How psychology can help you shape how people learn

Whether our goal is to inspire others to change behaviours, communicate information, share knowledge or tell a story, as speakers, we all share a common underlying goal when we address an audience. Our content differs, but our goal ultimately remains the same: create as much of a lasting change as possible in the lives of those who listen to us. Deep down, what we strive for is teaching them something that matters enough to us that we’re willing to step on a stage to communicate it.

But if we want to be as effective as we can be as speakers, shouldn’t we make sure that deep down, we understand how it is that people actually learn? Let’s consider that for just a moment. What does the act of “learning” even mean?

While there are many ways to define learning, at its very core, the learning process is understood as a relatively permanent change in behaviour, resulting from experience. The process is not always the same, but it generally goes like this: you experience one thing, you learn another thing from it. You experience another thing, you learn yet another thing from it. Each piece builds on top of the previous one. Simple, right?

Well, as it turns out, there’s a bit more to it than that. Behavioural psychologists are not only interested in how learning occurs in the human brain, but they also pay a lot of attention to how the environment around us might affect how we learn. Most psychologists today agree that we learn through three different types of patterns.

As speakers, when it comes to the science of learning, we can learn a ton from psychologists as well. By becoming familiar with what these learning patterns are, we can better influence how our audience members learn what it is that we share.

Classical conditioning

One of the most fundamental ways in which people learn is through the formation of associations. In psychology speak, this is called “classical conditioning”, and we owe the theory to Ivan Pavlov. If the name sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because you’ve heard about his dogs at some point.

To make a long story short, Pavlov had noticed that his dogs would salivate at the mere sight of food. By always having someone with a white lab coat feed the dogs, he noticed the dogs quickly began salivating as soon as they saw the white lab coats themselves. The trigger was no longer the food, but rather the white lab coats. Over time, Pavlov introduced a ringing bell prior to the men in the white lab coats entering the room, and the dogs began salivating at the tone of the bell itself. One thing leading to another, the trigger went from the food, to the white lab coats, to the bell.

Pavlov identified this type of learning as being conditioned. In a nutshell, the theory is based on the idea that we learn through associations. Initially, there’s a neutral stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response, such as salivating when you see food. When you pair that response with another neutral stimulus (say, a white coat lab), an association is formed, and the previously neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus that triggers a conditioned response. You repeat this process enough times, and dogs begin salivating as soon as they hear a bell tone.

This explains why the dogs would salivate at the sight of white lab coats, or the sound of a bell, while neither have anything to do with the act of feeding. It also explains why kids are naturally drawn to clowns, but after having read a few books and watched a few movies, a lot of adults become a bit uneasy around them. You can probably thank Stephen King for that one.

There’s a lot we can leverage from Pavlov’s theory when it comes to influencing our audience members’ behaviours. Understanding the power of associations can have a huge impact on the impression we leave on our audience, and whether what we share – and how – will have any kind of lasting impact on them.

Operant conditioning

But the formation of associations is not the only way people learn. A few years after Pavlov, another behavioural psychologist by the name of B.F. Skinner came up with a complementary theory called “operant conditioning”. Skinner argued that while classical conditioning could explain some types of learning, it did not account for everything. Skinner believed the consequences of one’s actions also played a critical role in determining what we learn and how we learn it. More specifically, he suggested that reinforcements and punishments were also responsible for what people learned and how they learned it.

The idea was rather simple. The consequences that immediately follow your actions can either increase or decrease the likelihood of yours actions happening again in the future. If you spend an entire day at the beach and you catch a nasty sunburn because you neglected to put on sunscreen lotion, you are less likely to forget about putting some on the next day. On the other hand, if you begin exercising regularly and you notice that you’re feeling much better as a result, you are much more likely to keep exercising and start eating healthier in the future.

If you’ve ever owned a puppy, you most likely have applied Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning without even realizing it. When your baby dog does something good, you offer him a tasty treat or a gentle pat on the head. If he does something bad, you scold him and don’t offer any affection. Both actions have their consequences, and the dog understands which actions to repeat or avoid in the future.

There’s a lot we can control in the responses we generate from our audience by applying Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning. By demonstrating the pros and cons of particular behaviours and the good or bad consequences these behaviours can have, we can influence what our audience learns from their experience with us. It’s a wonderful way to create a lasting impact on them as well.

With that said, not everybody learns through conditioning, reinforcement or punishment! You can probably think of many situations in your own life, where you learned something simply by observing another person go through a positive or negative experience, as opposed to experiencing it yourself. This is where our third and final learning pattern comes in.

Observational learning

Back in college, I remember going to this bar. The place was famous for its grunge music, its post-gothic decor, and of course, the interesting people who went there. But it was also famous for the size and build of its bouncers. A friend of mine, who liked to pick fights every now and then, had decided that he was going to try one of the bigger guys that night. As I watched my friend fly through the door and out on the sidewalk, I learned that it was a bad idea to piss off a busy bouncer. I didn’t need any conditioning, reinforcement or punishment to understand the lesson. All I needed was to look at my friend’s bloodied nose, and it all became very clear.

As it turns out, people don’t always need to experience something for themselves to learn. They can also learn by observing the actions and consequences of another person. This is where Albert Bandura, another behavioural psychologist, comes in. Bandura coined the term “observational learning” to identify this process, in which people learn from the actions of others.

To prove his theory, Bandura conducted a series of famous experiments, where he gathered dozens of children and had them watch videos of adults in a room, interacting with a large, inflatable doll. Some of the videos would show the adults simply ignoring the doll or being nice to it. Other videos showed the same adults engaged in much more aggressive behaviour, where they would push, punch, kick or yell at it. When kids were later allowed to go and play with the doll themselves, those who had witnessed adults abusing the doll were much more likely to repeat the same behaviour.

Again, if you’ve ever raised children, you already know a lot about Bandura’s theory. You most likely remember that one less-than-shiny moment, where you lost your nerves and said things you wish you hadn’t. And then witnessed in horror as your kids said similar things to one another, or perhaps, even more drearily, back at you in front of other people. It’s all right. We’ve all been there. You probably also remember moments where the same kids made you, oh so proud, just because they reacted in a positive way because of how you raised them. I like to think the latter cancels out the former.

Whenever we tell stories about successes and failures, use videos to illustrate a point we’re trying to make or have an audience member experience something particular on stage so everyone else can learn from it, there’s a little bit of Bandura’s theory at play. There’s incredible value in understanding how the power of observation can shape what people learn. By using that power, we can control how much of an impact we have on our audience.