Observational learning
Παρατηρησιακή μάθηση
Learning a behaviour by watching someone else perform it, through attention, retention and reproduction, rather than by being told about it. Under pressure the version you reproduce is the one you have watched most, not the one you understand best.
How to spot it
After the next tense conversation, ask whose sentence came out of your mouth: you can usually name the person.
The research behind the term
The term is not our invention. It comes from published research, and what follows is what that research found — our own synthesis of the published abstract, not a translation of the original.
Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory — πηγή
What it found
- Learning does not always require personal trial and error: observing another person act is enough to acquire a new behavior.
- Cognitive processes intervene between stimulus and response — attention, retention, reproduction, motivation — and determine what is ultimately learned.
- People regulate their own behavior by setting internal standards and evaluating themselves against them, not only through external rewards.
How it found it
A theoretical synthesis in book form: it gathers the experimental findings of the time on learning through modeling and unifies them into a model in which cognitive processing mediates between the environment and behavior.
What it means for communication
Communication style is learned mainly by observation; studying people who handle a difficult conversation well teaches more than abstract instruction.
Sources
Every claim on this page maps to published research. The citations link to the original source.
- Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory — Source on search.worldcat.org