NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Psychology Chapter 5: Learning (NCERT 2026–27)
These Class 11 Psychology Chapter 5 solutions cover Learning from the NCERT Psychology textbook for the 2026–27 session. The chapter explains the nature of learning as any relatively permanent change in behaviour produced by experience, and describes its major forms — classical conditioning (Pavlov), operant/instrumental conditioning (Skinner), observational learning (Bandura), cognitive learning (insight and latent), verbal learning and skill learning — along with key processes like reinforcement, extinction, generalisation and discrimination, the determinants of learning, and learning disabilities. Below you get step-by-step answers to all Review Questions, clear notes on key terms, extra practice, MCQs, Assertion–Reason and FAQs.
Chapter 5, Learning, defines learning as “any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by experience or practice.” It is an inferred process that differs from performance (the observed behaviour), and it must be distinguished from temporary changes due to fatigue, habituation or drugs. The chapter presents the major paradigms of learning: classical conditioning, where a neutral stimulus comes to signal an unconditioned stimulus (Pavlov’s dogs); operant/instrumental conditioning, where behaviour is strengthened or weakened by its consequences (Skinner’s box); observational learning, where we acquire behaviour by watching models (Bandura’s Bobo-doll study); cognitive learning through insight (Kohler) and latent learning (Tolman); verbal learning of words and lists; and skill learning that passes through cognitive, associative and autonomous phases. It also explains key learning processes — reinforcement, extinction, generalisation, discrimination and spontaneous recovery — the determinants of each kind of learning, the general factors that facilitate learning (motivation and preparedness), and the nature, symptoms and remedies of learning disabilities.
Key Terms & Concepts
Learning: any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by experience or practice; it is inferred from performance and differs from temporary changes due to fatigue, habituation or drugs.
Classical conditioning: S–S learning (first studied by Pavlov) in which a neutral stimulus (CS) repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US) comes to elicit a conditioned response (CR). Terms: US → UR (reflex), CS + US → UR (during), CS → CR (after).
Operant/Instrumental conditioning: learning (first studied by Skinner) in which voluntary responses (operants) are strengthened, maintained or changed by their consequences (reinforcers).
Reinforcer / Reinforcement: any stimulus or event that increases the probability of the response preceding it. Positive reinforcers add a pleasant consequence; negative reinforcers increase a response that removes or avoids an unpleasant stimulus. Reinforcers may be primary (biologically important, e.g., food) or secondary (acquired value, e.g., money, praise).
Punishment vs negative reinforcement: punishment suppresses a response; negative reinforcement increases an avoidance/escape response. They are not the same thing.
Schedules of reinforcement:continuous (reinforced every time) gives quick acquisition but quick extinction; partial/intermittent reinforcement produces greater resistance to extinction (partial reinforcement effect).
Observational learning (modeling / social learning): learning by watching a model; the observer acquires knowledge, but performance depends on whether the model’s behaviour was rewarded or punished (Bandura).
Cognitive learning: a change in what the learner knows; includes insight learning (Kohler — sudden solution) and latent learning (Tolman — learning not shown until reinforced; involves a cognitive map).
Verbal learning methods: paired-associates learning, serial learning (serial anticipation method) and free recall (which reveals category clustering and subjective organisation).
Skill learning: learning a chain of perceptual-motor responses through practice; passes through Fitts’ cognitive, associative and autonomous phases towards automaticity.
Key processes:extinction (loss of a learned response when reinforcement is removed), generalisation (responding to similar stimuli), discrimination (responding differently to different stimuli) and spontaneous recovery (reappearance of an extinguished response after a rest interval).
Learning disabilities: a heterogeneous group of disorders (e.g., dyslexia) causing difficulty in acquiring reading, writing, speaking, reasoning or maths despite average to superior intelligence; remediable through remedial teaching.
“Review Questions” — Full Solutions
All questions below are reproduced verbatim from the NCERT textbook’s end-of-chapter Review Questions section. Answers are original, written in exam-ready style.
1. What is learning? What are its distinguishing features?
ANSWERLearning may be defined as “any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by experience or practice.” It is the key process by which a person acquires diverse responses — from recognising people and using a spoon to driving and interacting with others.Distinguishing features:(i) Learning always involves experience. We experience events occurring in a certain sequence, and repeated (or sometimes a single striking) experience leads to learning — for example, a child who gets burnt by a matchstick learns to be careful.(ii) The changes are relatively permanent. They must be distinguished from temporary changes caused by fatigue, habituation or drugs, which disappear once the cause wears off and are therefore not learning.(iii) Learning is an inferred process and differs from performance. Learning itself cannot be observed directly; it is inferred from performance (observed behaviour). For instance, a teacher infers that you have learned a poem when you are able to recite it.
2. How does classical conditioning demonstrate learning by association?
ANSWERClassical conditioning, first investigated by Ivan P. Pavlov, shows that an organism learns to associate two stimuli. In his experiment, a hungry dog was given food (an Unconditioned Stimulus, US) which naturally produced salivation (an Unconditioned Response, UR). The sound of a bell (a neutral stimulus) was repeatedly sounded just before the food was presented.After a number of such pairings, the bell alone made the dog salivate, even when no food followed. The bell had become a Conditioned Stimulus (CS) and the salivation to it a Conditioned Response (CR).This is S–S learning: one stimulus (the bell) becomes a signal for another (food). The dog learned because the two stimuli were repeatedly associated in time. The stages can be summarised as:
Stage
Stimulus
Response
Before
Food (US) Sound of bell
Salivation (UR) Alertness (no specific response)
During
Sound of bell (CS) + Food (US)
Salivation (UR)
After
Sound of bell (CS)
Salivation (CR)
Thus learning by association occurs because the conditioned stimulus comes to signal the likely occurrence of the unconditioned stimulus.
3. Define operant conditioning. Discuss the factors that influence the course of operant conditioning.
ANSWEROperant (instrumental) conditioning, first investigated by B.F. Skinner, is a form of learning in which voluntary behaviour (an operant) is learned, maintained or changed through its consequences. In the Skinner box a hungry rat accidentally presses a lever and receives a food pellet; with repeated trials the rat presses the lever immediately. The response is ‘instrumental’ in obtaining the reward.Factors that influence the course of operant conditioning:(i) Type of reinforcement: reinforcement may be positive (pleasant consequences such as food, praise, money) or negative (removal of an unpleasant stimulus, leading to avoidance and escape learning). Both strengthen responses; negative reinforcement is not punishment.(ii) Number, amount and quality of reinforcement: conditioning is usually accelerated as the number of reinforced trials, the amount of reinforcer, and its quality (e.g., raisins rather than chickpeas) increase.(iii) Schedules of reinforcement: in continuous reinforcement every correct response is rewarded (quick learning but quick extinction); in partial/intermittent reinforcement only some responses are rewarded, producing high response rates and greater resistance to extinction.(iv) Delay of reinforcement: the longer the delay between response and reinforcement, the poorer the performance; immediate (even smaller) rewards are more effective than larger delayed ones.(v) Nature of the response to be conditioned also affects how readily learning occurs.
4. A good role model is very important for a growing up child. Discuss the kind of learning that supports it.
ANSWERThe kind of learning that supports the importance of a good role model is observational learning (also called imitation, modeling or social learning), investigated in detail by Bandura. Here, individuals who do not know how to behave observe others and emulate their behaviour.In Bandura’s well-known Bobo-doll experiment, children watched a film of a model behaving aggressively towards a doll. One group saw the model rewarded, one saw the model punished, and one saw neither. When later allowed to play, children who had seen the model rewarded were the most aggressive, while those who had seen the model punished were the least aggressive. Thus observers acquire knowledge by watching, but their performance depends on whether the model’s behaviour was rewarded or punished.This explains why a good role model matters: children learn most social behaviours — dress, conduct, courtesy, politeness, diligence (or indolence and aggression) — by observing and imitating adults at home and in society. When admirable behaviour in role models is seen to bring rewards, children are far more likely to develop pro-social personality characteristics.
5. Explain the procedures for studying verbal learning.
ANSWERVerbal learning is the learning of words and verbal material (nonsense syllables, familiar and unfamiliar words, sentences) and is limited to human beings. Psychologists use three main methods to study it:(i) Paired-associates learning: similar to S–S and S–R learning. A list of paired words is prepared; the first member is the stimulus and the second the response (often a nonsense syllable paired with an English noun, or words of two languages). The learner first sees the pairs together, then is shown each stimulus and tries to give the response; on failure the response word is shown. Trials continue until all responses are given without error. The number of trials to reach this criterion measures learning.(ii) Serial learning: studies how lists of items are learned in order. The participant is shown the whole list and must reproduce the items in the same serial order. In the serial anticipation method, the first item is shown and the participant must produce the next; each item then becomes the cue for the following one, until all items are correctly anticipated in order.(iii) Free recall: participants read aloud a list of words (more than ten) presented at a fixed rate, and immediately afterwards recall them in any order. This method studies how words are organised for storage in memory; it shows that items at the beginning and end of a list are recalled more easily than those in the middle, and reveals category clustering and subjective organisation.
6. What is a skill? What are the stages through which skill learning develops?
ANSWERA skill is the ability to perform some complex task smoothly and efficiently (for example, car driving, piloting, shorthand, reading and writing). A skill consists of a chain of perceptual-motor responses, or a sequence of S–R associations, and is learned through practice and exercise.According to Fitts, skill learning passes through three qualitatively different stages:(i) Cognitive phase: the learner has to understand and memorise the instructions and grasp how the task is to be performed. Every external cue, instructional demand and response outcome must be kept alive in consciousness.(ii) Associative phase: different sensory inputs are linked with appropriate responses. With practice, errors decrease, performance improves and the time taken is reduced, though the learner must still concentrate and attend to all inputs.(iii) Autonomous phase: the attentional demands of the associative phase decrease and interference from external factors reduces. Performance attains automaticity with minimal conscious effort.Between phases, when performance temporarily stops improving, there is a performance plateau. Since practice is the only means of skill learning, it is rightly said that ‘practice makes a man perfect’.
7. How can you distinguish between generalisation and discrimination?
ANSWERGeneralisation is the tendency to respond similarly to similar stimuli. After an organism is conditioned to give a CR to a particular CS (say, the sound of a bell), a new but similar stimulus (the ring of a telephone) also elicits the same response. A child conditioned to fear a man with a long moustache and black clothes also shows fear of another man in black clothes with a beard. Generalisation is due to similarity.Discrimination is the complementary process of responding differently to different stimuli. If the same child shows no fear of a clean-shaven stranger in grey clothes, the child is discriminating. Discrimination is a response due to difference.Key difference: generalisation arises from similarity and means a failure of discrimination, whereas discrimination arises from difference and depends on the organism’s discrimination capacity or discrimination learning. In short, generalisation widens a learned response to like stimuli, while discrimination narrows it to the correct one.
8. Why is motivation a prerequisite for learning?
ANSWERMotivation is a mental and physiological state that arouses an organism to act for fulfilling a current need; it energises the organism to act vigorously towards a goal, and the activity persists until the need is satisfied.Motivation is a prerequisite for learning because learning usually happens in the course of trying to satisfy a need. A child forages in the kitchen because s/he needs sweets, and in doing so learns the location of the jar; a hungry rat forages in the box and thereby learns to press the lever for food. Without the underlying need, the behaviour that leads to learning would not occur.The greater the motivation, the more effort one puts into learning — the more motivated a student is, the harder s/he works. Motivation may be intrinsic (learning because one enjoys it) or extrinsic (learning as a means to another goal, such as passing an examination with good grades). Either way, motivation drives the activity through which learning takes place.
9. What does the notion of preparedness for learning mean?
ANSWERPreparedness for learning means that the kinds of associations (S–S or S–R) an organism can easily acquire depend on the associative mechanisms it is genetically endowed with or prepared for. Different species differ in sensory capacities and response abilities, so they have biological constraints on what they can learn.A particular association may be easy for apes or human beings but extremely difficult or even impossible for cats and rats. In other words, an organism can readily learn only those associations for which it is genetically prepared.Preparedness is best understood as a continuum: at one end lie tasks that members of a species are well prepared to learn easily; at the other end lie tasks they are not prepared for at all and cannot learn; and in the middle lie tasks for which they are neither prepared nor unprepared, which can be learned only with great difficulty and persistence.
10. Explain the different forms of cognitive learning?
ANSWERCognitive learning emphasises the cognitive processes that underlie learning; here there is a change in what the learner knows rather than what s/he does. It shows up in two main forms:(i) Insight learning: demonstrated by Kohler with chimpanzees. Food was placed out of reach with tools (poles, boxes) in the enclosure. The chimpanzees did not solve the problem by trial and error and reinforcement; instead, after roaming about, the solution came in a sudden flash of insight — they would stack a box or use a pole to reach a banana. What is learned is a cognitive relationship between means and end, and once the solution appears it can be repeated immediately and generalised to similar problems.(ii) Latent learning: studied by Tolman. A new behaviour is learned but not demonstrated until reinforcement is provided. Rats allowed to explore a maze without reward showed no apparent signs of learning, yet when later reinforced they ran the maze as efficiently as a rewarded group. They had earlier formed a cognitive map — a mental representation of the spatial layout — but displayed this latent learning only after reinforcement.
11. How can we identify students with learning disabilities?
ANSWERLearning disabilities are a heterogeneous group of disorders causing difficulty in acquiring reading, writing, speaking, reasoning and mathematical skills, despite average to superior intelligence, adequate sensory-motor systems and adequate learning opportunities. Students with learning disabilities can be identified by the following symptoms, which appear in different combinations:1. Difficulty in writing letters, words and phrases, reading text and speaking; frequent listening problems though their hearing is intact.2. Disorders of attention — they get easily distracted, cannot sustain attention, and attentional deficiency often leads to hyperactivity.3. Poor space orientation and an inadequate sense of time — they get lost in new surroundings, are late or too early, and confuse directions (right, left, up, down).4. Poor motor coordination and manual dexterity — lack of balance, inability to sharpen a pencil or handle doorknobs, difficulty learning to ride a bicycle.5. Failure to understand and follow oral directions.6. Difficulty in judging social relationships and reading body language.7. Perceptual disorders — visual, auditory, tactual or kinesthetic misperception (e.g., failing to tell a call-bell from a telephone ring) despite normal sensory acuity.8. Many have dyslexia — they confuse letters such as b and d, p and q, P and 9, or words such as ‘was’ and ‘saw’.Identifying these symptoms early is important, because learning disabilities are not incurable — remedial teaching methods help such children learn like others.
Extra Practice Questions
Short Answer Type Questions
Q1. Distinguish between learning and performance.
ANSWERLearning is an inferred, relatively permanent change in behavioural potential produced by experience; it cannot be observed directly. Performance is the actual observed behaviour or response. Learning is inferred from performance — for example, a teacher infers that a student has learned a poem from the student’s ability to recite it.
Q2. What is habituation? Why is it not considered learning?
ANSWERHabituation is a behavioural change in which orienting reflexes to a continuous stimulus (such as ongoing marriage noise) become weaker and eventually undetectable due to continuous exposure. It is not considered learning because it is a temporary change due to repeated stimulation, not a relatively permanent change produced by experience.
Q3. Differentiate between positive and negative reinforcement.
ANSWERPositive reinforcement uses pleasant stimuli (food, praise, money) that strengthen and maintain the responses producing them. Negative reinforcement involves removing or avoiding unpleasant stimuli, thus strengthening avoidance and escape responses (e.g., wearing warm clothes to avoid cold). Both increase the probability of a response; negative reinforcement is not punishment.
Q4. What is learned helplessness?
ANSWERLearned helplessness, demonstrated by Seligman and Maier, results from an interaction of classical and operant conditioning. Dogs first given inescapable shocks later failed to escape shock even when escape became possible. It has also been shown in humans, where continuous failure produces little persistence and poor performance, and it underlies many cases of depression.
Q5. What is spontaneous recovery?
ANSWERSpontaneous recovery is the reappearance of a learned (conditioned) response after it has been extinguished and a period of rest has elapsed. When the CS is presented again after a time lapse, the CR recurs on its own. The longer the time lapsed after extinction, the greater is the amount of spontaneous recovery.
Long Answer Type Questions
Q1. Compare and contrast classical and operant conditioning.
ANSWERIn classical conditioning the responses are reflexes automatically elicited by a stimulus, so they are under stimulus control; the organism remains passive and the experimenter controls the US. It is S–S learning where the CS and US are both well-defined (often called respondent conditioning). In operant conditioning the responses are voluntary operants under the organism’s control; the subject must be active, and the occurrence of the reinforcer depends on the organism’s own behaviour. The CS is not clearly defined and can only be inferred. The technical terms also differ: what is called a reinforcer in operant conditioning corresponds to the US in classical conditioning, where the US both elicits and reinforces the response. Thus, although both are forms of associative learning, the type of response, who controls the key event, and the role of the learner are different.
Q2. Explain extinction and the factors that influence resistance to extinction.
ANSWERExtinction is the disappearance of a learned response when reinforcement is removed — for example, when CS is no longer followed by US, or lever-pressing no longer yields food, the learned behaviour gradually weakens and stops. However, learning shows resistance to extinction: the response continues for some time before its strength diminishes. Several factors influence this resistance. Resistance increases with the number of reinforced acquisition trials up to a stabilised level, beyond which further reinforcement reduces resistance. As the amount of reinforcement increases during acquisition, resistance to extinction decreases; if reinforcement is delayed during acquisition, resistance increases. Most importantly, continuous reinforcement makes a response less resistant to extinction, whereas partial (intermittent) reinforcement makes it more resistant — the partial reinforcement effect. This is because under partial schedules it is harder to tell when reinforcement has finally stopped.
Q3. Discuss the determinants of classical conditioning.
ANSWERSeveral factors determine how quickly and strongly a conditioned response is acquired in classical conditioning. (i) Time relations between stimuli: based on the timing of CS and US there are four procedures — simultaneous (CS and US together), delayed (CS begins before and ends before the US ends), trace (CS begins and ends before US, with a gap) and backward (US precedes CS). The delayed procedure is the most effective; simultaneous and trace require more trials; acquisition under backward conditioning is very rare. (ii) Type of unconditioned stimulus: US may be appetitive (eliciting approach responses like eating, drinking) or aversive (eliciting avoidance/escape, like shock or noise). Appetitive conditioning is slower and needs more trials, whereas aversive conditioning may be established in one to three trials depending on intensity. (iii) Intensity of the conditioned stimulus: more intense conditioned stimuli accelerate acquisition — the more intense the CS, the fewer the acquisition trials needed.
MCQs & Assertion–Reason
1. Learning is best defined as:
(a) any change in behaviour (b) a relatively permanent change in behaviour produced by experience (c) a temporary change due to fatigue (d) an inborn reflex
2. Classical conditioning was first investigated by:
(a) B.F. Skinner (b) Albert Bandura (c) Ivan P. Pavlov (d) Wolfgang Kohler
3. In Pavlov’s experiment, after conditioning the sound of the bell becomes the:
For each Assertion–Reason question, choose: (A) Both true and the Reason correctly explains the Assertion; (B) Both true but the Reason is not the correct explanation; (C) Assertion true, Reason false; (D) Assertion false, Reason true.
A-R 1. Assertion: Behaviour change due to fatigue or drugs is not considered learning.
Reason: Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour, whereas fatigue and drug effects are temporary.
A-R 2. Assertion: Negative reinforcement is the same as punishment.
Reason: Punishment suppresses a response, while negative reinforcement increases an avoidance or escape response.
A-R 3. Assertion: Partial reinforcement makes a learned response more resistant to extinction.
Reason: Under partial schedules it is difficult to tell when reinforcement has been discontinued.
A-R 4. Assertion: Generalisation means a failure of discrimination.
Reason: Generalisation is responding similarly to similar stimuli, while discrimination is responding differently to different stimuli.
A-R 5. Assertion: Learning disabilities occur only in children of below-average intelligence.
Reason: Learning disabilities are observed in children of average to superior intelligence with adequate sensory-motor systems.
Answer key: 1-(A), 2-(D), 3-(A), 4-(A), 5-(D).
Exam Tips & Common Mistakes
How to score full marks in this chapter
Link every form of learning to its key psychologist — Pavlov (classical conditioning), Skinner (operant conditioning), Bandura (observational learning), Kohler (insight), Tolman (latent learning) and Fitts (skill phases). For classical conditioning, memorise the US/UR/CS/CR table and reproduce it. For comparison questions, use a clear two-sided structure with one example each. Learn the determinants of operant conditioning (type, number, amount, quality, schedule and delay of reinforcement) as a list, and always distinguish negative reinforcement from punishment. Use the textbook’s own examples — Pavlov’s dog, the Skinner box, the Bobo doll, Kohler’s chimpanzees and Tolman’s maze — to show you have studied the chapter.
Common mistakes to avoid
Equating negative reinforcement with punishment — one increases a response, the other suppresses it.
Confusing the labels in classical conditioning (US, UR, CS, CR) — remember the bell is the CS and salivation to it the CR.
Saying continuous reinforcement gives more resistance to extinction — it is partial reinforcement that does.
Mixing up generalisation (similar stimuli) with discrimination (different stimuli).
Confusing insight learning (Kohler) with latent learning (Tolman).
Calling learning disabilities a sign of low intelligence — they occur in children of average to superior intelligence.
Treating learning and performance as the same thing — learning is inferred from performance.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Chapter 5 of Class 11 Psychology about?
Chapter 5, Learning, explains learning as a relatively permanent change in behaviour produced by experience, and describes its main forms — classical conditioning, operant conditioning, observational learning, cognitive learning (insight and latent), verbal learning and skill learning — along with reinforcement, extinction, generalisation, discrimination, the determinants of learning, and learning disabilities.
What is the difference between classical and operant conditioning?
In classical conditioning (Pavlov) reflexive responses are elicited by a stimulus and the organism is passive, while in operant conditioning (Skinner) voluntary operants are strengthened by their consequences and the organism must be active. What is called a reinforcer in operant conditioning corresponds to the US in classical conditioning.
How many questions are in the Class 11 Psychology Chapter 5 exercise?
The end-of-chapter Review Questions section of Chapter 5 (Learning) contains 11 questions, all answered step by step on this page, along with extra short and long questions, MCQs and Assertion–Reason items for practice.
