Observational Learning

Jennifer Moore February 27, 2013 Psychology 101 Observational learning In1965 Albert Bandura set up an experiment at Stanford University involving nursery school aged children observing their interactions with a Bobo doll. He then divided the children into three groups. These groups were model reward, model punishment and no consequence. The children then watched a short video of model acting aggressively towards the doll. The children where then divided up into the three groups for the observation. The children were placed in a room with the doll, as well as some of the props the model had used in the video. Bandura discovered that the children in the model reward and no consequence were much more aggressive, then the children in the model punishment. Bandura then decided to take it one step further to see how much the children actually learned from observing. So he did the experiment again, but this time he added a juice box to the children who reproduced the model. The children then reproduced what the model had done in the video, thus proving that a child does learn thru observation. Observational learning is just as it sounds observing ones behavior and then imitating that particular behavior. There is a four step process for observational learning, attention, retention, motor reproduction and reinforce. Attention is actually watching what is being done. For example, when a child is young they watch everything the parents are doing. The parents always say bless you when someone sneezes. The child is observing this behavior. The next step is retention. In this stage the child must remember that when someone sneezes, the parent says bless you. They are putting this information in their memory. The next step is motor