Prep 13

5 things you need remember from this class session:

• Social learning Theory
• Three major types of observational learning
• Bandura
• Reciprocal determinism
• Bobo the Clown

Class 13 Notes

Social Learning Theory

Watching others

Modeling can be general

• broad concepts
• attitudes
• role models teach
• peer group

Modeling can also be specific

• template
• evolutionary value

Types of behavior

• Fixed Action Pattern (FAP) = all members of species do instinctively
• Species-specific behavior = little variation
• Species-typical = often do
• Instinctive drift = back to innate response patterns

3 Major types of observational learning

Mirroring

• matching your behavior to another’s
• begins in the first days after birth
  • babies learn to look where you look
  • tilt their heads to the side if you do so
• watch close friends and relatives
  • posture, gestures and amount of eye contact match
  • wedding pictures
  • match without much mental processing
• mirror automatically
  • arguing with someone who waves their hands
  • someone yells
  • hold report in one hand
• Some people are naturally good at it
  • politicians
  • sales professionals
  • matching eye contact and posture
  • shift their level of vocabulary
• Intentionally mirror
  • job seekers
• We like being mirrored, if it is natural

Imitation

• More intentional
  • At 6 months of age, infants match sounds and vocalizations with those around them
  • At 6 months, babbling with accent
  • At 18 months old, toddlers talk toy phones like parents
  • At 36 months, kids pretend to get ready for work
  • Three-year-olds improve their language skills by imitation
  • Gramma says “Pop-Pop went bye-bye,” child says “Pop-Pop bye-bye”
• Imitation is copying
• Intentionally replicating a behavior
  • traditions and customs of our family
  • holidays
• It takes a while for our brains to develop the skill of imitation
  • parietal and frontal lobes have to mature
• Developmental disorders or strokes
  • apraxia = inability to successfully plan motor movements
  • can answer phone if it rings but cannot pretend to answer a phone
  • pucker lips to real lemon but they can’t pretend to do so
  • lose the ability to imitate
• Better at imitating as our brains grow
  • imitations are more accurate
• Better at extend the time between observation and behavior
  • Piaget = “deferred imitation”
• Children imitate rewarding and punishing
  • model generosity and kindness
  • model family yells and hits
• Children imitate gender appropriate behaviors
  • Mom carries a briefcase and Dad does the dishes
• Humans are not the only imitators
  • Birds imitate human voices
  • Bottlenose dolphins learn hunting from other dolphins by imitation
  • Japanese macaque monkeys who watch humans learn to wash potatoes before eating them

Modeling

• Most intentional type of observational learning
• Cognitive structures = models
• Build a model
• Modify model
• Modeling & vicarious experiences
  • sports fans
  • empathy
  • specialized neural circuits to track what others do
  • “mirror neurons”
  • autism
• Models for things we should do
• Models for things we should avoid
  • two-step process: remember rule and remember to modify it
  • under pressure, remember rule but don’t modify it

Four stages of modeling

1. Attention

• Track the environment
• Pay attention to what is happening
• lLok for patterns
• Colorful and dramatic
• Attractive, or prestigious, or appears to be particularly competent
• Seems more like yourself

1. Retention

• Observe model
• Convert observations into rule
• Building of construct
• Remember
• Encode it as mental images

1. Reproduction

• Apply the rule
• Convert mental image to behavior
• Must have behavior in repertoire
• Better able to do behavior, better able to imitate
• Thinking about doing may help doing

1. Motivation

• Skinner = have not learned until you do
• Bandura = need a reason to demonstrate learning
• Motives don’t “cause” learning
  • Motives cause us to demonstrate what we have learned
• A reason for doing it
  • Past reinforcement = rewarded
  • Promised reinforcement = incentives
  • Vicarious reinforcement = seeing others rewarded
  • Past punishment
  • Promised punishment
  • Vicarious punishment

Two Types of Theories

• Two theories of modeling: association and transformation
• Associative theories
  • contiguity
  • activates us
  • requires little or no mental processing
  • no good evidence it exists
• Transformational theories
  • use cognitive processing to create mental structures
  • Bandura’s social cognitive theory

Bandura (1925-present)

• Born December 4, 1925
• Mundare, Alberta, Canada
• “Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.“

Behaviorism

• Experimental methods
• Environment causes behavior
• Too simplistic to explain aggression in adolescents

Social Learning Theory

• Modeling (observational learning)
• Discover learning
• Learning by observing & imitating model
• Model = person being observed

Principles

1. The highest level of observational learning is achieved by first organizing and rehearsing the modeled behavior symbolically and then enacting it overtly. Coding modeled behavior into words, labels or images results in better retention than simply observing.
2. Individuals are more likely to adopt a modeled behavior if it results in outcomes they value.
3. Individuals are more likely to adopt a modeled behavior if the model is similar to the observer and has admired status and the behavior has functional value.

Self-efficacy

Reciprocal Determinism

• Environment causes behavior
• Behavior causes environment too
• Personality is interaction among: environment, behavior & person’s psychological processes (ability to create and manipulate images, and language

Bobo The Clown

• Bobo
  • Inflatable
  • 3-foot tall
  • Soft plastic
  • Egg-shaped
  • Weight in the bottom
  • Knock him down, comes back up
• Person dressed as Bobo
• Film
  • Person punched the clown
  • Shouting “sockeroo!”
  • Other versions
    • kicked it, sat on it, hit with little hammer,
    • shouting various aggressive phrases
  • Bandura showed his film to groups of kindergartners
  • They liked it
  • When let out to play; a brand new Bobo doll was there and a few little hammers
• Findings
  • Behavior of the children who saw the first film, without rewards or punishment, modeled that of the adult in the film.
  • They punched, kicked, hit with the hammer, and shouted “sockeroo,”; precisely imitating the woman model.
  • The children behaved more aggressively when they watched the film in which the adult models were rewarded.
  • The children behaved somewhat less aggressively when the adult models were punished. Yet, when prodded enough, most children were able to copy the hostile actions.
  • Removal of restraint was greatest for boys when the model was male.
  • Removal of restraint was greatest for girls when the model was female.
  • Boys were generally more violent and aggressive than girls.
• Bandura’s Conclusion
  • Reinforcement does not necessarily affect the learning of responses
  • It does determine whether or not these observationally learned responses are put into use.
• Criticisms
  • Bobo was intended to be hit
  • Works extremely well in the laboratory
  • where things can be held at a constant
  • Works only passably in the real life
  • Studies have shown that childhood viewing habits only accounted for ten percent of the difference in later aggression.
• (In ten-year studies)
  • The theory does not predict what the viewer will see as positive.

_Terms_

• • apraxia
  • associative theories
  • attention
  • attitudes
  • autism
  • babbling
  • Bandura, Albert
  • behavior replication
  • Bobo The Clown
  • coding
  • cognitive structures
  • concepts
  • contiguity
  • deferred imitation
  • discover learning
  • empathy
  • encoding
  • evolutionary value
  • experimental methods
  • fixed action pattern (FAP)
  • gender appropriate behaviors
  • gender roles
  • incentives
  • instinctive drift
  • Intentional mirroring
  • mirror neurons
  • mirroring
  • modeling
  • models
  • motivation
  • observational learning
  • past punishment
  • past reinforcement
  • peer group
  • Piaget, Jean
  • promised punishment
  • promised reinforcement
  • reciprocal determinism
  • reproduction
  • retention
  • role models
  • self-efficacy
  • Skinner, B.F.
  • sockeroo!
  • species-specific behavior
  • species-typical
  • template
  • traditions
  • transformational theories
  • types of behavior
  • vicarious experience
  • vicarious punishment
  • vicarious reinforcement
  • violence
  • vocalizations