--Original published at Jessica K's College Blog
Learning is everything people do to get on with their lives in the world, that learning helps them grow into the personalities and mindsets they have now. And no matter what, there is always something new for people young and old to know and recognize that goes outside of the educational system.
However, people can learn how to approach new information, mostly on a combination of senses (reaction to a stimulus or classical conditioning) or correlations of one item relating to another (operant conditioning).
The difference between these conditions all relates to how a person’s experience is defined by the initial interaction. For example, if a child eats a vegetable for the first time, they would most likely be disgusted by it based on taste, sight, and smell, thus avoiding anything related to vegetables.
On the contrary, with operant conditioning relates to when a child observing their parent for different stimuli, like mannerisms, daily habits, and language. With the information in hand, a child will then learn how to interact with others if it relates to a reward.
The points in learning mostly correlates to how the end result will either benefit or hinder the person when faced with a new situation, the same being said for animals as well.
For those studies made by Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, and many other psychologists of the time, people can greatly rely on the understanding of how they react to new stimuli, and how they have adapted and grown to adjust to such situations.