The Psychology Of Learning

 The Psychology of Learning

M. Bakri Musa

Excerpt #18 from my Qur’an, Hadith, And Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking

Aug 3, 2025

 

Critical thinking, like any skill, is learned. As such it can and should be taught; it does not come naturally. Never underestimate the power of critical thinking. As the Canadian psychologist Steve Joorden observed, it is often the oddball opinions of those who have exercised their critical thinking that have shaken societies out of their comfort zones, forcing them to re-examine their assumptions.

 

         Consider the lofty inspiring words of the US Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

 

         It was the critical reading of that assertion which emboldened those few brave patriots to fight for the abolition of slavery. They did it at a time ironically when such an action was deemed seditious by those who accepted those hallowed words as unchallenged universal wisdom.

 

         Then consider the soaring phrase, “We the people . . .” in the preamble to the US Constitution. It took centuries for Americans to acknowledge that the “We” means more than just white plantation slave owners.

 

         As adults our worldview is shaped by our earlier learning, experiences, and acculturations. When solving a problem or facing a new challenge, we bring forth all those to bear on it. Psychologists call that confirmation bias, the tendency to fit new information into our existing beliefs or framework. It is the rare individual who would be aware much less question those assumptions. We assume them to be the unchallenged universal truths.

 

         One way a child (or even adult) learns is through observations and imitating. A child learns to speak as much by hearing the sounds as well as seeing its mother’s lips move. This process is facilitated by “mirror neurons.” They are operative and demonstrable as when music lovers mime playing their phantom guitars during a rock festival.

 

         When a listener hears a musician playing the guitar, the mirror neurons in the comparable part of the listener’s brain would also be stimulated. Outbreaks of mass hysteria among young Malay girls are also an expression of these mirror neurons being activated.

 

         An unexpected observation during the Covid-19 pandemic is delayed speech development in infants. With their mothers’ lips hidden behind face masks, those babies did not see the mother’s lip movements, and hence no stimulation of the babies’ corresponding mirror neurons. Experiments with children who had been primed with seeing violent videos compared to those shown non-violent ones revealed that when those in the former group were later exposed to toys, they would pick the ones that trigger violence, like guns and punching bags. That was the observation of the social psychologist Albert Bandura, and his social cognition theory of learning.

 

         Children learn by emulating what is going on around them. Before the Internet and videos, the examples were from real life. As such parents were engaged with their children, physically, emotionally, and in many other ways. Today, for those who substitute gadgets like televisions, computers, and cell phones to babysit their children, those children would imitate the images on the screen. Likewise with those who use foreign maids, nannies, and other domestic help.

 

         We learn from those we consider role models. The responses we would get from those around us, either positive or negative, reinforce that learning. Children learn through a system of rewards and punishments, the psychologists’ classical conditioning. By rewarding through praises and tangible means a particular action or behavior, we encourage the child to continue performing it. The animal trainer’s trick.

 

         Ivan Pavlov did the earliest experiments on this type of learning, hence his stimulus-response (S-R) theory of learning, the stimulus being the food and anything associated with it, and the response – the dog’s salivation.

 

         Harvard’s B F Skinner refined that observation. By associating any behavior you want from an animal with something that it likes (typically food), you would encourage the animal to develop that particular response. Every time the seal flaps its flippers, you reward it with a treat. Soon the animal would react even if you were to mimic only part of the movement, as with moving only your hand. The remarkable observation there is that this stimulus-response (S-R) behavior is strongest when you do not consistently reward it. That is counterintuitive.

 

         Another model – experiential learning – is relevant to adults. Much of adult learning follows this model. Business schools have their case studies based on this model, the most effective manner of learning for adults. Take a real-life case, examine the various issues involved, invoke the various applicable theories, and then leave ample time for discussions.

 

         This lack of discussions is the one glaring deficiency with religious and other learning in Malaysia. The speakers are more interested in displaying their erudition than enlightening or imparting important principles upon their listeners. The intellectual traffic is all unidirectional.

         

         The attention span of an adult is about 20-30 minutes, a tad longer than that of children. Beyond that and the long passive one-way traffic make lectures become intolerable. Listeners would tune you out; hence the need for audience participation as in discussions a la Socratic dialogues.

 

Nest:  Excerpt #19:  The Biology of Learning