PSY260 - 10. Social Learning Flashcards
Social learning/observational learning
actively monitor events involving other individuals and chooses later actions based on observations
Difficult to predict how observations will affect future behaviour because there’s no way to know what they actually perceive while observing
Nothing compels observer to copy any given model
there’s more than one way to copy
Copying what is seen
replicating what one observes another doing
Children in Bandura’s experiment who showed significant imitation of aggressive acts had first been provoked by being deprived of toy immediately before test
Children who viewed aggressive model but not provoked less likely to behave aggressively during testing children who did not observe any aggressive acts
Copying what is seen
viewing adult acting aggressively toward inflatable toy strongly influenced later behaviour of children presented with same toy despite children neither reinforced/punished for behaviour
active imitating way of recalling episodic memory
Copying what is seen
Modeling: imitative acts reveal what they learned from watching someone demonstrate an action
can involve replication of actions/performance of novel actions that lead to observed outcome
True imitation: motor acts are replicated
Emulation: replicates outcome without replicating specific motor acts
Studies of true imitation: copying actions
Both children + chimpanzees copied opening technique that they had observed
Humans can imitate wide variety of actions including novel, nonfunctional actions
Perspective taking
imagining oneself in place of another cognitive ability prerequisite for voluntary imitation of actions
thought to facilitate imitation - enables ppl to imitate others without watching themselves doing so
Studies of emulation: copying goals
Adults more likely to emulate than imitate
Matching outcomes of set of motor actions by performing somewhat different actions
Reproducing actions without copying
Contagion: inborn tendency to react emotionally to sights/sounds of emotion in other members of species
Observation of given response increases likelihood that observer will produce a similar response
Observational conditioning: individual learns emotional response after observing it in others
Observational conditioning + contagion: observer seems to be imitating actions of others but is not
Reproducing actions without copying
Redirecting individual’s attention can lead to matching actions that may be mistaken for imitation
Similarity in actions byproduct of similar focus of attention
Stimulus enhance: Direction of one’s organisms attention toward specific objects, events or locations within an environment as result of another organism’s action
increases likelihood that an animal will be exposed to particular stimuli + their associated consequences
Social learning theory
Kinds of reinforcement individual has experience in past will determine how individual will act in any given situation
social learning special case of instrumental conditioning: actions that replicate observed acts either directly/indirectly reinforced
imitate actions that seem to lead to positive outcomes may in turn experience positive outcomes: Person has a greater likelihood of copying such actions in the future
Social learning theory
behaviour can be learned without direct reinforcement/punishment
Expectations of reinforcers + punishments will influence likelihood learned action will be performed, but learning itself taken to be the result of observation rather than result of conditioning
Bandura how people learn by copying:
Presence of a model increase observers attention to the situation
Social learning theory
Memories for observed situation stored in accessible format so they can guide later actions. If observer forgets how action was performed - difficult for a person to imitate
Observer must have ability to reproduce action
Social learning theory
Observer must have motivation for reproducing observed actions
status or identity of model can provide motivation for observer to imitate action
desirability of observed outcome can be enough to provide motivation
Brain substrates
Direct matching hypothesis: memories for actions stored in specialized cortical regions that map observed options onto motor representations of the acts
Visually observing in action automatically activates same systems required to perform the action + memories for action stored as part of this process
Mirror neurons
Neurons that fire both during performance of an action + during visual observation of that same action
Mirror neurons that respond to actions of the hands/mouth most common
