Observational Learning

Definition

Observational learning, also called social learning theory, occurs when an observer’s behavior changes after viewing the behavior of a model. An observer’s behavior can be affected by the positive or negative consequences–called vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment– of a model’s behavior.

Discussion

There are several guiding principles behind observational learning, or social learning theory:

1. The observer will imitate the model’s behavior if the model possesses characteristics– things such as talent, intelligence, power, good looks, or popularity–that the observer finds attractive or desirable.

2. The observer will react to the way the model is treated and mimic the model’s behavior. When the model’s behavior is rewarded, the observer is more likely to reproduce the rewarded behavior. When the model is punished, an example of vicarious punishment, the observer is less likely to reproduce the same behavior.

3. A distinction exists between an observer’s “acquiring” a behavior and “performing” a behavior. Through observation, the observer can acquire the behavior without performing it. The observer may then later, in situations where there is an incentive to do so, display the behavior.

4. Learning by observation involves four separate processes: attention, retention, production and motivation.

o Attention: Observers cannot learn unless they pay attention to what’s happening around them. This process is influenced by characteristics of the model, such as how much one likes or identifies with the model, and by characteristics of the observer, such as the observer’s expectations or level of emotional arousal.

o Retention: Observers must not only recognize the observed behavior but also remember it at some later time. This process depends on the observer’s ability to code or structure the information in an easily remembered form or to mentally or physically rehearse the model’s actions.

o Production: Observers must be physically and/intellectually capable of producing the act. In many cases the observer possesses the necessary responses. But sometimes, reproducing the model’s actions may involve skills the observer has not yet acquired. It is one thing to carefully watch a circus juggler, but it is quite another to go home and repeat those acts.

o Motivation: In general, observers will perform the act only if they have some motivation or reason to do so. The presence of reinforcement or punishment, either to the model or directly to the observer, becomes most important in this process.

5. Attention and retention account for acquisition or learning of a model’s behavior; production and motivation control the performance.

6. Human development reflects the complex interaction of the person, the person’s behavior, and the environment. The relationship between these elements is called reciprocal determinism. A person’s cognitive abilities, physical characteristics, personality, beliefs, attitudes, and so on influence both his or her behavior and environment. These influences are reciprocal, however. A person’s behavior can

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affect his feelings about himself and his attitudes and beliefs about others. Likewise, much of what a person knows comes from environmental resources such as television, parents, and books. Environment also affects behavior: what a person observes can powerfully influence what he does. But a person’s behavior also contributes to his environment.

How Observational Learning Impacts Learning:

Curriculum– Students must get a chance to observe and model the behavior that leads to a positive reinforcement.

Instruction– Educators must encourage collaborative learning, since much of learning happens within important social and environmental contexts.

Assessment–A learned behavior often cannot be performed unless there is the right environment for it. Educators must provide the incentive and the supportive environment for the behavior to happen. Otherwise, assessment may not be accurate.

Reading

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

CHAPTER 12Observational Learning:

Learning by Watching Others

All the principles described in the previous two chapter can operate either directly or vicariously. In other words, in addition to influencing a learner directly, the contingent consequences of a behavior can also influence anyone who happens to be watching the person perform the behavior and experience the consequences (Bandura, 1969, 1986). Vicarious reinforcement occurs, for example, when a student becomes more likely to study hard because she has seen her friend rewarded for industrious study habits. Vicarious punishment occurs when a driver stops speeding because he sees a police officer giving someone else a traffic ticket. Vicarious extinction occurs when students stop raising their hands in French class because they have noticed that their friends who volunteer answers have never been rewarded for doing so.

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Define and give examples of observational (vicarious) learning.

2. Define and give examples of the imitative effect, the eliciting effect, the disinhibitory effect, and the inhibitory effect of observational learning.

3. Identify the factors that influence the effectiveness of these vicarious strategies.4. Define and describe how to use scaffolded instruction to teaching higher order

thinking skills.

The Four Types of Vicarious Learning

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There are four separate types of vicarious learning. These are worth knowing, because they enable you can expect learners to change their behavior as a result of observing someone else experience the principles described throughout this chapter. These four types of vicarious learning are summarized in Table 12.1.

The Modeling Effect occurs when a person almost directly duplicates a behavior he has seen someone else perform and which the observer has not previously suppressed. The observer displays new behaviors that prior to the modeling had a zero probability of occurring. For example, my son bats the way he does because Barry Larkin is successful with that batting stance.

The Eliciting Effect occurs when the observer performs a behavior to the model's, but still somewhat different. For example, if I hear that a famous celebrity has donated $50,000 to charity, I would be demonstrating the Eliciting Effect if this generosity prompted me to volunteer to umpire Little League baseball games.

The Disinhibitory Effect occurs when a person who has previously refrained from a behavior goes ahead and performs that behavior after seeing a model perform the behavior without receiving any negative consequences. For example, if I already knew how to speed in my automobile but refrained from doing so out of fear of a speeding ticket, I could demonstrate the Disinhibitory Effect by driving more quickly after several cars passed me on the expressway with no apparent negative consequences.

The Inhibitory Effect occurs when a person refrains from a behavior after seeing a model punished for engaging in that behavior. For example, I once stopped asking questions in a high school class after I saw several students receive assignments to write reports on topics about which they asked questions.

As Table 12.1 shows, any of these four types of vicarious learning can lead to the development of either desirable or undesirable behaviors.

TABLE 12.1 Descriptions and Examples of Specific Types of Vicarious (Observational) Learning.

Description Positive Example Negative Example

Modeling Effect (A person directly imitated - models-the behavior of another person.)

A person almost directly duplicates a behavior he has seen someone else perform and which the observer has not previously suppressed.

The teacher uses an effective thinking strategy to solve a word problem, and the student employs that same strategy when faced with a similar problem in the future.

The teacher responds sarcastically to a student question. Students who witness this sarcasm later use the same strategy in responding to their peers.

Eliciting Effect

(A behavior is elicited - drawn

A person performs a behavior to the model's, but still somewhat different.

The teacher uses an effective thinking strategy to solve a word problem. When the

The teacher responds sarcastically to a student question. A student who witnesses this sarcasm

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forth - rather than duplicated.)

student is faced with a similar problem in the future, he tries a different strategy which is similar (but not identical) to the one used by the teacher and which the student already knew how to employ.

later punches a friend who annoys him.

Disinhibitory Effect

(The person gets rid of an inhibition - hesitation - to do something.)

A person who has previously refrained from a behavior goes ahead and performs that behavior after seeing a model do so without receiving any negative consequences.

A student is afraid to give a speech to the class because she thinks her classmates will make fun of her. A friend gives a speech, and no one makes fun of the friend. The student is now more willing to give her own speech.

A student refrains from chewing gum in class, because she knows this behavior will be punished. A classmate in the front row chews gum, and the substitute teacher does nothing about it. The first student also begins chewing gum.

Inhibitory Effect (The person is inhibited - stopped - from doing the behavior.)

A person refrains from a behavior after seeing a model punished for engaging in that behavior.

A child stops cheating on tests when he sees a movie in which a child is punished for cheating on tests.

A child stops volunteering information in class because he thinks the teacher reacts harshly to other children who volunteer information.

Models that people imitate take a wide variety of forms. A student may imitate another student, a teacher, a parent, a sports celebrity, a movie star, a cartoon character, a fictional character in a novel, a person demonstrating a skill in an educational film - anyone performing a behavior that can be observed (even in the observer's imagination) can qualify as a model.

It is also important to note that the behavior to be imitated takes shape within the mind of the observer. This means that if the observer thinks the model has been reinforced for performing a behavior, then the observer is likely to imitate that behavior - even if the model did not really perform that behavior or even if the model himself perceived the consequences to be unpleasant rather than pleasant.

It is even possible to have people serve as models for themselves. For example, a teacher could view a videotape of her own performance in the classroom. If her performance contained errors, feedback from a knowledgeable colleague could enable her to visualize how she would do a better job next time. Athletes often use tapes of themselves

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during good times to teach themselves ways to improve during a slump in their performance.

Accidental Modeling

Vicarious learning can occur by accident.

Kirk uses very offensive language in talking back to Mr. Winters. Mr. Winters realizes that Kirk is just trying to get his attention, and so he calmly ignores Kirk and attempts to go on with the class. Soon, other students start using offensive language.

Ida is the first student of the year to fail to bring in her math assignment. Mrs. Peters knows from previous experience that keeping her for a detention will not be aversive to Ida but that a call to Ida's mother will probably stop the problem for the rest of the year. However, several of the other students think that Ida has gotten by without doing her work, and so they slack off on their own work.

Mary makes a slightly rude remark to Mr. King. Mr. King knows that Mary is testing him, and so he comes down on her with a very severe rebuke in front of the entire class. In addition, he talks to Mary alone after class, and urges her to stop playing games and get on with her job of learning. Mary appreciates Mr. King's interest and decides to bear down and do good work in the course. However, several of the students in the class who don't know Mary or Mr. King very well decide to be as quiet as possible in the class. Whenever Mr. King raises a question, they look down so that he won't call on them and ridicule them.

In the first two examples, the observers inaccurately concluded that Kirk and Ida were receiving reinforcement for their undesirable behaviors. Even though this perception was inaccurate, these observers still experienced vicarious reinforcement, and their behaviors were strengthened. In the third example, Mr. King has taken successful steps to minimize negative side effects in Mary; but the negative side effects have had an impact on other students. By anticipating such accidental modeling, we can greatly reduce inappropriate learning.

Important Factors in Vicarious Learning

There are three major factors that influence the likelihood that vicarious learning will occur: the similarity of the model to the observer, the prestige of the model, and the observability of the behavior to be imitated.

An observer is more likely to imitate a model who is perceived as similar to the observer. Similarity is especially important when observers have little information about the functional value of the modeled behavior (Bandura, 1986). The degree of similarity, of course, is determined within the mind of the observer. A young boy who thinks he is similar to Michael Jordan is likely to imitate what he sees Michael Jordan doing on television, even if most impartial judges would agree that there is actually not even a remote similarity.

An observer is more likely to imitate a model who is perceived as prestigious. Again, the degree of prestige is determined within the mind of the observer. A person who is perceived to be very low in prestige by a parent or teacher may be viewed as highly prestigious by a young child.

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Behaviors that are more easily observed are more easily imitated. Observability can be increased by such strategies as having the model perform the behavior very deliberately, using slow-motion or videotaped replays, verbalizing or otherwise focusing attention on behaviors that are difficult to observe, and pairing written instructions with visually modeled behaviors.

These factors, which are summarized in Table 12.2, are easily exemplified not only in the classroom, but in the world of advertising as well.

TABLE 12.2 Important Factors in Vicarious (Observational) Learning.

Factor Description Advertising Example Educational Example

Similarity of the model to the observer

The observer views the model as being similar to the observer.

People just like us drink a certain soft drink or use a certain perfume.

Textbooks show people of all cultures and genders performing successful activities, so that all students will have models that are similar to themselves.

Prestige of the model in the eyes of the observer

The model is someone who is viewed as prestigious by the observer.

A famous athlete wears a certain type of athletic shoe or drinks a certain soft drink or says that he doesn't use drugs.

TPeople who are highly respected by students show interest in an activity or perform it successfully (or say that they don't perform the designated behavior).

Observability of the Behavior

The model performs the behavior in such a way that the observer can clearly see what needs to be imitated.

The camera zeroes in on exactly what the famous athlete is wearing or doing, or the athlete states out loud what is on her mind.

The teacher slows down or repeats an action for emphasis so that students can see it. Or the teacher thinks aloud while solving a problem that she wants the children to know how to solve.

Modeling Internal Thought Processes

Is it possible to teach thought processes through observational strategies? At first it might seem impossible to model or imitate what is invisible, but it actually happens that numerous attitudes and thinking skills are learned vicariously. For example, children often develop attitudes toward people or subject matters by imitating their parents or others within their culture (Bandura, 1986). Likewise, children develop a large number of thinking strategies by imitating the ways their peers think. Teachers can exploit opportunities for observational learning of attitudes and thinking skills related to academic subjects.

In many cases, children can accurately infer what is going on inside the model's head. For example, if the teacher often talks about good books she has read, her students may infer that she has a favorable attitude toward reading and adopt a similar attitude

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themselves. (This is the main logic behind a large amount of advertising, in which sports or media stars endorse products in order to stimulate favorable attitudes toward products among viewers.) In fact, modeling is considered to be one of the primary means for developing attitudes. (See Chapter 8 of this book and Gagne and Driscoll, 1988.)

In other cases, it may be more difficult for the observer to determine what the model is thinking, and in such cases it is necessary for the model to employ a think aloud strategy (Bandura, 1986; Whimbey, 1985). For example, it is possible to employ mental modeling strategies to teach reading skills (Duffy, Roehler, & Herrmann, 1988; Herrmann, 1988) and to reduce impulsivity (Meichenbaum, 1986). Recent research demonstrates that modeling the self-regulation skills discussed in chapter 7can be an effective means for promoting both academic achievement and related self-efficacy beliefs (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994) . The scaffolding and generative learning strategies designed to teach thinking skills rely heavily on modeling, reinforcement, and shaping to help students develop effective thinking skills.

If you examine your own behaviors, you will discover that a vastly greater number of them have been acquired through observational learning than through direct reinforcement. At the same time, if you examine the behaviors you have acquired through modeling, you will discover that almost none of the models were deliberately attempting to apply the principles of vicarious reinforcement. This means that there exist vast numbers of opportunities for accidental modeling. Parents who don't believe that such modeling is pervasive should simply look at their own children for a period of time: it is almost frightening to see the duplications of our behavior which occur in young children.

The simplest example of accidental modeling occurs when we perform or reinforce a behavior without realizing that we are under observation. The way to prevent such accidents is to be aware that others are watching and are affected by what we do.

A more subtle problem is that persons observing a behavioral interaction may perceive the situation differently than the participants in that interaction. In such cases, even though the interaction may provide satisfactory results for the persons directly involved, the observers may experience undesirable impacts.

Summary of Vicarious Learning

Vicarious learning occurs when an observer's behavior is influenced by consequences that occur to a model. All the principles of behavior modification can be applied vicariously as well as directly. There are four separate types of vicarious learning: (1) the modeling effect, when the observer directly imitates a behavior displayed by the model; (2) the eliciting effect, when the model's behavior triggers a related but distinct behavior in the learner; (3) the disinhibitory effect, in which the observer performs an already known but inhibited behavior after seeing a model perform it; and (4) the inhibitory effect, in which the observer stops performing a behavior after seeing a model punished for performing it.

Scaffolded Instruction

A common and effective strategy for helping students develop their higher order thinking skills is scaffolding. My own first exposure to scaffolding in education came when I was attending a high school where there was some construction in progress. The workers had erected a series of temporary structures (called

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scaffolding), which permitted the workers to carry out their work in high places. When the work was finished, the scaffolding was removed. The term scaffolding has been developed as a useful metaphor for an effective method for helping students develop their thinking skills. The teacher, the textual materials, or other students provide temporary support (like scaffolding in the construction industry) to help students bridge the gap between their current abilities and the intended goal. Scaffolds can be tools, such as written guidelines or cue cards, or techniques, such as modeling or prompting by the teacher. Like the physical structures supporting construction around my high school, instructional scaffolding is temporary and adjustable. As students demonstrate greater proficiency on their own, the scaffolding is gradually removed. Table 12.3 summarizes the steps included in a typical scaffolding strategy (Rosenshine & Meister, 1992).

Table 12.3.Steps in Scaffolded Instruction of Thinking Skills (Based on Rosenshine & Meister, 1992).

1. Present the new cognitive strategy. a. Introduce the concrete prompt. b. Model the skill. c. Think out loud while you or the students make decisions. 2. Regulate difficulty during guided practice. a. Start with simplified material and gradually increase the complexity of the task. b. Complete part of the task for the student. c. Provide cue cards. d. Present the material in small steps. e. Anticipate student errors and areas of difficulty and have supplemental lessons and prompts ready.3. Provide varying contexts for student practice. a. Provide teacher-led practice. b. Engage in reciprocal teaching. c. Have students work in small groups. 4. Provide feedback. a. Offer teacher-led feedback. b. Provide checklists. c. Provide models of expert work.5. Increase student responsibility. a. Diminish prompts and models. b. Gradually increase complexity and difficulty of material. c. Diminish student support. d. Practice consolidation - putting all the steps together. e. Check for student mastery.6. Provide independent practice. a. Provide extensive practice. b. Facilitate application to new situations.

As Table 12.3 shows, the teacher typically begins the scaffolding process by communicating to the students the nature of a strategy that will be effective for a particular purpose. (This strategy is likely to be one of the skills described earlier in this chapter.) Good ways to introduce a strategy to students include demonstrating or explaining a prompt, modeling the skill, or thinking aloud while performing a task that applies the strategy. Various writers have developed prompts that are useful for particular thinking skills, such as

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summarizing (Taylor, 1985), asking questions to promote reading comprehension (King, 1991), solving difficult problems in mathematics (Schoenfeld, 1985), and planning a composition (Scardamalia, Bereiter, and Steinbach, 1984).

The next step is for the student to practice the strategy while the teacher manages the level of difficulty. For example, to teach a five-step thinking strategy, the teacher might try any of the following methods:

1. Begin by modeling all but the final step in the application of the strategy, and then gradually requiring the student to perform more of these steps.

2. Ask the student to name each step for the teacher to model.3. Provide cue cards to prompt the student to perform each step.4. Start with easy problems to which the strategy can be applied and then move to

more difficult problems.

The idea is to provide the support necessary to enable the student to meet with continuous success.

The third step is to vary the context in which the student can practice the strategy. As Table 12.3 indicates, three basic contexts are (1) teacher-led practice, (2) reciprocal teaching, and (3) small group sessions. An important component of these practice sessions is the opportunity for the students to verbalize what they are doing. It is more likely that students will generalize strategies if they are able to label the steps; this will enable them to encode the information about the strategy in a more meaningful manner and thereby enable the learner to retrieve it more easily for later applications. In addition, verbalizing the information often exposes misconceptions and enables the students to expand the limits of their understanding of the process. In addition to varying the audience with whom the learner practices a strategy, it is useful to vary the content of the problems, so that the learner masters a general thinking strategy rather than a mere algorithm for solving a specific type of problem.

The fourth step is to provide feedback. This feedback can come from the teacher and from other students; but it is also useful to enable the students to give feedback to themselves by realizing that a strategy has been effective. One good way to stimulate self-reinforcement is to have the students use checklists to evaluate their own performance. Another possibility is to provide expert models; for example, after asking a set of questions about a reading passage, the student could compare this set to those developed by the textbook author or by the teacher.

There are several crucial features in effective scaffolded instruction:

1. As students become increasingly proficient at a strategy, it is important to increase student responsibility for its successful application (Greenfield, 1984). For example, the teacher may reduce prompts or provide more difficult problems. The teacher shifts from the role of a coach to the role of a sympathetic audience (Palinscar and Brown, 1984). The active role of the teacher diminishes as that of the student increases.

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2. It is important to avoid simply making the task easier. The idea is to give the learner increasing responsibility for performing an important task - not to alter or water down the ultimate task so that the child can appear to be successful.

3. Scaffolding should help the learner accomplish a goal beyond simply imitating the activity of the skilled partner. That is, the learner should come to a solid understanding or demonstrate attainment of skills at the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy (discussed in Chapter 3).

4. Finally, it is important to provide opportunities for independent practice and generalization. It is necessary for the learner to develop an intuitive insight regarding when it is appropriate to apply the strategy. Teachers can supply guidance with the "Remember when... Now Let's" Rule: "Remember when we asked questions and summarized in our reading class. Now let's try that here in social studies class. What should we do first?"

The preceding paragraphs have described a narrow range of examples of scaffolding. There are many other approaches to scaffolding. Reciprocal teaching (described in the Reading section of Chapter 16) is one way to provide scaffolding of such thinking skills as summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting (Palinscar & Brown, 1984). In addition, Pressley et al. (1992) recommend a strategy in which the scaffolding includes significantly more direct instruction by the teacher. Also note that scaffolding often occurs in natural settings. Vygotsky (1978) has pointed out that children often first experience a set of cognitive activities in the presence of experts (parents, peers, or coaches), and only gradually learn to perform these activities by themselves.

Cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989) is a strategy that uses scaffolding to teach complex cognitive skills. The metaphor is that skills in such areas as language and mathematics can be learned in much the same way that young apprentices would learn skills of various trades from a master at that craft.

ALBERT BANDURA 1925 - present

Biography

Albert Bandura was born December 4, 1925, in the small town of Mundare in northern Alberta, Canada. He was educated in a small elementary school and high school in one, with minimal resources, yet a remarkable success rate. After high school, he worked for one summer filling holes on the Alaska Highway in the Yukon.

He received his bachelors degree in Psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1949. He went on to the University of Iowa, where he received his Ph.D. in 1952. It was there that he came under the influence of the behaviorist tradition and learning theory.

While at Iowa, he met Virginia Varns, an instructor in the nursing school. They married and later had two daughters. After graduating, he took a postdoctoral position at the Wichita Guidance Center in Wichita, Kansas.

In 1953, he started teaching at Stanford University. While there, he collaborated with his first graduate student, Richard Walters, resulting in their first book, Adolescent Aggression, in 1959.

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Bandura was president of the APA in 1973, and received the APA’s Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions in 1980. He continues to work at Stanford to this day.

Theory

Behaviorism, with its emphasis on experimental methods, focuses on variables we can observe, measure, and manipulate, and avoids whatever is subjective, internal, and unavailable -- i.e. mental. In the experimental method, the standard procedure is to manipulate one variable, and then measure its effects on another. All this boils down to a theory of personality that says that one’s environment causes one’s behavior.

Bandura found this a bit too simplistic for the phenomena he was observing -- aggression in adolescents -- and so decided to add a little something to the formula: He suggested that environment causes behavior, true; but behavior causes environment as well. He labeled this concept reciprocal determinism: The world and a person’s behavior cause each other.

Later, he went a step further. He began to look at personality as an interaction among three “things:” the environment, behavior, and the person’s psychological processes. These psychological processes consist of our ability to entertain images in our minds, and language. At the point where he introduces imagery, in particular, he ceases to be a strict behaviorist, and begins to join the ranks of the cognitivists. In fact, he is often considered a “father” of the cognitivist movement!

Adding imagery and language to the mix allows Bandura to theorize much more effectively than someone like, say, B. F. Skinner, about two things that many people would consider the “strong suit” of the human species: observational learning (modeling) and self-regulation.

Observational learning, or modeling

Of the hundreds of studies Bandura was responsible for, one group stands out above the others -- the bobo doll studies. He made of film of one of his students, a young woman, essentially beating up a bobo doll. In case you don’t know, a bobo doll is an inflatable, egg-shape balloon creature with a weight in the bottom that makes it bob back up when you knock him down. Nowadays, it might have Darth Vader painted on it, but back then it was simply “Bobo” the clown.

The woman punched the clown, shouting “sockeroo!” She kicked it, sat on it, hit with a little hammer, and so on, shouting various aggressive phrases. Bandura showed his film to groups of kindergartners who, as you might predict, liked it a lot. They then were let out to play. In the play room, of course, were several observers with pens and clipboards in hand, a brand new bobo doll, and a few little hammers.

And you might predict as well what the observers recorded: A lot of little kids beating the daylights out of the bobo doll. They punched it and shouted “sockeroo,” kicked it, sat on it, hit it with the little hammers, and so on. In other words, they imitated the young lady in the film, and quite precisely at that.

This might seem like a real nothing of an experiment at first, but consider: These children changed their behavior without first being rewarded for approximations to that behavior! And while that may not seem extraordinary to the average parent, teacher, or casual

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observer of children, it didn’t fit so well with standard behavioristic learning theory. He called the phenomenon observational learning or modeling, and his theory is usually called social learning theory.

Bandura did a large number of variations on the study: The model was rewarded or punished in a variety of ways, the kids were rewarded for their imitations, the model was changed to be less attractive or less prestigious, and so on. Responding to criticism that bobo dolls were supposed to be hit, he even did a film of the young woman beating up a live clown. When the children went into the other room, what should they find there but -- the live clown! They proceeded to punch him, kick him, hit him with little hammers, and so on.

All these variations allowed Bandura to establish that there were certain steps involved in the modeling process:

1. Attention. If you are going to learn anything, you have to be paying attention. Likewise, anything that puts a damper on attention is going to decrease learning, including observational learning. If, for example, you are sleepy, groggy, drugged, sick, nervous, or “hyper,” you will learn less well. Likewise, if you are being distracted by competing stimuli.

Some of the things that influence attention involve characteristics of the model. If the model is colorful and dramatic, for example, we pay more attention. If the model is attractive, or prestigious, or appears to be particularly competent, you will pay more attention. And if the model seems more like yourself, you pay more attention. These kinds of variables directed Bandura towards an examination of television and its effects on kids!

2. Retention. Second, you must be able to retain -- remember -- what you have paid attention to. This is where imagery and language come in: we store what we have seen the model doing in the form of mental images or verbal descriptions. When so stored, you can later “bring up” the image or description, so that you can reproduce it with your own behavior.

3. Reproduction. At this point, you’re just sitting there daydreaming. You have to translate the images or descriptions into actual behavior. So you have to have the ability to reproduce the behavior in the first place. I can watch Olympic ice skaters all day long, yet not be able to reproduce their jumps, because I can’t ice skate at all! On the other hand, if I could skate, my performance would in fact improve if I watch skaters who are better than I am.

Another important tidbit about reproduction is that our ability to imitate improves with practice at the behaviors involved. And one more tidbit: Our abilities improve even when we just imagine ourselves performing! Many athletes, for example, imagine their performance in their mind’s eye prior to actually performing.

4. Motivation. And yet, with all this, you’re still not going to do anything unless you are motivated to imitate, i.e. until you have some reason for doing it. Bandura mentions a number of motives:

a. past reinforcement, ala traditional behaviorism. b. promised reinforcements (incentives) that we can imagine. c. vicarious reinforcement -- seeing and recalling the model being reinforced.

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Notice that these are, traditionally, considered to be the things that “cause” learning. Bandura is saying that they don’t so much cause learning as cause us to demonstrate what we have learned. That is, he sees them as motives.

Of course, the negative motivations are there as well, giving you reasons not to imitate someone:

d. past punishment. e. promised punishment (threats). d. vicarious punishment.

Like most traditional behaviorists, Bandura says that punishment in whatever form does not work as well as reinforcement and, in fact, has a tendency to “backfire” on us.

Self-regulation

Self-regulation -- controlling our own behavior -- is the other “workhorse” of human personality. Here Bandura suggests three steps:

1. Self-observation. We look at ourselves, our behavior, and keep tabs on it.

2. Judgment. We compare what we see with a standard. For example, we can compare our performance with traditional standards, such as “rules of etiquette.” Or we can create arbitrary ones, like “I’ll read a book a week.” Or we can compete with others, or with ourselves.

3. Self-response. If you did well in comparison with your standard, you give yourself rewarding self-responses. If you did poorly, you give yourself punishing self-responses. These self-responses can range from the obvious (treating yourself to a sundae or working late) to the more covert (feelings of pride or shame).

A very important concept in psychology that can be understood well with self-regulation is self-concept (better known as self-esteem). If, over the years, you find yourself meeting your standards and life loaded with self-praise and self-reward, you will have a pleasant self-concept (high self-esteem). If, on the other hand, you find yourself forever failing to meet your standards and punishing yourself, you will have a poor self-concept (low self-esteem).

Recall that behaviorists generally view reinforcement as effective, and punishment as fraught with problems. The same goes for self-punishment. Bandura sees three likely results of excessive self-punishment:

a. compensation -- a superiority complex, for example, and delusions of grandeur. b. inactivity -- apathy, boredom, depression. c. escape -- drugs and alcohol, television fantasies, or even the ultimate escape, suicide.

These have some resemblance to the unhealthy personalities Adler and Horney talk about: an aggressive type, a compliant type, and an avoidant type respectively.

Bandura’s recommendations to those who suffer from poor self-concepts come straight from the three steps of self-regulation:

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1. Regarding self-observation -- know thyself! Make sure you have an accurate picture of your behavior.

2. Regarding standards -- make sure your standards aren’t set too high. Don’t set yourself up for failure! Standards that are too low, on the other hand, are meaningless.

3. Regarding self-response -- use self-rewards, not self-punishments. Celebrate your victories, don’t dwell on your failures.

Therapy

Self-control therapy

The ideas behind self-regulation have been incorporated into a therapy technique called self-control therapy. It has been quite successful with relatively simple problems of habit, such as smoking, overeating, and study habits.

1. Behavioral charts. Self-observation requires that you keep close tabs on your behavior, both before you begin changes and after. This can involve something as simple as counting how many cigarettes you smoke in a day to complex behavioral diaries. With the diary approach, you keep track of the details, the when and where of your habit. This lets you get a grip on what kinds of cues are associated with the habit: Do you smoke more after meals, with coffee, with certain friends, in certain locations...?

2. Environmental planning. Taking your lead from your behavioral charts and diaries, you can begin to alter your environment. For example, you can remove or avoid some of those cues that lead to your bad behaviors: Put away the ashtrays, drink tea instead of coffee, divorce that smoking partner.... You can find the time and place best suited for the good alternative behaviors: When and where do you find you study best? And so on.

3. Self-contracts. Finally, you arrange to reward yourself when you adhere to your plan, and possibly punish yourself when you do not. These contracts should be written down and witnessed (by your therapist, for example), and the details should be spelled out very explicitly: “I will go out to dinner on Saturday night if I smoke fewer cigarettes this week than last week. I will do paperwork instead if I do not.”

You may involve other people and have them control your rewards and punishments, if you aren’t strict enough with yourself. Beware, however: This can be murder on your relationships, as you bite their heads off for trying to do what you told them to do!

Modeling therapy

The therapy Bandura is most famous for, however, is modeling therapy. The theory is that, if you can get someone with a psychological disorder to observe someone dealing with the same issues in a more productive fashion, the first person will learn by modeling the second.

Bandura’s original research on this involved herpephobics -- people with a neurotic fear of snakes. The client would be lead to a window looking in on a lab room. In that room is nothing but a chair, a table, a cage on the table with a locked latch, and a snake clearly visible in the cage. The client then watches another person -- an actor -- go through a slow

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and painful approach to the snake. He acts terrified at first, but shakes himself out of it, tells himself to relax and breathe normally and take one step at a time towards the snake. He may stop in the middle, retreat in panic, and start all over. Ultimately, he gets to the point where he opens the cage, removes the snake, sits down on the chair, and drapes it over his neck, all the while giving himself calming instructions.

After the client has seen all this (no doubt with his mouth hanging open the whole time), he is invited to try it himself. Mind you, he knows that the other person is an actor -- there is no deception involved here, only modeling! And yet, many clients -- lifelong phobics -- can go through the entire routine first time around, even after only one viewing of the actor! This is a powerful therapy.

One drawback to the therapy is that it isn’t easy to get the rooms, the snakes, the actors, etc., together. So Bandura and his students have tested versions of the therapy using recordings of actors and even just imagining the process under the therapist’s direction. These methods work nearly as well.

Discussion

Albert Bandura has had an enormous impact on personality theory and therapy. His straightforward, behaviorist-like style makes good sense to most people. His action-oriented, problem-solving approach likewise appeals to those who want to get things done, rather than philosophize about ids, archetypes, actualization, freedom, and all the many other mentalistic constructs personologists tend to dwell on.

Among academic psychologists, research is crucial, and behaviorism has been the preferred approach. Since the late 1960’s, behaviorism has given way to the “cognitive revolution,” of which Bandura is considered a part. Cognitive psychology retains the experimentally-oriented flavor of behaviorism, without artificially restraining the researcher to external behaviors, when the mental life of clients and subjects is so obviously important.

This is a powerful movement, and the contributors include some of the most important people in psychology today: Julian Rotter, Walter Mischel, Michael Mahoney, and David Meichenbaum spring to my mind. Also involved are such theorists of therapy as Aaron Beck (cognitive therapy) and Albert Ellis (rational emotive therapy). The followers of George Kelly also find themselves in this camp. And the many people working on personality trait research -- such as Buss and Plomin (temperament theory) and McCrae and Costa (five factor theory) -- are essentially “cognitive behaviorists” like Bandura.

My gut feeling is that the field of competitors in personality theory will eventually boil down to the cognitivists on the one side and existentialists on the other. Stay tuned!

ReadingsThe place to go for Bandura’s theory is Social Foundations of Thought and Action (1986). If it’s a little too dense for you, you might want to try his earlier Social Learning Theory(1977), or even Social Learning and Personality Development (1963), which he wrote with Walters. If aggression is what you’re interested in, try Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis (1973). Copyright 1998, 2006 C. George Boeree

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