Now listen to part of a lecture in a psychology class.
(male professor) OK, so an example to illustrate this, uh, you've often see this happen in families, let's say, there're these two kids, a sister and the brother. Uh, let's say the girl is six and the boy's four, and one day they're all out shopping with their mother, and they're in the store, and the girl sees a toy she wants. She asks her mother to buy, uh, to buy the toy for her but the mother says “no.” So, what does the little girl do? She starts crying and screaming and, you know, “Mommy, I want this!” And, finally, Mom gives in and says, “OK, fine, you can have it,” and buys the girl the toy.Now, don't forget, the little brother's there and he's watching all this happen, and maybe he sees these sorts of thing happen a lot, as mother giving in when his sister cries and screams. What do you think he's going to start doing when he wants something from Mom? He'll probably cry and scream, right?But, what if the opposite happened? Say Mom didn't give in and didn't buy the girl the toy, if fact, say, the Mom instead disciplined the girl for screaming and crying when they got home she didn’t let the little girl watch her favorite TV program. Again, the little boy is watching. Now, what’s the little boy likely to do if he finds himself in a similar situation and he wants Mom to buy him something? Chances are, he’s not gonna cry and scream. Right?
Use the examples from the lecture to explain the concept of social learning.
Sometimes people learn by watching the behavior of others, which is called social learning. And according to the professor there're two situations of this. When people realize that the behavior may lead to desirable consequence, they're likely to copy it. For example, a 4-year-old boy goes out shopping with his mother and his 6-year-old sister. And he sees how his sister gets the doll she wants by crying after their mother refuses her request to buy one. So next time the boy wants to get something he likes, he probably will do that, too. However, when people realize that the consequence is undesirable, they will not copy the behavior. Back to the boy, if his sister doesn't get the toy and is even punished later at home, like that their mother doesn't allow her to watch her favorite TV program, the boy probably won't scream or cry the next time he wants something from his mother. This is how social learning influences the boy's behavior. (171 words)
