OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING

One person performs act, another observes, and observer acquires ability to repeat act.

Requires:

1) attention

2) retention

3) production

4) performance

Modeling and Aggression

Symbolic Models

Bandura (1961, 1963):

• Group 1: real life aggressive models
• Group 2: models portraying aggression on film
• Group 3: Aggressive cartoon character
• Group 4: Control

Subjects who had been exposed to aggression exhibited more aggression

1) Observing gives us ideas

2) Observing violence being rewarded

promotes the belief that aggression is

okay

• 2^nd Bandura experiment

3) Observing violence repeatedly

desensitizes us to violence

Sex Role Acquisition

behavioral qualities that people in a given culture see as more desirable, or more appropriate, in one sex than the other

How we learn these rules:

1) Explicit and verbal

2) Observational learning

3) Social reinforcement

4) Symbolic models

5) Peers

Aggression

Competitiveness

Dominance

social versus physical

1) Testosterone

Boys do have more!

Linked to aggression and preferences

2) Pain sensitivity

As newborns, girls are more sensitive to pain and external stimulation

But, overall, more evidence for socialization forces than biological forces

Assumptions:

1. Need to understand how people deal with information
2. Life is an elaborate web of decisions
3. Human behavior is goal directed
4. People are scientists imposing organization on the world

SCHEMAS = mental organizations of knowledge or knowledge structures

We use schemas to recognize and understand new events

They are the GLUE that holds information together in our minds

Schemas contain both specific and generic information:

EXEMPLARS vs. GENERIC

Schemas could take different forms:

1. they may form around a PROTOTYPE
2. they may form around a FUZZY SET

What are the effects of schemas?

1. Easier to encode information
2. Fill gaps in our memory
3. Make our memory selective

There are different types of schemas:

1. Social cognition – schemas about the social world
2. Self-Schemas – organize knowledge of ourselves

• Influence how we interpret and recall events
• Larger and more complex than other schemas
• Includes emotional elements
• Vary in self-complexity

1. Schemas of abilities

MEMORY

Refers to organization of schemas:

1. Semantic = organized according to meaning/concepts
2. Episodic = memory for distinct events

When enough episodes of a particular event have been experienced a SCRIPT is formed

Script = well-defined sequences of behavior that tell us what to expect

Example: eating out at a restaurant

ATTRIBUTIONS

Judgments about the cause of an event or outcome.

FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR

Attributions about success and failure can be made along several lines:

1. Internal vs. External
2. Stable (ability) vs. Temporary (effort)
3. Global vs. Specific

Generally we see our own successes as internal and stable and failures as external and unstable.

Different in depressed individuals.

COGNTIVE PERSON VARIABLES

Mischel proposed that an adequate cognitive theory of personality needs to take into account:

1. Competencies
2. Encoding Strategies
3. Expectancies
4. Values
5. Self-Regulatory Systems & Plans

DEPRESSIVE SELF-SCHEMAS

Beck and Ellis argue that depression can result from negative appraisals and use of negative schemas to interpret events.

These schemas can produce a stream of automatic thoughts.

Depressed schemas include negative thinking in three areas = COGNITIVE TRIAD

SELF, WORLD, FUTURE

Depressed individuals make several cognitive errors:

1. Overgeneralizing
2. Arbitrary inference
3. Catastrophizing