Accordingly, Erikson represents each stage as a pairing of the most
positive and most negative aspects of the crisis of that period. Although each crisis is never resolved
entirely—life becomes increasingly complicated as we grow older—it has to be resolved sufficiently to
equip us to deal with demands made during the following stage of development. The eight stages of
Erikson’s psychosocial development are:

1. Trust vs. Mistrust (Birth to 1 year).

This stage centers on the crisis of trust vs. mistrust. During this crisis time, the infants/ babies learn
either to trust of the environment (if their needs are met by the caregivers) or to mistrust it (if their
needs are not met by the caregivers). I.e. babies must trust others to satisfy their needs. If their needs
are not met, they fail to develop feelings of trust in others and remain suspicious and worry forever.

Trust is the cornerstone of the child’s attitude towards life. So, parents must maintain a nurturing
environment (i.e. they must treat them with love instead of being anxious, angry, impatient and
incapable of meeting needs) so that the children develop basic trust in others. The virtue in this stage is
hope.
  Autonomy Vs. Shame (1 to 3 years/toddlers)

This stage centers on the crisis of autonomy vs. shame or doubt. At this stage, toddlers acquire self-
confidence if they learn/succeed to regulate their bodies and act independently. But, if they fail or
labeled as inadequate by others caring for them, they experience shame and doubt their abilities to
interact effectively with the external world, and fail to develop self-confidence. One should know that
children of this stage develop autonomy through bowel and bladder control and encouraging children to
do what they can do is the key to their developing a sense of autonomy. People with a sense of
autonomy have a basic attitude of “I think I can do it” and “I have something of value to offer”. The
virtue here is will.

 Initiative Vs. Guilt (3 to 6 years/preschoolers)

At this stage, children acquire new physical and mental skills but also learn to control their impulses and
they can begin to formulate a plan of action and carry it through. Unless a good balance is struck
between skills and impulses, they may become either unruly or too inhibited. If a good balance is kept
and the positive outcome is there, the sense of initiation is acquired if not a sense of guilt is developed.
If they strike the right balance between the feeling of initiative and feelings of guilt, all is well.

If children are punished for expressing their desires and plans, they will develop a sense of guilt that
leads to fear and lack of assertiveness. If children are allowed to express their desires through guidance,
they will develop sense of initiative. Children with a sense of initiative accept new challenges, are self-
starters, and have a strong sense of personal adequacy. So, children must be encouraged to initiate own
actions in a socially acceptable way. Thus, the virtue here is purpose.

1. Industry Vs. inferiority (7 to 11 years/late childhood)

At this stage, children must learn/acquire language, mathematical, social, and physical necessary for
their adult life. They also begin to compare their physical, intellectual and social skills and
accomplishments with those of their peers. If children successfully acquire these new skills and their
accomplishments are valued by others, they develop/form a sense of productivity and have a positive
view of their competence or achievements. If they take justified pride in these, they acquire high self-
esteem. In contrast, if they constantly compare themselves unfavorably and labeled as second to others,
they may develop low self-esteem and a sense of inferiority. If a child’s cultural, religious or racial group
is considered as inferior, a sense of personal inferiority may also develop.

Children with a sense of industry enjoy learning about new things and experimenting with new ideas
and take criticism well. So, at this stage, children must learn to feel competent enough especially
concerning peers. The virtue here is competency.

 Identity Vs. Role confusion (12 to 18 years/Adolescence)

This stage is the crucial stage in Erikson’s theory. The term identity refers to “Who am I? To whom do I
belong? And what is my role in the society?” questions of adolescents. Adolescents are raising such
questions seeking to establish a clear self-identity and an understanding of their unique traits and what
is really of central importance to them. Though these questions are questions of life at many points, for
Erikson, during adolescence, these questions must be answered effectively. If they are not answered
effectively, individuals may drift along uncertain of where they want to go or what they wish to
accomplish.

Adolescents adopt many different strategies to help them resolve their identity crises. They try out
many different roles: the good girl/boy, the rebel, the dutiful daughter/ son, the athlete, and all join
many different social groups. They consider many possible social levels, different kinds of persons they
may potentially become. Out of these experiences, they gradually put together a cognitive framework
for understanding themselves and self-schema. The adolescents who develop a solid sense of identity
formulate a satisfying plan and gain a sense of security. The adolescents who do not develop a solid
sense of identity may develop role confusion and a sense of aimlessness.

Generally, adolescents must integrate various roles into constant self-identity. If they fail to do so, they
may experience confusion over which they are. At this period, adolescents must develop a sense of role
identity, especially in selecting a future career. Those with a sense of self-identity are less susceptible to
peer pressure, have a higher level of self-acceptance, are optimistic and believe that they are in control
of their destinies, while those with a sense of confusion can be described oppositely. The virtue here is
fidelity.

 Intimacy Vs. Isolation (18/20 to 35 years/early adulthood)

The establishment of close interpersonal bonds is the major task of this stage. During early adulthood,
individuals must develop the ability to form deep, intimate relationships with others. The intimacy is
both sexual intimacy and emotional attachments to others. This may especially be observed by the
formation of adult sexual relationships in the form of marriage. If interpersonal bonds are made, the
basic feelings of intimacy with others

will result. If they do not, they may develop a sense of isolation, and become emotionally
isolated/detached from society. The virtue here is love.

1. Generosity Vs. Stagnation/self-absorption (35 to 60 years/middle adulthood)

Middle adult life is characterized by the crises of the need for individuals to overcome selfish, self-
centered concerns and to take an active interest in helping and guiding the next generations. For
parents, such activities are focused on their children. Individuals who successfully resolve this crisis and
turn away from total absorption with their own lives, health and careers discover new meaning. People
who do not resolve this crisis, in contrast, become absorbed in their own lives and gradually cut
themselves off from an important source of growth and satisfaction. Therefore, during middle
adulthood individuals must take an active interest in helping and guiding younger persons. So, adults
develop themselves through guiding their children. The virtue here is care.

 Integrity Vs. Despair (above 65 years/old age)

As people reach the last decades of their life time, it is natural to look back and ask “Did my life have had
meaning? Did my being here really matter?” If they can answer these questions affirmatively and feel
that they achieved their goals and made positive contributions to society and others, they attain a sense
of integrity. This is characterized by composure, broad mindedness, appropriate emotional forbearance,
and peace of mind. These elderly people are likely to reflect on their lives positively even in the face of
imminent death. If their answers for these questions are negative, they may feel a sense of despair, they
feel that they have wasted their lives and experience many regrets. The virtue here is wisdom.

2.4.4.Kohlberg’s theory of moral development

General Psychology and Life Skill CHAPTER TWO 2.4.4.Kohlberg’s theory of moral development

Brainstorming Questions

Dear student, what comes to your mind when you hear about morals? How do you evaluate whether your behaviors a
good/bad and right or wrong?Do you think what is good for you is always good for others?

In everyday life, people should gradually develop their moral judgment/reasoning and their ability to
distinguish right and wrong. Moral development refers to changes in one’s understanding and the skills
of adopting standards of right and wrong or ability to distinguish good from bad. This helps to guide
moral behaviors (doing the right thing).

The well known theory about moral development is developed by Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg viewed
moral thinking as progressing through a series of distinct stages. Kohlberg developed his theory by
presenting moral dilemmas to individuals of various age levels and analyzing their responses. Moral
dilemmas are hypothetical situations in which not id right. One of the commonly used examples of
moral dilemmas is the story of Heinz, presented below. A woman in Europe was dying from a rare
disease. Her only hope was a drug that a local druggist had discovered. The druggist was charging ten
times more than it cost him to make it. Heinz, the husband of the dying woman, had desperately tried to
borrow money to buy the drug, but he could borrow only half of the amount he needed. He went to the
druggist, told him that his wife was dying, and asked to let him pay the druggist later or to sell the drug
at a lower cost. The druggist refused, saying that he had

discovered the drug and he was going to make money from it. Later, Heinz broke into the druggist’s
store to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have done that? Why?

Based on the responses for his hypothetical questions, Kohlberg has distinguished three major levels
divided into six sequential stages of moral development. They are:

Level 3. Post conventional moral

Level 1. Pre conventional moral Level 2. Conventional moral
reasoning (young adolescence -
reasoning (4-10 years) reasoning (10-late adolescence)
Adulthood)

Stage 1. Obedience- Stage 3. Good boy/nice Stage 5. Social

punishment orientation girl orientation contract orientation

Stage 2. Instrumental- Stage 4. Law and Stage 6.Universal

relativismorientation order orientation ethical principle orientation
Level 1: Pre-conventional moral reasoning (4-10 years)

In level 1,children’s ideas about right and wrong relies on their personal needs and perceptions. Their
reasoning is based on their needs and perceptions that do not reflect the principled conventions. This
level is sub divided into two stages.

Stage 1:Obedience-punishment orientation – In this stage, children distinguish rightness and wrongness
of a behavior by rewards and punishments involved. In other words, physical consequences of an action
determine its goodness or badness.

Stage 2: Instrumental-relativism orientation – In, this stage, children evaluate action based on their
own needs and wishes. What satisfies one’s own needs is right and what does not satisfy their needs
wrong.

Level 2: Conventional moral reasoning (10-late adolescence)

In this level, children’s judgment of right or wrong action is based on others’ approval, family
expectation, traditional values, laws, and legality of society and country. This level has two stages.

Stage 3- Good boy/nice girl orientation – In this stage, individuals evaluates right and wrong actions by
the approval/criticism of immediate peers or close family. Good is what pleasures the immediate others.

Stage 4: Law and order– In this stage, individual judges her/his actions based on laws and social order.

Level 3: Post conventional moral reasoning (young adolescence -Adulthood)

At this level,individual judges actions as right or wrong based on universal, abstract principles that take
precedence over laws and conventions and even a person’s peers and family. This level consists of two
stages.

Stage 5: Social contract orientation- In this stage, individual begins regarding right and wrong as a
product of social contracts and the set of rules/agreements that originate from the discussion,
negotiations, and a compromise that can be changed. So good (right) is determined by socially agreed
up standards of individuals’ rights.

Stage 6: Universal ethical principle orientation- In this stage,individuals judge action considering the
universal moral principles (abstract and ethical ones) like justice, human rights, human dignity, and
equality. Such individual prepares to sacrifice all, including her/his life for upholding these principles.

Reflection

Dear student, at which level/stage of moral principle your actions are evaluated?
 LEARNING AND THEORIES OF LEARNING

3.1. Definition, Characteristics and Principles of Learning

3.1.1. Definitions of learning

Brainstorming Questions

What is the meaning of learning in psychology? What

are the elements of learning?

Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior occurring as a result of experience

or practice.

The above definition emphasizes four attributes of learning:

Learning is a process of relatively permanent change in behavior.

It does not include change due to illness, fatigue, maturation and use of intoxicant.

The learning is not directly observable but manifests in the activities of the individual.

Learning depends on practice and experience.

Reflection

Dear student, how do you get the definition of learning in line with your previous conception?
 3.1.2.Characteristics of learning
Teachers and school administrative personnel need a good understanding of the general
characteristics of learning in order to apply them in school learning situation. If learning is a
change in behavior as a result of experience, and then instruction must include a careful
and systematic creation of those experiences that promote learning. This process can be
quite complex because, among other things, an individual’s background strongly influences
the way that person learns.
Yoakman and Simpson have described the following major important characteristics of
learning. Learning:
1. is continuous modification of behavior throughout life.
2. is pervasive, it reaches into all aspects of human life.
3. involves the whole person, socially, emotionally & intellectually.
4. is often a change in the organization of experiences.
5. is responsive to incentives.
6. is responsive to incentives.
7. is an active process.
8. is purposeful.
9. depends on maturation and motivation.
10. learning is multifaceted.

3.1.3.Principles of learning
General Psychology and Life Skill CHAPTER THREE 3.1.3.Principles of learning

Some of the most important principles of learning are as follows:

 Individuals learn best when they are physically, mentally, and emotionally ready to
learn.
 Students learn best and retain information longer when they have meaningful
practice and exercise.
 Learning is strengthened when accompanied by a pleasant or satisfying feeling, and
that learning is weakened when associated with an unpleasant feeling.
 Things learned first create a strong impression in the mind that is difficult to erase.
 Things most recently learned are best remembered.
 The principle of intensity implies that a student will learn more from the real thing
than from a substitute.
 Individuals must have some abilities and skills that may help them to learn.
 Things freely learned are best learned – the greater the freedom enjoyed by
individuals, the higher the intellectual and moral advancement.

3.2.Factors Influencing Learning

Brainstorming Question

Dear student, what do you think are the factors the affect your learning?

Some of the factors that affect learning of individuals are the following.
1. Motivation: The learner’s motivation matters the effectiveness of learning. The
stronger and clearer the motives for learning, the greater are the effort to learn. When the
motives of learning are high, the learner becomes enthusiastic.
2. Intelligence: the more the individual is intelligent, the better she/he learns.
3. Maturation: Neuro-muscular coordination is important for learning a given task.
Example, The child has to be mature before she/he is able to learn.
4. Physical condition of the learner: The learner should be in a good health status to
learn. Example– Sensory defects, malnutrition, toxic conditions of the body, loss of sleep
and fatigue hinder effective learning.
5. Good working conditions – absence or presence of fresh air, light, comfortable
surroundings, moderate temperature, absence of distractions like noise and learning aids
determine learning effectiveness.
6. Psychological wellbeing of the learner: individual’s psychological states like worries,
fears, feelings of loneliness and inferiority hinders learning. Whereas self-respect, self-
reliance, and self-confidence are necessary for effective learning.
7. Background experiences: having background experiences affect effectiveness of
learning. All related facts and understandings from a previously learned course should be
brought to new learning.
8. Length of the working period: Learning periods should neither be too short nor too
long. Long learning time sets fatigue and reduces effectiveness in learning.

3.3.Theories of Learning and their Applications

Brainstorming Question
What is theory and how it is related with learning?

3.3.1.Behavioral Theory of Learning

Behavioral theory of learning believes that learning occurs as a result of stimulus response
associations. Behavioral theories emphasize observable behaviors, seek laws to govern all
organisms, and provide explanations which focus on consequences. Behaviorists also differ
among themselves with respect to their views about the role of reinforcement in learning.
There are two major behavioral theories of learning. They are known as classical and
operant Conditioning.

3.3.2.Classical conditioning theory of learning

Classical conditioning focuses on the learning of involuntary emotional or physiological
responses such as fear, increased heartbeat, salivation or sweating – sometimes
called respondents because they are automatic responses to stimuli. Through the process
of classical conditioning, human and animals can be trained to act involuntarily to a
stimulus that previously had no effect – or a very different effect – on them. The stimulus
comes to elicit, modify the behavior of the learners in such a way as the responses originally
connected with a particular stimulus comes to be aroused by a different stimulus.
Classical conditioning involves what are known as conditioned reflexes. An example of this
is a ‘knee-jerk’ reflex. This reflex isn’t controlled by the brain, but by the spinal cord, and it
is straight forward response to the stimulus. Another example of a reflex is the production
of saliva in a response to food when you are hungry, and it was this response which Pavlov
first investigated when he discovered classical conditioning. Therefore, in short Classical
conditioning is a type of learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to bring about a
response after it is paired with a stimulus that naturally brings about that response.
Basics of Classical Condition
To demonstrate classical conditioning, we must first identify stimuli and responses. In
addition, you must be well familiarized with the following basic terms of classical condition:
Neutral stimulus: A stimulus that, before conditioning, does not naturally bring about the
response of interest.
Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): A stimulus that naturally brings about a particular response
without having been learned.
Unconditioned response (UCR): A response that is natural and needs no training (e.g.,
salivation at the smell of food).
Conditioned stimulus (CS): A once neutral stimulus that has been paired with an
unconditioned stimulus to bring about a response formerly caused only by the
unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned response (CR): A response that, after conditioning, follows a previously neutral
stimulus (e.g., salivation at the ringing of a bell).
Hence, the theory of classical conditioning represents a process in which a neutral stimulus,
by pairing with a natural stimulus, acquires all the characteristics of natural stimulus. It is
also sometimes called substitution learning because it involves substituting a neutral
stimulus in place of natural stimulus. The theory states that the responses originally made
to unconditioned stimulus becomes associated with the conditioned stimulus and what is
learned is a conditioned stimulus – conditioned response bond of some kind. To make this
explanation clear, let us consider Pavlov’s experiment.

Principles of Classical Condition

General Psychology and Life Skill CHAPTER THREE Principles of Classical Condition

A. Stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination

Stimulus generalization is a process in which, after a stimulus has been conditioned to
produce a particular response, stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus produce the
same responses. For example, a dog conditioned to salivate to a dinner bell (CS) might also
salivate to a door bell, a telephone bell.
Stimulus discrimination is the process that occurs if two stimuli are sufficiently distinct
from one another that one evokes a conditioned response but the other does not; the
ability to differentiate between stimuli. Example, the dog salivates only in response to the
dinner bell instead of the doorbell or the telephone bell.
B. Extinction and spontaneous recovery
In Pavlov’s procedure, if a CS is repeatedly presented without presenting the UCS (meat),
the CR will diminish and eventually stop occurring. This process is called extinction. A dog
that has learned to salivate to a dinner bell (CS) will eventually stop doing so unless
presentations of the dinner bell are periodically followed by presentations of the UCS
(meat). But extinction only inhibits the CR, it does not eliminate it.
Spontaneous recovery is the reemergence of an extinguished conditioned response after a
period of rest and with no further conditioning. For example, suppose you produce
extinction of the CR of salivation by no longer presenting the dog with meat after ringing
the dinner bell. If you rang the dinner bell a few days later, the dog would again respond by
salivating. In spontaneous recovery, however, the CR is weaker and extinguishes faster than
it did originally.
Reflection

Suppose a one-year old child is playing with a toy near an electrical out-let. He sticks part of the
toy into the outlet. He gets shocked, becomes frightened, and begins to cry. For several days
after that experience, he shows fear when his mother gives him the toy and he refuses to play
with it. What are the UCS? UCR? CS? CR? Show in diagram there association into three stages
of processes?
a) UCS___________________________________
b) UCR___________________________________
c) CS____________________________________
d) CR___________________________________
Could you please explain of something you learned through classical conditioning?
3.3.1.2.Operant/Instrumental conditioning
Brainstorming Questions
What is operant conditioning and who founded it? Describe what you know about it?What is
the role of reward and punishment in learning? What are the types and schedule of
reinforcement?

Operant conditioning is learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or

weakened, depending on its favorable or unfavorable consequences. When we say that a
response has been strengthened or weakened, we mean that it has been made more or less
likely to recur regularly. An emphasis on environmental consequences is at the heart
of Operant Conditioning (also called Instrumental Conditioning), the second type of
conditioning studied by Behaviorists. In operant conditioning, the organism’s response
operates or produces effects on the environment. These effects, in turn, influence, whether
the response will occur again.
Unlike classical conditioning, in which the original behaviors are the natural, biological
responses to the presence of a stimulus such as food, water, or pain, operant conditioning
applies to voluntary responses, which an organism performs deliberately to produce a
desirable outcome. The term operant emphasizes this point: The organism operates on its
environment to produce a desirable result. Operant conditioning is at work when we learn
that toiling industriously can bring about a raise or that studying hard results in good grades.
Besides, B.F Skinner the very renowned proponent of operant conditioning argued that to
understand behavior we should focus on the external causes of an action and the action’s
consequences. To explain behavior, he said, we should look outside the individual, not
inside.
In Skinner’s analysis, a response (“operant”) can lead to three types of consequences: such
as a) A neutral consequence b) A reinforcement or c) punishment.
a) A neutral Consequence that does not alter the response.
b) A reinforcement that strengthens the response or makes it more likely to recur. A
reinforcer is any event that increases the probability that the behavior that precedes it will
be repeated. There are two basic types of reinforcers or reinforcing
stimuli: primary and secondary reinforcers.
Primary reinforcers: Food, water. Light, stroking of the skin, and a comfortable air
temperature are naturally reinforcing because they satisfy biological needs. They are,
 therefore, known as primary reinforcers. Primary reinforcers, in general, have the ability to
reinforce without prior learning.
Secondary Reinforcers: Behaviors can be controlled by secondary reinforcers. They
reinforce behavior because of their prior association with primary reinforcing stimuli.
Money, praise, applause, good grades, awards, and gold stars are common secondary
reinforcers.
Both primary and secondary reinforcers can be positive or negative. Positive
reinforcement is the process whereby presentation of a stimulus makes behavior more
likely to occur again.
Negative reinforcement is the process whereby termination of an aversive stimulus makes
behavior more likely to occur. The basic principle of negative reinforcement is that
eliminating something aversive can itself be a reinforcer or a reward. For example, if
someone nags you all the time to study, but stops nagging when you comply, your studying
is likely to increase- because you will then avoid the nagging.
This can be an example of what is called escape learning. In escape learning animals learn
to make a response that terminates/stops a noxious, painful or unpleasant stimulus.
Another kind of learning, which is similar, but not the same as escape learning is Avoidance
Learning, which refers to learning to avoid a painful, noxious stimulus prior to exposure.
Schedules of reinforcement
When a response is first acquired, learning is usually most rapid if the response is reinforced
each time it occurs. This procedure is called continuous reinforcement. However, once a
response has become reliable, it will be more resistant to extinction if it is rewarded on
an intermittent (partial) schedule of reinforcement, which involves reinforcing only some
responses, not all of them. There are four types of intermittent schedules.
1. Fixed-ratio schedules: A fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement occurs after a fixed
number of responses. Employers to increase productivity often use fixed ratio schedules. An
interesting feature of a fixed ratio schedule is that performance sometimes drops off just
after reinforcement.
2. Variable-Ratio Schedule: variable ratio schedule of reinforcement occurs after some
average number of responses, but the number varies from reinforcement to reinforcement.
A variable ratio schedule of produces extremely high steady rates of responding. The
responses are more resistant to extinction than when a fixed ratio schedule is used.
3. Fixed Interval Schedule: A fixed interval schedule of reinforcement occurs only if a
fixed amount of time has passed since the previous reinforcer.
4. Variable Interval Schedule: A variable interval schedule of reinforcement occurs
only if a variable amount of time has passed since the previous reinforcer.
A basic principle of operant conditioning is that if you want a response to persist after it has
been learned, you should reinforce it intermittently, not continuously. Because the change
from continuous reinforcement to none at
all will be so large that the animal or person will soon stop responding. But if you have been
giving the reinforcement only every so often, the change will not be dramatic and the
animal/ person will keep responding for a while.
c) Punishment- is a stimulus that weakens the response or makes it less likely to recur.
Punishers can be any aversive (unpleasant) stimuli that weaken responses or make them
unlikely to recur. Like reinforcers, punishers can also be primary or secondary. Pain and
extreme heat or cold are inherently punishing and are therefore known as primary
punishers. Criticism, demerits, catcalls, scolding, fines, and bad grades are
common secondary punishers.
The positive-negative distinction can also be applied to punishment. Something unpleasant
may occur following some behavior (positive punishment), or something pleasant may be
removed (negative punishment).
The Pros and Cons of Punishment
Immediacy, consistency and intensity matter are important for effectiveness of punishment.
Immediacy – When punishment follows immediately after the behavior to be punished.
Consistency– when punishment is inconsistent the behavior being punished is
intermittently reinforced and therefore becomes resistant to extinction.
Intensity– In general terms severe punishments are more effective than mild ones.
However, there are studies that indicate that even less intense punishments are effective
provided that they are applied immediately and consistently.
However, when punishment fails:
1. People often administer punishment inappropriately or mindlessly. They swing in a
blind rag or shout things they do not mean applying. Punishment is so broad that it covers
all sorts of irrelevant behaviors.
2. The recipient of punishment often responds with anxiety, fear or rage. Through a
process of classical conditioning, these emotional side effects may then generalize to the
entire situation in which the punishment occurs- the place, the person delivering the
punishment, and the circumstances. These negative emotional reactions can create more
problems than the punishment solves. For instance, a teenager who has been severely
 punished may strike back or run away. Being physically punished in childhood is a risk factor
for depression, low self-esteem, violent behavior and many other problems.
3. The effectiveness of punishment is often temporary, depending heavily on the
presence of the punishing person or circumstances.
4. Most behavior is hard to punish immediately.
5. Punishment conveys little information. An action intended to punish may instead be
reinforcing because it brings attention.
Shaping
For a response to be reinforced, it must first occur. But, suppose you to train a child to use a
knife and a fork properly. Such behaviors, and most others in everyday life, have almost no
probability of appearing spontaneously.
The operant solution for this is shaping. Shaping is an operant conditioning procedure in
which successive approximations of a desired response are reinforced. In shaping you start
by reinforcing a tendency in the right direction. Then you gradually require responses that
are more and more similar to the final desired response. The responses that you reinforce
on the way to the final one are called successive approximations.
Brainstorming Question
What implications do you think operant conditioning has in classroom learning?

Application of the theory of operant conditioning:1. Conditioning study behavior:

Teaching is the arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement, which expedite learning.
For effective teaching teacher should arranged effective contingencies of reinforcement.
Example: For
Self-learning of a student teacher should reinforce student behavior through variety of
incentives such as prize, medal, smile, praise, affectionate patting on the back or by giving
higher marks.
2. Conditioning and classroom behavior: During learning process child acquire unpleasant
experiences also. This unpleasantness becomes conditioned to the teacher, subject and the
classroom and learner dislikes the subject and a teacher.
3. Managing Problem Behavior: Two types of behavior is seen in the classroom with
undesired behavior and problematic behavior. Operant conditioning is a behavior therapy
technique that shape students behavior. For this teacher should admit positive
contingencies like praise, encouragement etc. for learning. One should not admit negative
contingencies. Example punishment (student will run away from the dull and dreary classes
– escape stimulation.
4. Dealing with anxieties through conditioning: Through conditioning fear, anxieties,
prejudices, attitudes, perceptual meaning develops. Examples of anxiety are signals on the
road, siren blown during wartime, child receiving painful injection from a doctor. Anxiety is
a generalized fear response. To break the habits of fear, a teacher should use
desensitization techniques. Initially teacher should provide very weak form of conditioned
stimulus. Gradually the strength of stimulus should be increased.
5. Conditioning group behavior: Conditioning makes entire group learn and complete
change in behavior is seen due to reinforcement. It breaks undesired and unsocial behavior
too. Example: Putting questions or telling lie to teachers will make teachers annoyed in such
circumstances students learn to keep mum in the class. Asking questions, active
participation in class discussion will make the teacher feel happy – interaction will increase
and teaching learning process becomes more effective.
6. Conditioning and Cognitive Processes: Reinforcement is given in different form, for the
progress of knowledge and in the feedback form. When response is correct, positive
reinforcement is given. Each step is built upon the preceding step. Progress is seen in the
process of learning. Immediate reinforcement is given at each step.
7. Shaping Complex Behavior: Complex behavior exists in form of a chain of small behavior.
Control is required for such kind of behavior. This extended form of learning is shaping
technique.

3.3.2.Social Learning Theory (observational

learning) theory
According to psychologist Albert Bandura, a major part of human learning consists of
observational learning, which is learning by watching the behavior of another person,
or model. Because of its reliance on observation of others—a social phenomenon—the
perspective taken by Bandura is often referred to as a social cognitive approach to learning
(Bandura, 1999, 2004).
Bandura identifies three forms of reinforcement that can encourage observational learning.
First, of course, the observer may reproduce the behaviors of the model and receive direct
reinforcement. The reinforcement need not be direct – it may be vicarious reinforcement as
well. As mentioned earlier, the observer may simply see others reinforced for a particular
behavior and then increase his or her production of that behavior. The final form of
reinforcement is self-reinforcement, or controlling your reinforcers. This sort of
reinforcement is important for both students and teachers. We want our students to
improve not because it leads to external rewards but because the students value and enjoy
their growing competence.
But social cognitive theorists believe that in human beings, observational learning cannot
be fully understood without taking into account the thought processes of the learner. They
emphasize the knowledge that results when a person sees a model- behaving in certain
ways and experiencing the consequences. Many years ago, Albert Bandura and his
colleagues showed just how important observational learning is, especially for children who
are learning the rules of social behavior.
Bandura mentions four conditions that are necessary before an individual can successfully
model the behavior of someone else:
1. Attention: the person must first pay attention to the model.
2. Retention: the observer must be able to remember the behavior that has been observed.
One way of increasing this is using the technique of rehearsal.
3. Motor reproduction: the third condition is the ability to replicate the behavior that the
model has just demonstrated. This means that the observer has to be able to replicate the
action, which could be a problem with a learner who is not ready developmentally to
replicate the action. For example, little children have difficulty doing complex physical
motion.
4. Motivation: the final necessary ingredient for modeling to occur is motivation; learners
must want to demonstrate what they have learned. Remember that since these four
conditions vary among individuals, different people will reproduce the same behavior
differently.
Educational Implications of Social Learning Theory
Social learning theory has numerous implications for classroom use.
1. Students often learn a great deal simply by observing other people.
2. Describing the consequences of behavior is can effectively increase the appropriate
behaviors and decrease inappropriate ones. This can involve discussing with learners about
the rewards and consequences of various behaviors.
3. Modeling provides an alternative to shaping for teaching new behaviors. Instead of using
shaping, which is operant conditioning; modeling can provide a faster, more efficientmeans
 for teaching new behavior. To promote effective modeling a teacher must make sure that
the four essential conditions exist; attention, retention, motor reproduction, and
motivation.
4. Teachers and parents must model appropriate behaviors and take care that they do not
model inappropriate behaviors.
5. Teachers should expose students to a variety of other models. This technique is especially
important to break down traditional stereotypes.
6. Students must believe that they are capable of accomplishing school tasks. Thus it is very
important to develop a sense of self-efficacy for students. Teachers can promote such self-
efficacy by having students receive confidence-building messages, watch others be
successful, and experience success on their own.
7. Teachers should help students set realistic expectations for their academic
accomplishments. In general, in my class, that means making sure that expectations are not
set too low. I want to realistically challenge my students.
8. Self-regulation techniques provide an effective method for improving student behavior.

3.3.3.Cognitive Learning Theory

Both classical and operant conditionings have traditionally been explained by the principle
of contiguity i.e. the close association of events in time and space. Contiguity has been used
to explain the association of a conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus in classical
conditioning and the association of a behavior and its consequences in operant conditioning.
Cognitive learning may take two forms:
1. Latent learning
2. Insight learning (gestalt learning or perceptual learning)
For half a century, most American learning theories held that learning could be explained by
specifying the behavioral “ABCs” – Antecedents (events preceding behavior), Behaviors,
and Consequences. In the 1940s, two social scientists proposed a modification they called
social learning theory. Most human learning, they argued, is acquired by observing other
people in social context, rather than through standard conditioning procedures. By 1960s
and 1970s, social learning theory was in full bloom, and a new element had been added:
the human capacity for higher level of cognitive processes.
Its proponents agreed with behaviorists that human beings, along with the rat and the
rabbit, are subject to the laws of operant and classical conditioning. But, they added that
human beings, unlike the rat and the rabbit, are full of attitudes, beliefs and expectations
that affect the way they acquire information, make decisions, reason, and solve problems.
These mental processes affect what individuals will do at any given moment and also, more
generally the personality traits they develop.
Latent Learning
‘Latent’ means hidden and thus latent learning is learning that occurs but is not evident in
behavior until later, when conditions for its appearance are favorable. It is said to occur
without reinforcement of particular responses and seems to involve changes in the way
information is processed. In a classic experiment, Tolman and Honzic (1930) placed three
groups of rats in mazes and observed their behavior each day for more than two weeks.
The rats in Group 1 always found food at the end of the maze. Group 2 never found food.
Group 3 found no food for ten days but then received food on the eleventh. The Group 1
rats quickly learned to head straight the end of the maze without going blind alleys,
whereas Group 2 rats did not learn to go to the end. But, the groups of three rats were
different. For ten days they appeared to follow no particular route. Then, on the eleventh
day they quickly learned to run to the end of the maze. By the next day, they were doing, as
well as group one, which had been rewarded from the beginning. Group three rats had
demonstrated latent learning, learning that is not immediately expressed. A great deal of
human learning also remains latent until circumstances allow or require it to be expressed.
Insight Learning
It is cognitive process whereby we reorganize our perception of a problem. It doesn’t
depend on conditioning of particular behaviors for its occurrence. Sometimes, for example,
people even wake from sleep with the solution to a problem that they had not been able to
solve during the day.
In a typical insight situation a problem is posed, a period follows during where no apparent
progress is made, and then the solution comes suddenly. What has been learned in insight
learning can also be applied easily to other similar situations.
Human beings who solve a problem insightfully usually experience a good feeling called an
‘aha’ experience.
 MEMORY AND FORGETTING
 4.1.1. Meaning and Processes of Memory
Memory is the retention of information/what is learned earlier over time. It is the way in
which we record the past for later use in the present. Memory is a blanket label for a large
number of processes that form the bridges between our past and our present. To learn
about the nature of memory, it is useful to separate the process from the structure.

Memory process is the mental activities we perform to put information into memory, to
keep it there, and to make use of it later. This involves three basic steps:
1. Encoding: Taken from computer science, the term encoding refers to the form (i.e.
the code) in which an item of information is to be placed in memory. It is the process by
which information is initially recorded in a form usable to memory. In encoding we
transform a sensory input into a form or a memory code that can be further processed.
2. Storage: To be remembered the encoded experience must leave some record in the
nervous system (the memory trace); it must be squirreled away and held in some more or
less enduring form for later use. This is what memory specialists mean when they speak of
placing information in storage. It is the location in memory system in which material is
saved. Storage is the persistence of information in memory.
3. Retrieval: is the point at which one tries to remember to dredge up a particular
memory trace from among all the others we have stored. In retrieval, material in memory
storage is located, brought into awareness and used.
Failure to remember can result from problems during any of the three phases of the
memory process. If, for example, you encode a new item of information only as a sound
pattern, there would be no memory trace of its meaning. If both the sound and the
meaning were encoded and held for the length of the retention interval, the item might
have been misfiled in memory. If so, the item might be impossible to retrieve even though it
is still stored in memory.

4.1.2.Stages/Structure of Memory
Memory structure is the nature of memory storage itself- how information is
represented in memory and how long it lasts and how it is organized. Although people
usually refer to
memory as a single faculty, the term memory actually covers a complex collection of
abilities and processes.
The cognitive perspective has dominated psychology’s view of memory for the past years
although in recent years it has become integrated with understanding of the neuro-
psychology of memory. Many cognitive psychologists relate the mind to an information
processor, along the lines of a digital computer that takes items of information in; processes
them in steps or stages, and then produces an output.
According to Atkinson and Shiffrin, memory has three structures:
1) Sensory Memory/Sensory Register: It is the entry way to memory. It is the first
information storage area. Sensory memory acts as a holding bin, retaining information until
we can select items for attention from the stream of stimuli bombarding our senses.
It gives us a brief time to decide whether information is extraneous or important. Sensory
memory includes a number of separate subsystems, as many as there are senses. It can
hold virtually all the information reaching our senses for a brief time.
For instance, visual images (Iconic memory) remain in the visual system for a maximum of
one second. Auditory images (Echoic memory) remain in the auditory system for a slightly
longer time, by most estimates up to two second or so. The information stored sensory in
memory is a fairly accurate representation of the environmental information but
unprocessed.
Most information briefly held in the sensory memory simply decays from the register.
However, some of the information that has got attention and recognition pass on short-
term memory for further processing.
 2) Short-term Memory: is part of our memory that holds the contents of our
attention. Unlike sensory memories, short-term memories are not brief replicas of the
environmental message. Instead, they consist of the by-products or end results of
perceptual analysis. STM is important in a variety of tasks such as thinking, reading,
speaking, and problem solving. There are various terms used to refer to this stage of
memory, including working memory, immediate memory, active memory, and primary
memory.
Short term memory is distinguished by four characteristics:
 It is active– information remains in STM only so long as the person is consciously
processing, examining, or manipulating it. People use STM as a “workspace” to process new
information and to call up relevant information from LTM.
 Rapid accessibility – Information in STM is readily available for use. In this respect,
the difference between STM and LTM is the difference between pulling a file from the top
of a desk versus searching for it in a file drawer, or between searching for information in an
open computer file versus file stored on the hard drive.
 Preserves the temporal sequence of information- STM usually helps us to maintain
the information in sequential manner for a temporary period of time. It keeps the
information fresh until it goes to further analysis and stored in LTM in meaningful way.
 Limited capacity- Years ago, George Miller (1956) estimated the capacity of STM to
be “the magic number seven plus or minus 2”. That is, on the average, people can hold
about seven pieces of information in STM at a time; with a normal range from five to nine
items. Some researchers have questioned whether Miller’s magical number is so magical
after all. Everyone agrees, however, that the number of items that short-term memory can
handle at any one time is small.
According to most models of memory, we overcome this problem, by grouping small groups
of information into larger units or chunks. Chunking is the grouping or “packing” of
information into higher order units that can be remembered as single units. Chunking
expands working memory by making large amounts of information more manageable. The
real capacity of short-term memory, therefore, is not a few bits of information but a few
chunks. A chunk may be a word, a phrase, a sentence, or even a visual image, and it
depends on previous experience.
STM memory holds information (sounds, visual images, words, and sentences and so on)
received from SM for up to about 30 seconds by most estimates. It is possible to prolong
 STM indefinitely by rehearsal- the conscious repetition of information. Material in STM is
easily displaced unless we do something to keep it there.
3. Long Term Memory
It is a memory system used for the relatively permanent storage of meaningful information.
The capacity of LTM seems to have no practical limits. The vast amount of information
stored in LTM enables us to learn, get around in the environment, and build a sense of
identity and personal history. LTM stores information for indefinite periods. It may last for
days, months, years, or even a lifetime.
The LTM is assumed to be composed of different sub systems:
1. Declarative/ explicit memory– the conscious recollection of information such as
specific facts or events that can be verbally communicated. It is further subdivided into
semantic and episodic memories.
2. Semantic memory- factual knowledge like the meaning of words, concepts and our
ability to do math. They are internal representations of the world, independent of any
particular context.
 Episodic memory- memories for events and situations from personal experience.
They are internal representations of personally experienced events.
 Non-declarative/ implicit memory– refers to a variety of phenomena of memory in
which behavior is affected by prior experience without that experience being consciously
recollected. One of the most important kinds of implicit memory is procedural memory. It is
the “how to” knowledge of procedures or skills: Knowing how to comb your hair, use a
pencil, or swim.
Serial Position Effect
The three-box model of memory is often invoked to explain interesting phenomenon called
the serial position effect. If you are shown a list of items and are then asked immediately to
recall them, your retention of any particular item will depend on its position in the list. That
is, recall will be best for items at the beginning of the list (the primacy effect) and at the
end of the list (the recency effect). When retention of all the items is plotted, the result will
be a U-shaped curve.
A serial position effect occurs when you are introduced to a lot of people at a party and
find you can recall the names of the first few people you met and the last, but almost no
one in between.According to the three-box model, the first few items on a list are
remembered well because short-term memory was relatively “empty” when they entered,
so these items did not have to compete with others to make it into long term memory. They
were thoroughly processed, so they remain memorable. The last few items are
remembered for a different reason: At the time of recall, they are still sitting in STM. The
items in the middle of the list, however, are not so well retained because by the time they
get into short-term memory, it is already crowded. As a result many of these items drop out
of short-term memory before they can be stored in long-term memory.

4.1.3.Factors Affecting Memory

Memory as stated already, is a process which includes learning, retention and remembering.
As such all the three processes are important for good memory.
Eleven Factors that Influence Memory Process in Humans are as follows:
a. Ability to retain: This depends upon good memory traces left in the brain by
past experiences.
b. Good health: A person with good health can retain the learnt material better than
a person with poor health.
c. Age of the learner: Youngsters can remember better than the aged.
d. Maturity: Very young children cannot retain and remember complex material.
e. Will to remember: Willingness to remember helps for better retention.
f. Intelligence: More intelligent person will have better memory than a dull person.
g. Interest: If a person has more interest, he will learn and retain better.
h. Over learning: Experiments have proved that over learning will lead to better memory.
i. Speed of learning: Quicker learning leads to better retention.
j. Meaningfulness of the material: Meaningful materials remain in our memory for longer
period than for nonsense material.
k. Sleep or rest: Sleep or rest immediately after learning strengthens connections in the
brain and helps for clear memory.
4.2.Forgetting
Brainstorming Questions

What is forgetting? How forgetting occur or what causes forgetting? Why do human beings
forget information? In what way and how do we forgot that information? Is forgetting bad or
good for us?

4.1.1. Meaning and Concepts of Forgetting

Psychologists call this phenomenon as motivated forgetting? Psychologists generally use
the term forgetting to refer to the apparent loss of information already encoded and stored
in the long-term memory. The first attempts to study forgetting were made by German
psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885/1913). Using himself as his only subject, he
memorized lists of three letter non-sense syllables- meaningless sets of two consonants
with a vowel in between, such as FIW and BOZ.
By measuring how easy it was to relearn a given list of words after varying periods of time
from initial learning had passed, he found that forgetting occurred systematically. The most
rapid forgetting occurs in the first hours, and particularly in the first hour. After nine hours,
the rate of forgetting slows and declines little, even after the passage of many days.
Ebbinghaus’s research had an important influence on subsequent research, and his basic
conclusions had been upheld. There is almost always a strong initial decline in memory,
followed by a more gradual drop over time. Furthermore, relearning of previously mastered
material is almost always faster than starting from a scratch, whether the material is
academic information or a motor skill such as serving a tennis ball.
 4.2.2.Theories of forgetting
General Psychology and Life Skill CHAPTER FOUR 4.2.2.Theories of forgetting

Psychologists have proposed five mechanisms to account for forgetting: decay, replacement
of old memories by new ones, interference, motivated forgetting, and cue dependent
forgetting.
The decay theory holds that memory traces or engram fade with time if they are not
“accessed” now and then. This explanation assumes that when new material is learned a
memory trace or engram- an actual physical change in the brain- occurs.
In decay, the trace simply fades away with nothing left behind, because of the passage of
time. We have already seen that decay occurs in sensory memory and that it occurs in short
term memory as well, unless we rehearse the material. However, the mere passage of time
does not account so well for forgetting in long-term memory. People commonly forget
things that happened only yesterday while remembering events from many years ago.

Interference theory holds that forgetting occurs because similar items of information
interfere with one another in either storage or retrieval. The information may get into
memory, but it becomes confused with other information.
There are two kinds of interference that influence forgetting: proactive and retroactive.
In Proactive Interference, information learned earlier interferes with recall of newer
material. If new information interferes with the ability to remember old information the
interference is called Retroactive Interference.

This theory holds that new information entering memory can wipe out old information, just
as recording on an audio or videotape will obliterate/wipe out the original material. This
theory is mostly associated with the STM, where the capacity for information is limited to
seven plus or minus chunks. It cannot be associated with the LTM because of its virtually
unlimited capacity.

Sigmund Freud maintained that people forget because they block from consciousness those
memories that are too threatening or painful to live with, and he called this self-protective
 process Repression. Today many psychologists prefer to use a more general
term, motivated forgetting.

Often when we need to remember, we rely on retrieval cues, items of information that can
help us find the specific information we’re looking for. When we lack retrieval cues, we
may feel as if we have lost the call number for an entry in the mind’s library. In long-term
memory, this type of memory failure may be the most common type of all. Cues that were
present when you learned a new fact or had an experience are apt to be especially useful
later as retrieval aids.

4.2.2.Theories of forgetting
Psychologists have proposed five mechanisms to account for forgetting: decay, replacement
of old memories by new ones, interference, motivated forgetting, and cue dependent
forgetting.

The decay theory holds that memory traces or engram fade with time if they are not
“accessed” now and then. This explanation assumes that when new material is learned a
memory trace or engram- an actual physical change in the brain- occurs.
In decay, the trace simply fades away with nothing left behind, because of the passage of
time. We have already seen that decay occurs in sensory memory and that it occurs in short
term memory as well, unless we rehearse the material. However, the mere passage of time
does not account so well for forgetting in long-term memory. People commonly forget
things that happened only yesterday while remembering events from many years ago.

Interference theory holds that forgetting occurs because similar items of information
interfere with one another in either storage or retrieval. The information may get into
memory, but it becomes confused with other information.
There are two kinds of interference that influence forgetting: proactive and retroactive.
In Proactive Interference, information learned earlier interferes with recall of newer
material. If new information interferes with the ability to remember old information the
interference is called Retroactive Interference.

 This theory holds that new information entering memory can wipe out old information, just
as recording on an audio or videotape will obliterate/wipe out the original material. This
theory is mostly associated with the STM, where the capacity for information is limited to
seven plus or minus chunks. It cannot be associated with the LTM because of its virtually
unlimited capacity.

Sigmund Freud maintained that people forget because they block from consciousness those
memories that are too threatening or painful to live with, and he called this self-protective
process Repression. Today many psychologists prefer to use a more general
term, motivated forgetting.

Often when we need to remember, we rely on retrieval cues, items of information that can
help us find the specific information we’re looking for. When we lack retrieval cues, we
may feel as if we have lost the call number for an entry in the mind’s library. In long-term
memory, this type of memory failure may be the most common type of all. Cues that were
present when you learned a new fact or had an experience are apt to be especially useful
later as retrieval aids.

4.3.Improving Memory
 Pay Attention: It seems obvious, but often we fail to remember because we never
encoded the information in the first place. When you do have something to remember, you
will do better if you encode it.
 Encode information in more than one way: The more elaborate the encoding of
information, the more memorable it will be
 Add meaning: The more meaningful the material, the more likely it is to link up with
information already in long-term memory.
 Take your time: If possible, minimize interference by using study breaks for rest or
recreation. Sleep is the ultimate way to reduce interference.
 Over learn: Studying information even after you think you already know it- is one of
the best ways to ensure that you’ll remember it.
 Monitor your learning: By testing yourself frequently, rehearsing thoroughly, and
reviewing periodically, you will have a better idea of how you are doing