What Is Observational Learning?

Each person is a social being and is aware of the environment that they live in. People learn from their experiences as well as from observing others. When children learn about their environment first hand or by observing another, negative and positive behaviors are reinforcement. If a child does a behavior and receives a reward for that behavior, the rewarded behavior is reinforced. Similarly, when someone witnesses negative consequences based on their behavior, they tend to modify that behavior (Schmied & Tully, 2009, p. 9).

Most humans learn by simply watching, and then imitating the action rather than trial and error or direct experiences of the consequences of our actions (this is not to say that watching and imitating is the only way of learning). This method of learning is called observational learning. The highly recognized psychologist with observational learning is Albert Bandura. Bandura’s theory states that observational learning

Observational learning is another simple behavioral training technique. It’s as simple as its name, you learn by watching others. For example, let’s say you are trying to learn to balance a book on your head. You’ve been watching your parent do it and you try it out as well by imitating their behaviors that you previously observed. That’s a basic example of learning by observation. This helps us better understand human behavior in this way: it tells us that humans observe other behavior and try to imitate it in order to achieve the same, or a similar effect. That is another basic aspect of human behaviors that also occurs on a daily basis.

Observational learning is simply learning by observing the behavior of other people called models (Bandura 1997,1986,1989 2000,2006). Bandura sees observational learning as one of the most important mechanism through which humans behavior changes. Cady watched how “the plastics”acted and that is why she eventually became one. This type of learning is more cognitive than conditioning because people have to pay attention to how the person acted at a particular time and make mental pictures to use them later on.

The social learning approach as explained in P1, suggests that learn new behaviours and information by observing other that are around them. This is also known as observational learning.

An individual can always learn new aspects of life when they are observing an infant. This observation took place in the home of the participant. The participant is familiar with the house. During the observation the child played with her toys in the living room. The participant was a 12-month-old girl who is cared for by both her mother and father. Other participant included the child's mother and the child's aunt. The mother is a teacher, so during this observation and in the summer, they both stay at home. The participant is the only child in the household. After an afternoon nap and snack, the child sat in her mother's lap on the couch in the living room. While she was with her mother, she stayed close to her mother and made eye contact with everyone in the room. The child then got down and played with her toys in the floor of the living room. She began with the toy closest to her and began pushing the buttons while singing along with the different rhythms. The next toy she found was a child's magazine and she quickly flipped through the pages and found pictures of other infants similar to her. After a quick look around the room, she proceeded to crawl over to the nearest shelf in the living room. She began to pull her self up to a standing position and began pulling items off of the shelf and putting them on the floor. The mother quickly diverted her attention by

This method is better in a way that by observing others, we can quickly gain knowledge about which behaviors are likely to lead to good outcomes. What I remember from my childhood is that everything I learned was by watching everyone else. For example every time my mom would want to teach me something knew she would demonstrate it to me. I learned a lot by seeing what others did. When my aunt started to cook I loved watching her cook to see how she made the food. Now that I became older I know how to cook by just watching my aunt cook when I was younger. I also learned how to ride the bike because my mom thought me how to ride it with demonstrations. I believe most of the people in this world learn by observing others. Is an easier way to learn and is not too complicated. Just like the saying “monkey see, monkey do”. When people see other people doing something they want to do it as well I believe is just a human instinct we have developed with time. Till this day I learn better with demonstrations r

An example of observational learning is Eli, a successful businessman. Eli has an obsession with saving money as he observed it from his father. His parents were poor immigrants that pinched every penny they could. Everytime Eli would try to enjoy the fruits of his labor, he would hear his father’s warnings. His father’s distrust of the future carried through to his thoughts on women. Like success, a woman would inevitably turn on you someday. Eli imitated his father’s beliefs and actions throughout his life as he learned them to be socially appropriate.

“Bandura analyzed the nature of observational learning and found it to be governed by four related mechanisms: attentional processes, retention processes, production processes, and incentive and motivational processes” (Schultz & Schultz, 2013, p. 335). First, there are various changing forces that can effect attentional processes (Schultz & Schultz, 2013). According to Bandura, “observational learning or modeling will not occur unless the subject pays attention to the model” (Schultz & Schultz, 2013). For example, even though Antwone was not raised by his biological parents, he had several influences in his life.

The social learning theory suggests that people learn new behaviors through observation of factors in their environment, by taking note of other’s

Psychology tells us that a human can learn various skills in two different ways, which are: Associative Learning and Observational Learning. Associative learning strikes a person when he or she makes a connection between two results or events, whereas observational learning arises when the person observes and imitates other people’s skills and

     Observational learning occurs when a person or an animal uses observation of another’s actions and their consequences to guide their own future actions. The person being observed is referred to as a model. For this reason observational learning is also referred to as modeling. Observational learning involves four stages, attention, retention, reproduction and motivation-reinforcement. Attention is when the learner observers the actions of the model (The higher the status of the model the more attention the learner will pay and the closer their imitations will be to the models actions). Retention is when the learner retains in their memory what they have just observed. Reproduction is when the learner will reproduce or imitate the actions of the model that they have just observed. Reproduction is when the learner reproduces or imitates what they have just observed. Motivation-reinforcement can come in various ways. External reinforcement, through praise for doing something well, self-reinforcement, through the

A. Basic Concepts 1. Observational LearningThe Social Learning Theory says that people canlearn by watching other people perform the behavior. Observational learningexplains the nature of children to learn behaviors by watching the behaviorof the people around them, and eventually, imitating them. With the ―Bobo Doll‖ experiment(s) , Bandura included an adult who is tasked to actaggressively toward a Bobo Doll while the children observe him. Later,Bandura let the children play inside a room with the Bobo Doll.

Many of us learn better, when we are taught or shown ways to do something, that way we can better our understanding of the subject being taught. The psychological term for this is modeling, which is a form of learning where individuals ascertain how to act or perform by observing another individual. The English proverb which states “When in Rome do what the Romans do,” clearly explains modeling really well. Modeling Theory is derived from the Social Learning Theory formed from the works of Albert Bandura. This states the importance of learning from observing and imitating model roles. This kind of modeling is evident in young children who emulate their parents by dressing like them; for example a young child may wear her mother’s clothes. This technique is an effective way to eliminate unwanted behaviors, reduce excessive fears and facilitate learning of social behavior; this may be done with the person present in the room or just watching the model from videos. A participant modeling is a person who assists with giving step-to step ways of achieving the type of behavior that is socially accepted behavior. Modeling can be used to treat eating disorders, social skills such as public speaking and specific phobias.

In regards to social cognitive theory, one is looking at the fact that people learn by observing behavioral