Observational learning

For other uses, see Social learning (disambiguation).

Observational learning (also known as vicarious learning, social learning, or modeling) is a type of learning that occurs as a function of observing, retaining and replicating novel behavior executed by others. It is argued that reinforcement has the effect of influencing which responses one will partake in, more than it influences the actual acquisition of the new response.

Although observational learning can take place at any stage in life, it is thought to be of greater importance during childhood, particularly as authority becomes important. The best role models are those a year or two older for observational learning. Because of this, social learning theory has influenced debates on the effect of television violence and parental role models.

Required conditions

Albert Bandura called the process of social learning modeling and gave four conditions required for a person to successfully model the behavior of someone else:

• Attention to the model –

In order for the behavior to be learned, the observer must see the modeled behavior.

• Retention of details –

The observer must be able to recall the modeled behavior.

• Motor reproduction –

The observer must have the motor skills to reproduce the action, the observer must also have the motivation to carry out the action.

• Motivation and opportunity –

The observer must be motivated to carry out the action they have observed and remembered, and must have the opportunity to do so. Motivations may include past reinforcement, promised incentives, and vicarious reinforcement. Punishment may discourage repetition of the behavior.

Effect on behavior

Social learning may affect behavior in the following ways:

• Teaches new behaviors
• Increases or decreases the frequency with which previously learned behaviors are carried out
• Can encourage previously forbidden behaviors
• Can increase or decrease similar behaviors. For example, observing a model excelling in piano playing may encourage an observer to excel in playing the saxophone.

Compared to imitation

Imitation is very different from observational learning in that the latter leads to a change in behavior due to observing a model. Observational learning does not require that the behavior exhibited by the model is duplicated. For example, the learner may observe an unwanted behavior and the subsequent consequences, and would therefore learn to refrain from that behavior. Riopelle, A.J. (1960). Observational learning of a position habit by monkeys. Riopelle found in his study that monkeys did better with observational learning if they witness the observed monkey make a mistake before making the right chose with a reward.

Bobo doll experiment

Albert Bandura's Bobo doll experiment is widely cited in psychology as a demonstration of observational learning and demonstrated that children are more likely to engage in violent play with a life size rebounding doll after watching an adult do the same. However, it may be that children will only reproduce a model's behavior if it has been reinforced. This may be the problem with television because it was found, by Otto Larson and his coworkers (1968), that 56% of the time children's television characters achieve their goals through violent acts.

It is said that observational learning allows for learning without any change in behavior, therefore it has been used as an argument against strict behaviorism which argues that behavior must be reinforced for new behaviors to be acquired. Bandura noted that "social imitation may hasten or short-cut the acquisition of new behaviors without the necessity of reinforcing successive approximations as suggested by Skinner (1953)." However, the argument does not dispute claims made by behaviorism because if an individual's behavior does not contact reinforcement following the imitation of the modeled behavior, the behavior will not maintain and therefore is not truly learned. It would remain an individual occurrence of imitation unless reinforcement was contacted. Observational experiments conducted on Hummingbirds demonstrated that hummingbirds Can recognize and feed from flowers of varying shapes. The question of whether the hummingbirds learn their experience from a tutor or not arises. Hummingbirds were divided into two group where in one situation, the hummingbird is exposed to a knowledgeable teacher and the other group lacked this presence. The hummingbird groups that were exposed to the presence of a knowledgeable tutor were more efficient in terms of feeding techniques presented in the new environment. The birds in both groups however were more efficient however the second time when feeding in the same environment as before as they had applied observational behavioral techniques in terms of how to feed from the flower with a higher level of success.

Light Box Experiment

Children have been shown that in their early years from about eighteen months to two years learn much from observing their parents. Pinkham and Jaswal (2011) developed an experiment with observational learning to seek if a child could be pedagogy in their determination of how to turn on a light box. The experiment discovered that the children shown the inefficient way by a parent to use their head to turn on the light box, that the child would do the task in that manner, but the child not demonstrated on how to turn on the light box and asked to do the task would choose the most efficient way to solve the task by using their hands.

Ghost Machine

Tomasello as presented by Thompson and Russell (2004), felt that children learned from observational learning in the form of imitating the actions of the model, he also felt that there was a second dynamic to observational learning in a process he calls emulation. The emulation was when an individual can learn about how an object works, for example that a doorknob twist to open a door. Thompson and Russell study this effect they coined as the Ghost condition and develop a machine that performed a task in front off the children to repeat. The machine showed the children how an object works with no one touching it, and a second group had a human demonstrating the mechanics. Thompson and Russell’s experiment showed that the ghost machine produced a better success rate of learning. So we can use this in knowing that it could be better to teach children the observational learning of mechanics first then proceed with how it can be applied.

References

Pink, A.M., & Jaswal, V.K. (2011). Watch and learn? Infants privilege efficiency over pedagogy during imitative learning. Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies, 16, (5) 535-544.

Riopelle, A.J. (1960). Observational learning of a position habit by monkeys. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 53 (5), 426-428.

Thompson, D.E., Russell, J., (2004). The ghost conditions: imitation versus emulation in young children’s observational learning. Developmental Psychology, 40 (5), 882-889

See also

• Mirror neuron
• Cognitive imitation
• Learning
• Social cognition
• Inference
• Machine learning
• Educational psychology
• Educational technology
• Emulation (observational learning)
• Imitation
• Hypercorrection

Further reading on animal social learning

• Galef, B.G. & Laland, K.N. (2005). Social learning in animals: Empirical studies and theoretical models. Bioscience, 55, 489-499. Abstract
• Zentall, T.R. (2006). Imitation: Definitions, evidence, and mechanisms. Animal Cognition, 9, 335-353. (A thorough review of different types of social learning) Full text