Observational learning lets one model reach vast dispersed populations at once
Evidence
There are two basic modes of learning: through direct experience and through the power of social modeling. Direct experience is a laborious and tough teacher. Fortunately, humans have evolved an advanced capacity for observational learning through social modeling, which shortcuts this tedious process. The traditional psychological theories were formulated long before the revolutionary advance in information technologies. As a result, these theories focused mainly on learning by direct experience in the immediate physical and social environment. Unlike in learning by doing, whereby individuals alter their actions through repeated trial-and-error experiences, in observational learning a single model can transmit new ways of thinking and behaving simultaneously to vast populations in widely dispersed locales. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 712
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- XREF: Connects to how media symbolic environments shape behavior - ties to my prior material on communication technology shaping culture.
Related
- A single social model can transmit behavior to vast dispersed populations at once (similarity 0.92)
- Social modeling through media can bypass trial-and-error limits and spread behavior change worldwide (similarity 0.86)
- Learning mechanisms were conflated with actual practice in the media-violence debate. (similarity 0.83)
- Observational learning requires attention, representation, production, and motivation (similarity 0.83)
- People act largely on mediated images rather than direct experience (similarity 0.80)
- People act on media-formed images of reality more than on direct experience. (similarity 0.80)
- Ongoing engagement with relatable storylines drives social learning far more than brief exposure (similarity 0.79)
- Social networks sustain behavior change once media has first motivated it (similarity 0.79)