1. Cognitive Learning & Observational Learning
Observational & Cognitive Learning
Cognitive Learning & Observational Learning

2. Observational & Cognitive Learning: My Q’s
Describe how Bandura discovered Observational Learning.
What is insight and how did the chimp in Kohler’s study prove it?
What is learned helplessness?

3. What Started Observational Learning Theory?
Preschool children were put in a room with an adult and several toys.
During the first experiment, the adult played with the toys in an unaggressive manner.
When the children were left alone, they played with the toys in a similar way.
During the next experiment, the adults violently played with their toys.
This time the children did exactly the same thing, punching, slapping, even kicking their toys.
Bandura, the psychologist who set up this experiment, demonstrated that children will imitate the aggressive actions of a model when there is no reinforcement for doing so.

4. How does Observational Learning Function in Everyday Life?
Bandura determined that four elements needed to be present for observational learning to occur.
Attention: The learner must first pay attention to the model.
Memory: The learner must also be able to retain the memory of what was done.
Imitation: The learner must be capable of imitating the actions of what was done.
Motivation: The learner must have the desire to perform the action.

5. What is Cognitive Learning Theory?
Cognitive learning theory states that learning requires cognition, or the influence of an organism’s thought process.
Edward Tolman, a psychologist, found that rats that were allowed to wander in a maze but were not reinforced still showed evidence of having learned the maze once reinforcement became possible.
He termed the hidden learning latent learning, a form of cognitive learning.

6. Smart Chimps
Wolfgang Kohler studied Primates in the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa.
In his famous experiment, Kohler placed a banana just out of the reach of a chimpanzee named Sultan.
First, Sultan used a stick to get the banana.
Next, Kohler placed the banana just out of the reach of Sultan including his stick.
Sultan, upset with his inability to get the banana, appeared to think hard and finally put two sticks together to get the banana.
Kohler called the ability of Sultan to problem solve insight, or the sudden perception of the relationships among elements of a problem.

7. Learned Helplessness
Cognitive psychologist Martin Seligman in the late 1960s performed experiments on dogs.
Seligman presented a tone followed by a harmless but painful shock to one group of dogs. The dogs were harnessed so that they could not escape the shock.
The researchers assumed that the dogs would learn to fear the sound of the tone and try to escape from the tone before being shocked.
These same dogs were then placed in an environment with a low fence with another group of dogs.
When the tone and the shock was applied the new dogs jumped the fence, but the conditioned dogs just sat there, visibly afraid of what was to come.
The theory of learned helplessness, which is the tendency to fail to act because of a history of repeated failures, comes from this experiment.