PSY 101      Class 14:  Learning III: Observational Learning [Outline]

Observational Learning (Albert Bandura)

• Social Learning or Social Cognitive Theory: learning by observation
  
• A living organisms respond to the world by observing or watching other living organisms behave (whom we call "models")
• Links behavior with its consequences. Thus, the witness learns about how the behavior and its results are connected.
  
• Hence, experience that shapes behavior can be vicarious (that is, via watching what happens) as well as through direct experience
  
• Albert Bandura (see photo on right). Highly influential; died in July 2021 at age 95.
  

Four basic elements that go into how we learn by social observation:


1. Attention



2. Retention/Memory



3. Imitation Ability



4. Motivation

Examples below show the types of situations in which one person observes another and may learn from it.

Parent & Child Mother reads to her child Husband beats his wife Father responds with concern for child's illness

Buyer & Salesperson Assertive buyer bargains and receives a good price for a product

Co-Workers & Boss Co-worker complains to boss by screaming and is fired Supervisor treats other employees respectfully and is promoted

Peers Guy in group speaks easily with girls at a junior high school dance while other guys watch what he says and does

Observational Learning and Media Violence

Bandura's "Bobo Doll" Experiments (1963)

• 3-6 year-olds were split into 3 groups: (1) observe aggressive adult models, (2) observe non-aggressive adult models, or (3) control group not observing anyone
• Seeing aggressive model ==> become more aggressive themselves
  

National Television Violence Study (1994-1997)

• 61% of TV shows violence
• 44% of violent actors were the "good guys"
• 75% of violent actions come without punishment or condemnation
• 51% of violent actions were shown without resulting pain (i.e., they were sanitized)

Does TV violence promote violence among viewers? Many psychologists in 1970s to 1990s said "yes"

• Correlational studies (comparing violence witnessed on TV with violence acted in real life), and
• Longitudinal studies: children who saw more violence in the 1960s & 1970s were more violent as teenagers & young adults (though not necessarily vice versa)
  

• Each night in the 1990s about 350 characters appeared on prime time TV and 7 are murdered. At this rate (a death rate of 2% per day), the world's population would be reduced to zero within the course of about 3 years. So? This suggests that the violent world of TV is utterly different than reality.

HOWEVER, national trends are changing. Take a look at these line charts of the murder and violence rates (per 100,000 people) in the United States from 1960 to 2019 & 1990 to 2023:

  

• Violence that younger children model trends to be rather mild
• No real link established between violent video games and actual violence in real life.
• It is possible that exposure to violent video games decreases violence in real life.