Social Observational Learning Essay

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1. Social observational learning is described by the text as being an active model. It involves observing a behavior of another person as well as observing the consequence to the behavior. The consequence can be either positive or negative and this type of learning can persuade the observer to behave the way the individual did also known as “vicariously learning” or not “vicariously punished” depending on if the consequence was positive or negative. An example the text gives is that there are two volunteers that participate in an experiment and first one volunteer observes another volunteer complete the experiment. The observer sees how there was a box placed in front of the other volunteer with a sign that stated “The Money Box. Take the Money …show more content…

Vicarious reinforcement is known as an increase in strength of an observed behavior following reinforcement if the behavior in the model. Such as one sibling doing chores and getting rewarded causes the sibling that was observing to do chores in order to get the reward and they do it more often because of the positive reinforcement. Vicarious punishment is the opposite which is the decrease of strength following punishment of the behavior in the model. (Chance, 2014).

4. “Observational learning is the same as imitation”. When we look at what observational learning is it seems to display some kind of imitation or the act of doing something the way one observed another person do but things one hasn’t seen done. An example to explain the definition of imitation is that for example having a child remove a toy from a jar. But first you remove the toy from the jar in front of the child doing many things, first hitting the top of the jar then tapping it with a feather and then twisting the top; most likely the child is going to imitate exactly what is observed you do. (Chance, …show more content…

One factor that affects observational learning is “Skilled vs. Unskilled model.” An example of this is having model who is really good at what they model and never mess up or those who are not pros at what they are modeling but succeed and miss sometimes. Such as learning how to throw free throws you can watch a professional basketball player shoot and also just a person who never played but make some baskets and also miss some baskets. Watching the skilled player, the observer learns what is required for positive results while watching the unskilled player you learn both what one would need to do to get positive results as well as what one should not do to avoid negative results. Another factor that affects observational learning is “Difficulty of the Task”. The more difficult the task the less learning occurs, but sometimes observing a model perform a difficult task improves likelihood of success. In the example of the children and the mats it explains how when there was a more complicated task children did better when they saw the task being performed than those who didn’t. A third factor that affected observational learning is “Consequences of Observed Acts”. An example of this is when children saw an adult hitting an inflated doll and getting praised for example “Good for you! I guess you really fixed him that time” and also some of the children watching the adult hit the same inflated doll but this time getting criticized. The children who observed the adult that

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