Observational learning. We do a lot of our learning, not through direct reinforcement,
not through direct punishment, not through direct exposure to stimuli that impinge upon
us physically, but on watching other people, right? We're watching stuff and we're learning
because we're a very sophisticated species, not all species can watch and learn. It looks
like apes can do this, monkeys can do this, and to some degree some other animals. But,
how many people, by show of hands know how to rob a bank? Raise your hand if you know how to
rob a bank. There you go. All you other people, seriously? You don't know how to rob a bank?
You don't have any idea how to rob a bank? I didn't ask you 'are you going to rob a bank?'
I said 'do you know how to rob a bank?' Now, how many people know how to rob a bank, but
wouldn't do it? You really don't know how to rob a bank? Or you just don't want to raise
your hand? Ah. Well, here's the thing, alright, you take in a pretend gun, right? You take
in a note, you say 'give me all the money,' That's how you do it, right? You've seen a
movie right? Have you not seen movies on bank robberies, right? I didn't say you were going
to do it, I said you know how to do it. In other words, we know how to do lots of things,
maybe successfully or unsuccessfully, right? That we don't actually do. And this
was discovered by Bandura, Albert Bandura during his Bobo doll experiment. His Bobo
doll experiment was this, he had preschool kids watch models, televised, right, they
recorded adult models beating up a Bobo doll. Bobo doll's like an old schmoo, it's got a
weight in the bottom, it's a little blow up doll, it's about this high, you whack it,
it falls over, it pops right back up, that's a Bobo doll. Huh? Bobo could look like a clown,
yea, I've got a picture of the original Bobo, and it does look like a clown. Anyway, what
they thought back in the day, was boys are naturally aggressive. Girls just aren't naturally
aggressive, girls, sugar and spice and all the things nice, you might have a crazy one
every now and then, but they just can't do that, they're not capable of aggression. So
what Bandura did was he set up some experimental conditions where he showed adults beating
up on the Bobo doll, boom, boom! And they would say things like 'pow, kick!' And they'd
sit on them and they'd do all these very specific behaviors. And then he would ask the kids
to show me the behavior you saw in the video, right? And, there are a lot of different variations
on this but the upshot is this. Initially, you asked the boys that, and they would do
what? Bam! Kick! Pow! MMM, they would do exactly what they saw and a lot of it without any
prompting. The girls would be like....right? Because, and you're like, 'well see, they
just don't do it.' But then, he offered a reward incentive, right? So then he showed
models, and he had a lot of different variations on this but if they were offered juice and
cookies and stickers, all of a sudden these girls were like bam! Bam! Pow! Pow! Kick em!
Sock em! Cookie please. Right? So it wasn't that they couldn't do it, right? It was that
they had been socialized. What happens when girls in the 50s, and all the times up until
that point started acting aggressive? Girls don't do that. They got punishment for doing
that. Boys, when they act aggressive, what? Oh man, take that out on the field, buddy,
that's right you wanna stick it to em', you've gotta be a tough guy, you've gotta be a macho
man, right? So they've got actual reinforcement for certain kinds of aggression, where girls
got punishment for aggression, and what Bandura showed was it's not a sex difference, genetic
sex difference, where men are wired to be aggressive and women are wired not to be aggressive,
it's observational learning, and this is the thing you want to know for your test. Attention
is required. Maybe you saw a bank robbery movie but you didn't pay attention. If you
didn't pay attention, you couldn't know how to do it because you, I mean you might be
able to logically conclude how you would do it, but if you didn't see it, you can't learn
it, right? If you didn't hear it, you couldn't learn it. So the observation has to occur
with attention. Then you've got to be able to remember it. Mental retention has to occur,
so you might have seen something as a kid and then forgotten about it, and that way
you learned it, but you kind of unlearned it. Reproduction must be possible, you must
be able to do the behavior before we would see the behavior, and then there must be a
motivation to exist, and that's what he found, the girls just didn't have the motivation
to do the aggressive behavior. In fact they had a motivation not to do the aggressive
behavior to be consistent with their own views of self, and their prior learning history
which says that you get punished if you behave. So, let me pull this up real quick, just for
your deeper learning. They don't need it, but you might want it. Those who left, being
they. So some learning is latent, it has occurred, but it remains un-demonstrated and we have
that all the time in our lives. There are all kinds of things we've learned that we
haven't done. So the girls had learned aggression, but they didn't demonstrate aggression. They
watched it, so they paid attention, they remembered how to do it, they could do it, but then they
wouldn't do it because there was no external incentive or any learning history that would
encourage that behavior in that circumstance. When they changed the contingency, they got
different behavior. And I use an example with my son where when he was really little he
used to watch his sister do the dishes. There's a twelve year difference between them, right?
She hated doing dishes, but he loved her, and so he wanted to do dishes, right? So he payed
attention, he could remember how, but you don't let a five year old do the dishes do
you? Right, because they're going to break them. So he couldn't really do it, he couldn't
put the dishes up, he couldn't hold onto them without dropping them so we didn't let him
do the dishes, but he pretended to do the dishes so he understood the concept. Well,
years go by, she's gone, he's there, he reaches that age, I say 'guess what? It's time to
do the dishes!' And he says what? I don't know how to do the dishes! I don't want to do the
dishes, I don't know how to do the dishes, and I bet...hmmmmm. Well, I know you've seen
it. I know you remembered it, and now I know you can do it, and if you don't do it, I'm
going to remove some of your privileges. If you do do it, you'll get to keep your privileges,
and you'll have my appreciation, and all of a sudden, dish washing happens! Right? And
so what we have is a change of motivation, where the latent learn is now manifest where
what we're really looking at is vicarious reinforcement and punishment. You could also
learn by watching other people be punished right? You don't, you don't rob a bank, no
matter how many heist pictures you've seen right? You see people rob a bank, you know
how, but you don't have the motivation because what do you see? They usually get caught and
killed or punished right? So you don't have to actually go out and try robbing a bank
and getting caught and put in prison to know not to do it. You see other people punished
and learn not to do it, or you see other people rewarded for things and learn to do it, and
that's it for this test, ya'll. I appreciate it very much you taking the time to hang out
with me a few more minutes, it was about twenty more, and I thank you. You all have a great
spring break, knock out that test when you get back.