Article Review: Prior Experience and Perceived Efficacy Influence 3-Year-Olds' Imitation

The fundamentals of the social learning theory significantly describe offenders and their criminal behavior which is learned based on observation and imitation. A researcher by the name of Albert Bandura along with coworkers tested the social learning theory with several experiments on children and their imitation of aggression based on what they saw and were exposed to. Bandura’s focus was to prove that human behavior such as aggression is learned through social imitations and copying the actions of others. Walters (1966) gives details about the Bobo doll experiment and explains its purpose related to learning a violent behavior based on observation. In the experiment, the tested subjects were children of both sexes, ranging from the ages of three to six years. Some of the children were exposed to a non-aggressive adult, while the other children were placed in a room with an aggressive adult who would both physically and verbally attack the Bobo doll. The control group in the experiment was not exposed to any adult. During the second phase of the experiment, the children were left in a room by themselves with the toys, and watched to see if they would demonstrate the aggressive behavior like that of which they observed adults doing earlier. Walter (1966) describes the results as “children who had been exposed to an aggressive model showed more imitative physical and verbal

Therefore, from a human developmental perspective, the self-efficacy characteristic can aid students in comprehending the link between current behavior and future consequences (Evans, 1989). Bandura also noted that there were four distinct processes that influence a child’s behavior – attention, retention, motor reproduction and motivation. During the attention phase, a child will observe behaviors conducted around them and if this attention is thorough enough, the child will absorb the reactions and reasons for the aggressive behavior modeled. Bandura believed that the second stage, retention, is also vitally important because it is this re-enactment that causes the behavior to be transferred to the long-term memory of the child. Of course, even if the child has memorized the actions, they still need to have the physical attributes necessary to reproduce an action they have seen, but there is little physical dexterity needed to hit or punch something (Isom, 1998).

DeLamater, John D., and Daniel J. Meyers. Social Psychology. 7th ed. N.p.: Cengage Learning, May 20, 2010. Print.

The room was also equipped with a one-way window so the child could be observed without their acknowledgement. The experiment showed that the consequences in the films that the children observed in the ending, created a different outcome. The children who witnessed the film were the adult was rewarded was most likely to repeat or imitate the aggressive behavior toward the Bobo doll. In the situation of the other children who watched the adult being punished for their aggressive behavior, the children were less likely to recreate the aggressive behavior towards the Bobo doll. After the findings Bandura added to the experiment. The children who watched any of the three films were asked to recreate what the adult did in the film. Each imitation the child recreated correctly, they were rewarded with candy and stickers. Virtually all the children were capable of recreating all actions, aggressive or non-aggressive. The different variations of the films the children watched had no impact on them. In conclusion to Bandura’s experiment, you are capable of imitating any behavior, aggressive or non-aggressive, but you are more likely to imitate if there is expectation of any type of reward.

When conducting an experiment to test this hypothesis, it must first begin with gaining the informed consent of the children’s parents to have their children to be able to participate. After obtaining their consent, each child would be randomly assigned to play with either a set of dolls or a set of action figures for an hour. Afterwards

For 3 yrs. old children there are a few developmental milestones that enhances their ability to perform certain task. These include hoping for a few seconds, kicking a ball and throwing it overhand, understanding the concepts of “same” and “different” and being able to

The first stage of the experiment is called modeling. In this stage the children were individually shown into a room where they would sit in one corner and pay with potato prints and pictures and the adult sat in the other corner with a mallet and the Bobo doll. In the first group, 24 children would watch a male or female adult abuse the doll both physically (kicked, punched, threw, and hit with different objects) and verbally (made aggressive and non-aggressive statements). In the second group, 24 children were exposed to adult who played quietly in the corner with the toys but avoiding the Bobo doll. The third group, 24 children were not exposed to neither an aggressive or non-aggressive adult. After 10 minutes went by, the adult in both groups left the

Current practice is based on many years of knowledge and experience. This helps us to understand children learning, development and behavior.

This was done to make certain that infants’ preferences were established on the social, rather than physical aspects of the characters’ behaviour. The “Inanimate Control” condition involved an inanimate mechanical pincer that performed identical physical actions on the box as the Protagonist with the puppets that were opening and closing the box. Similar to the Social condition, infants were encouraged to reach for one of the puppets to determine whether infants have social reason to prefer one character in comparison to the other. It was demonstrated that inanimate objects do not engage intentional reasoning in infants the way human or stuffed animals do. Thus, infants have no social reason to prefer one character in comparison to the

When assessing the skills of a child the part that I found the most difficult during the assessment process was not demonstrating to them the skill. In a few cases Alivia didn’t know what I wanted from the directions I told her, but I couldn’t help her out. All I could tell her was to do what comes to her mind when I say the skill. I knew that if I had demonstrated the movement skill she would have been able to do it. Movement behavior involves the functioning of the brain with a combination of the body (Gallahue, 13). In this case Alivia probably had the physical ability to do the different skills, but her brain didn’t know what they were. Her brain and body did not always function together while executing a skill. It was also important not to demonstrate because students over imitate adults and we want them to do it on their own. Overimitation is when a child copies everything an adult does even if it is irrelevant (Telis, 1).

This study is performed on 2.5 year olds, and tests their ability to use their knowledge of the

Next, two experimenters for this study (E1 and E2) assigned us to an experimental or a control condition. My parent was asked to sit in the corner of the room and to remain uninvolved, meaning no encouragement or praise for my helping efforts. A total of 18 trials were conducted and we were assigned to an experimental condition (explicit scaffolding) or a control condition (no scaffolding). Children in the control condition received no encouragement or praise for helping. With the experimental condition, I received praise and encouragement during the first nine trials. Prior to each trial, E2 played with me and a standard set of toys on the floor. We sat right in front of the table where E1 was seated. E2 would continue to play with me until E1 dropped an object on the floor. Then, E2 would constantly encourage us to help. E2 would say phrases such as “Look, E1 dropped something!” or “Do you want to help her?”. If I handed the object back to E1, I was praised by E1 and E2. However, for the last nine trials, I did not receive any praise or encouragement for helping. If I handed the object to E1, E1 just looked at the object, smiled, and resumed her activity. If I handed it to E2, E2 would only respond briefly. If I decided not to help, E2 would remove the dropped object from the floor and place it in a dark container behind

Another point, perhaps the weakest of the study, is methodological shortcomings. Inflated Bobo doll, is primarily designed to be hit down and bounce back up, so basically its purpose is being hit, therefore when the children hit the doll, it didn’t necessarily mean that they were imitating their role models. This contradictory argument is supported by Kniverton and Stephenson found in 1970. On the other hand, bearing all these limitations in mind, “we can deduce that the role model did indeed have a genuine effect on the child’s observed reaction and imitation because all variables other than the independent variable were well and tightly controlled.” This finding is really useful, not purely because it supports the theory of learning through observation, but mainly it demonstrates usefulness of explaining real world situations, such as the influence of TV and actors on children (this is also applicable to further development of social cognitive theory). Probably the biggest strength of this theory is its high face validity. The idea that children would imitate other’s behaviour is highly probable, because we see it every day. But although there are some really strong supporting arguments, that children actually imitate the behaviour, it

The ability of an individual to learn from other people’s experience is a unique character associated with conditioning controlled behavior. Children are more likely and willing to repeat certain behaviors in cases where they have been rewarded, as they have developed the feeling that what they did is acceptable.

The participants are asked an argument-focused question, a predicate focused question, and a sentence-focused question while watching a clip. The equivalent video clips included both questions responding to intransitive and transitive events. There were six experimental conditions. Each child received three trials on every one condition. The video clips showed nine transitive and nine intransitive events. The study took place in the children 's preschool classroom. The experimenter asked the child if they wanted to watch video. The child and the experimenter watched the video. After the video ended, the child and the researcher played with toys. Then the experimenter asked the child if they wanted to watch the video clips for a second time, but this time they told the child they were going to ask questions about the clips. Each time a new clip commenced the experimenter asked the child a question. If the child did not respond to the question, the experimenter repeated the question until the child gave a response. The experimenter responded to the child by either saying “wow, that sounds fun”, “I wish I could see that too”, or “what a great film”. This technique repeats for the rest of the participants. Finally, the children 's answers are