Taking a Look at Active Learning

After reading through chapter six, I began reading chapter seven of our psychology text titled, Learning. Learning is something we do everyday even we don’t realize it. While reading chapter seven, I learned that there are three different types of learning, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and cognitive learning. Classical conditioning stands for two types of stimuli linking providing us the tools to have a reaction; this is the type of learning that involves automatic behaviors. Operant conditioning is the type of learning that causes a change in behavior, in reaction to consequences; this is the behavior that involves choosing of choices. Lastly, cognitive learning is the obtaining of new skills, behaviors, and information through

Common sense seems to dictate that, because the media today primarily focuses on portraying acts of aggression and violence, it has been seen that young children often mirror and imitate such actions. In the book Contemporary & Classic Arguments, Psychologist Melanie Moore and comic author Gerard Jones write an article titled, “Violent Media is Good for Kids” and examine this relationship between violent media and its effects on children. They state, “For the past three years she and I have been studying the ways in which children use violent stories to meet their emotional and developmental needs- and the ways in which adults can help them use those stories healthily.”(Jones pg.78) The essence of Moore and Gerald’s argument is that kids need this type of entertainment to maintain a healthier lifestyle. Not only does it make children vigorous but it also helps them develop: emotionally, intellectually, socially, and

Learning is the main process by which children acquire behaviour and understanding from the environment. Children learn in various ways and acquire new ways in learning, as they get older.

Violent media has been proven time and time again over the past 60 years to cause increased aggression in children and young adults. The long term and short term exposure to violent media has been shown to cause “increased feelings of hostility, expectations that others will behave aggressively, desensitization to the pain of others, and increased likelihood of interacting and responding to others with violence” (Committee on Public Education). One of the most famous experiments done on the subject was done in 1961 by the psychologist Albert Bandura at Stanford University. In this experiment children between the ages of three and six were put in a playroom containing a many activities and toys (Cherry). One of those toys was a bobo doll; a 5 foot tall inflatable doll. An adult would enter and either play with the child from a complete ten minutes, the control group, or at some point during those ten minutes begin beating up the doll, the experimental group. They would also say things such as “pow” and “he keeps coming back for more” while attacking it (Cherry).

The study consisted of 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School, ages between 3 to 6 years old. The children were split into three groups based off their aggression judgment from teachers and parents. The first set of children were shown aggression by adults, both male and female, beating up a Bobo Doll. The second set of children ascertained an adult model who exhibit no aggression and the control group was not acquaint to any model. The first set of children were placed in a room with the Bobo Doll after 10 minutes of watching the adult model. The results showed that the first set of children who watched the aggressive model showed

Learning is a fascinating concept. Everyone does it and everyone always has, but not everyone explores its eclectic process. That being said, through the course of history, it has been studied vehemently. Ivan Pavlov, a behaviorist, had some groundbreaking research on subclass of learning called classical conditioning. Coming across it incidentally, he discovered that dogs would salivate not only from eating food, but anything associated with them getting fed. Anything unnatural in their feeding process, he termed as the conditioned stimulus, which would result in the conditioned response of them salivating (Daniels). Though classical conditioning seems rather simple and commonsensible, the information psychologists have gathered from it has been revolutionary. It has shown psychologists the very basics of how we learn and adapt as organisms and opened the door for other studies (Myers 268). According to psychologists, learning is the process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors (Myers 268).

In the modern world, the media plays a massive role in an individual’s life. Whether it be watching the news to gain knowledge about their surroundings or just watching daytime television for amusement, it is no question that watching television is one of the most popular pastimes. With a simple click of the remote, a million shows are available for the viewer to watch. Even though it is convenient, it contributes to a developing problem that only modern humans have come to face: the increasing number of aggressive attitudes and behavior found in children.

An example of verbal aggression was, "Pow!" and "Sock him in the nose". After ten minutes the experimenter entered and took the child to a new room which the child was told was another games room. In stage two (Aggression Arousal) the child was subjected to 'mild aggression arousal'. The child was taken to a room with relatively attractive toys. As soon as the child started to play with the toys the experimenter told the child that these were the experimenter's very best toys and she had decided to reserve them for the other children. In Stage three the next room contained some aggressive toys and some non-aggressive toys. The non-aggressive toys included a tea set, crayons, three bears and plastic farm animals. The aggressive toys included a mallet and peg board, dart guns, and a 3 foot Bobo doll. The child was in the room for 20 minutes and their behavior was observed and rated though a one-way mirror. Observations were made at 5-second intervals therefore giving 240 response units for each child. Other behaviors that didn’t imitate that of the model were also recorded e.g. punching the Bobo doll on the nose. Bandura thus observed children who observed the aggressive models made far more imitative aggressive responses than those who were in the non-aggressive or control groups. There was more partial and non-imitative aggression among those children who has observed aggressive behavior, although the difference for non-imitative aggression was small. The girls

Learning is "a change in behavior due to experience" (Chance, 2003, p. 36). Learning allows an organism to modify its behavior to suit a particular situation. It is a mechanism by which one copes with the ever-changing environment. Anything an organism does that can be measured is behavior (Chance, 2003). Organisms change their behavior to fit environmental changes; this is a learning process, it provides a means to modify

There have always been people saying that violent movies and video games harm children and make them more susceptible to display violent behavior. According to Albert Bandura’s Study called the “Bobo Doll Experiment” this is true. Through this experiment and a few other’s Bandura came up with the Social Learning Theory. The Social Learning Theory is the theory that Bandura used to describe a way of learning through observation or direct instructions.

Classical conditioning, Operant conditioning, and Observational learning are all examples of learning. Animals and humans alike learn these different ways. From the time we are born to the day we die we’ll always be learning in one of these ways. The different ways of learning define us as individuals. Depending on which type of learning a person focused on and learned, people are created to be their own individual. These types of learning are immensely helpful and

The child that watched non-aggressive adult did not do violence with the doll. I addition Bandura tried to observe and compare children that watch aggressive behavior in TV program, video games and movies with the children that they

The basic concept that Albert Bandura demonstrated in the bobo doll study is to see if children were shown modeled behavior would they mimic that behavior the results were yes in fact the little boy modeled the behavior he was shown i believe that video games television and media can promote violent behaviors in observational learning however being that this is something that is taught not all children will show the same results.just because children do not perform the violence they have seen certainly doe not mean they are not learning that behavior and that is a scary thought . This makes me think about when people would say to me watch what you say when you have little ones around because they can easily pick up on your behaviors and language

The Bobo doll study found that children were more likely to imitate violent behaviour they witnessed in a film if they perceived the behaviour would generate positive outcomes (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963). Later findings across three decades of cognitive research on the effects of learning and priming concluded thoughts are connected by similar association, with media stimuli cognitively relating to memories and responses to trigger violent schemata retrieval in real- world situations (Berkowitz, 1984; Bushman & Geen, 1990; L Rowell Huesmann & Eron, 2013). Findings in two general aggression model (GAM) studies that complement cognitive frameworks, both monitored increases in physical arousal as potential determinants for short- term violent behavior. Again, positive correlations were found following exposure to media violence.(Bushman & Anderson, 2001; Thomas, Horton, Lippincott, & Drabman, 1977).

As evidence has shown, children view many violent scenes while watching television, movies, or playing video games, but the question still remains: What psychological effect does violence in the media have on children? Research over the past 10 years has consistently shown that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and real-life aggression (Strasburger 129). Violence in the media can lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the various programs. Of course, not all children who watch television, or movies, or play video games develop aggressive behavior. However, there is a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior. A study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, examined how children's television viewing practices are related to aggressive behaviors. The results revealed that children who reported watching greater amounts of television per day had higher levels of violent behavior than children who reported lesser amounts of television viewing (Singer 1041). Witnessing violence is an important determining factor in violent behavior. The media serves as a means for children to witness violence. According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory, children imitate behavior that they see on television, especially if the person performing the behavior is attractive or if the