HEBB’S LAW OF ASSOCIATED LEARNING (LIMBIC MOTIVATION)
Use this to develop your understanding of why some people react more positively to your instructions than others.
The limbic system is the collective name for the audio, visual and tactile neural connections in the human brain that affects learning and motivation. Donald Hebb formulated a theory to explain what actually happens when limbic systems in the brain are simultaneously and repeatedly active. He claimed that this created the synapses (or links) that lead to cell assemblies through which connections are made.
Hebb uses the example of a baby hearing footsteps to describe how the process works. After the footsteps, an assembly is excited and the baby will be motivated to have either a positive or a negative reaction to the footsteps, depending on whether the person is someone they have grown to love or fear. Here’s how the limbic process can be depicted:
Understanding how to apply Hebb’s theories as a manager is based on the principle that instructions given to someone affect the brain in two different ways: It creates brand new synapses or links (most common in younger people) or rearranges existing ones (more common in adults). Either way, the brain is remoulded to respond positively or negatively to the instructions.
HOW TO USE IT
To use Hebb’s theory effectively as a manger, you need to:
- Accept that people react differently. Some will have a greater capacity to organise instructions and therefore be able to make the associations easier than others.
- Develop a strategy for dealing with the different levels of reaction in your organisation. Someone with well-formed neural connections can attach new data to existing networks and will be better motivated when you encourage them to connect with what they already know. Someone with less-developed connections will struggle to assimilate new data because of the energy it takes the brain to create new synapses. In this instance break instructions down into bite-size chunks.
- Appreciate that there is no proven link between the capacity to make neural connections and intelligence. Use the computer analogy to make sense of this. Something with a higher operational specification will function quicker and more effectively than something with a lower operational specification. That doesn’t mean that the lower specification machine is incapable of making connections, just that you have to spend more time and effort getting it to a stage where it can do it.
- Use powerful tools such as metaphors, stories and analogies to help people to develop meaningful connections, see patterns develop and make sense of the new data.
The phrase ‘cells that wire together, fire together’ is often used as a metaphor to describe Hebb’s theory; meaning that if someone continually reacts in a certain way, then the neurons in their brain tend to strengthen that reaction, becoming what we know as habit. Managers need to appreciate when that habit needs to be fostered or changed. The more deep-rooted the habit, the more difficult it may be to change.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
- How good am I at recognising the different capacity of my employees to absorb instructions?
- Am I making good use of metaphors, stories and analogies to help people to develop meaningful connections?