Psychology tells us that we learn from our experiences:
- Learning from observation- Do you remember someone showing you how to write your name, ride a bicycle, or perform tasks on a new job? They showed you how and you duplicated it until you learned it. That is learning from observation.
- Learning from association– If you throw a brick at a window, what do you expect to happen? The window breaks of course. That is learning from
association.
- There are associations between behavior and consequences. We all learn at an early age that if we do throw a brick through a window, the consequences or result of that action could result in punishment of some sort. A negative punishment should teach us to not repeat that action.
- What about a positive behavior? It is no different than what we teach our children. If we give them chores to do and they do them, they may get an allowance or earn a toy that they want, a reward. Rewarding positive actions or behavior encourages more of the same. As adults, we really operate the same.
- FAQS: What about factors that can affect our ability to learn?
- How about sleep deprivation? We all know how it feels when we did not get a good nights rest. Feeling tired, irritable, anxious, and even depressed after a night of little or no sleep is well known to many. Not enough sleep makes it very hard to focus and be productive. So sleep ( or lack of) definitely affects our learning process.