Lesson 5: Learning – How We Change
Transcript
Welcome back to The Introduction to Psychology Series. I’m RJ Starr.
Today, we’re talking about learning. Not classroom learning. Not degrees or diplomas. I mean learning in the most basic psychological sense—how people change their behavior based on experience.
Because the truth is, you’re always learning. Whether you realize it or not. Every time you flinch when you hear a certain tone, or reach for a snack when you’re anxious, or stop trusting someone after they let you down—that’s learning. Your nervous system is paying attention. It’s tracking patterns. It’s updating its predictions. That’s what learning really is.
So in this lesson, we’re going to look at the psychology of learning: how we form habits, how we respond to rewards and consequences, how we associate one thing with another, and how those patterns can shape entire lives. We’ll talk about classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. And we’ll keep it grounded in the stuff that actually shows up in your real world.
Let’s start with something called classical conditioning.
If you’ve ever heard of Pavlov’s dogs, this is where that comes from. In the early 1900s, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was studying digestion. He noticed something strange. The dogs in his lab would start salivating—not just when food arrived—but when they heard the footsteps of the person bringing the food. That sound had become a signal. A cue.
So Pavlov ran a simple but powerful experiment. He rang a bell just before feeding the dogs. After repeating this a few times, he rang the bell but didn’t bring food. The dogs still salivated. Why? Because they had learned to associate the bell with the arrival of food. The sound had become linked to the experience.
This is classical conditioning. It happens when two things become connected in your mind—usually through repetition. One stimulus predicts another, and your body responds accordingly.
You’ve experienced this too. If you’ve ever had a bad experience in a certain place—a hospital, a school, a room where something traumatic happened—just being in that place again might make your body react. Your brain has learned: this place means danger. Or this smell means comfort. Or this voice tone means I need to be on guard.
None of that is conscious. It’s conditioning. And it’s part of why trauma responses are so powerful. The trigger might be neutral on its own—but it’s linked to something meaningful. And once the association is formed, your body reacts even before your brain catches up.
Classical conditioning explains a lot about emotional learning. Phobias, for example, often develop this way. If a child is bitten by a dog once, they may become terrified of all dogs. Not because they’ve thought it through, but because their nervous system learned the association. Dog equals pain. Dog equals fear.
But this kind of learning isn’t just about fear. It can also create comfort. Think about music. Certain songs become emotionally loaded. They remind you of a person, a season of life, a breakup, a breakthrough. Your emotional reaction isn’t just about the notes. It’s about what they’ve been paired with in your past.
Now let’s move to another form of learning: operant conditioning.
This concept was developed by B.F. Skinner, who we mentioned earlier. While classical conditioning is about associations between stimuli, operant conditioning is about consequences. It’s the idea that behavior is shaped by what happens after it.
If a behavior is followed by a reward, it’s more likely to be repeated. If it’s followed by a punishment, it’s less likely. That’s the basic principle.
Skinner built boxes—now called Skinner boxes—where animals like rats or pigeons could press a lever to receive food. Over time, the animals learned which actions produced a reward, and they changed their behavior accordingly.
This is how habits form in humans, too. When a child gets praised for sharing, they’re more likely to share again. When an employee gets recognized for showing initiative, they’re more likely to do it in the future. When you check your phone and see a message from someone you like, that tiny dopamine hit reinforces the checking behavior. Your brain says, do it again.
But not all reinforcement is positive. Sometimes it’s about removing something unpleasant. This is called negative reinforcement. For example, if you take an aspirin and your headache goes away, you’re more likely to take aspirin the next time. The relief reinforces the behavior. Or if you avoid a difficult conversation and feel temporary relief, that avoidance gets reinforced—even if it causes long-term problems.
Punishment also shapes behavior, but it’s less predictable. If a behavior is followed by something unpleasant—like a fine, a scolding, or social disapproval—that behavior might decrease. But punishment doesn’t always teach what to do. It just teaches what not to do. And if it’s too harsh or inconsistent, it can backfire.
Psychologists have found that reinforcement tends to be more effective than punishment for long-term behavior change. People respond better to encouragement, consistency, and clear consequences than to shame or fear.
And here’s something subtle but important: behavior is also shaped by the schedule of reinforcement. If a reward comes every single time, the behavior is easy to learn—but also easy to extinguish if the reward stops. But if the reward is unpredictable—like in gambling or social media—you get a powerful effect. The uncertainty keeps you engaged. You don’t know when the payoff is coming, so you keep checking, keep playing, keep scrolling. This is called variable reinforcement, and it’s a big reason why certain behaviors become addictive.
Now there’s one more kind of learning we need to talk about: observational learning.
Sometimes called modeling or social learning, this happens when we learn by watching others. The most famous research in this area comes from psychologist Albert Bandura. In the 1960s, he ran a study known as the Bobo Doll experiment. Children watched an adult act aggressively toward an inflatable clown doll—hitting it, yelling at it. Then the children were put in a room with the same doll. Many of them imitated the aggressive behavior, even though no one had told them to. They had learned by watching.
This might seem obvious now. Of course kids mimic adults. But at the time, it challenged the idea that learning only happens through direct reinforcement. Bandura showed that people learn through observation, especially when the model is someone they admire or identify with. And not just kids. Adults do it too.
This explains why culture matters. Why role models matter. Why media influences behavior. If we see people being rewarded for aggression, cruelty, or manipulation, we internalize that. Even if we don’t act on it consciously, it becomes part of our behavioral library—one more pattern available to us under stress.
But the same is true for kindness. For boundaries. For courage. When we see people set limits respectfully, take responsibility for their mistakes, show empathy under pressure—we learn that those are options too. And when we model those behaviors for others, we become part of their learning environment.
This kind of learning is powerful because it’s always happening. Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, a friend, or a coworker, people are learning from you. Not just what you say, but how you act. How you handle frustration. How you apologize. How you treat people who can’t offer you anything in return. Those behaviors are messages. And they stick.
So let’s take a step back.
What do classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning all have in common? They help explain how behavior changes. How patterns form. How habits are built. And once we understand that, we can start to unlearn what no longer serves us.
Because learning isn’t always positive. Sometimes we learn fear. We learn helplessness. We learn that it’s safer not to ask for help. We learn that love means controlling or pleasing. We learn that failure means shame. These are lessons too. But they can be updated.
The beauty of the human mind is that it’s adaptable. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change its structure and function based on experience. And it’s real. New behaviors can be learned. New pathways can be formed. But it takes awareness, repetition, and sometimes help.
If you want to change a habit, start by understanding what’s reinforcing it. What’s the reward? What’s the cue? What are you associating it with? And what might need to change in your environment, not just in your mindset?
Because learning isn’t just internal. It’s relational. It’s contextual. We learn in families. In workplaces. In cultures. In systems. And change often requires more than willpower. It requires a new environment. A new model. A new rhythm.
So whether you’re trying to break a pattern, build a new one, or help someone else grow, it starts with understanding how learning works. How we’re conditioned. How we’re reinforced. And how we absorb the behaviors of those around us.
In the next lesson, we’ll explore memory, thinking, and decision-making. Why we remember some things and forget others. Why eyewitness testimony is so unreliable. How our brains fill in the blanks—and what it means to live in a mind that’s always predicting, not just recording.
Thanks for listening. I’ll see you in Lesson Six.