Developmental Psychology

DEFINING DEVELOPMENT and THE LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE

Development can be defined as systematic changes and continuities in the individual that occur between conception
and death, or from “womb to tomb.” Development entails many changes; by describing these changes as systematic, we
imply that they are orderly, patterned, and relatively enduring—not fleeting and unpredictable like mood swings.

The Life-Span Perspective. The belief that development occurs throughout life is central to the life-span perspective on
human development, but this perspective has other characteristics as well. According to life-span development, the life-
span perspective views development as lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and
contextual, and as a process that involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss

COMPONENTS OF THE LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE

▪ Development Is Lifelong

▪ Development Is Multidimensional

▪ Development Is Multidirectional

▪ Development Is Plastic

▪ Developmental Science Is Multidisciplinary

▪ Development Is Contextual

▪ Development Involves Growth, Maintenance, and Regulation of Loss

▪ Development Is a Co-construction of Biology, Culture, and the Individual

Development Is Lifelong. In the life-span perspective, early adulthood is not the endpoint of development; rather, no
age period dominates development.

Development Is Multidimensional. No matter what your age might be, your body, mind, emotions, and relationships
are changing and affecting each other. Development has biological, cognitive, and socioemotional dimensions.

Development Is Multidirectional. Throughout life, some dimensions or components of a dimension expand and others
shrink. Even within a dimension, there are many components. For example, attention, memory, abstract thinking, speed
of processing information, and social intelligence are just a few of the components of the cognitive dimension.

Development Is Plastic. Plasticity means the capacity for change. For example, can you still improve your intellectual
skills when you are in your seventies or eighties? Or might these intellectual skills be fixed by the time you are in your
thirties so that further improvement is impossible? Researchers have found that the cognitive skills of older adults can
be improved through training and acquisition of effective strategies.

Developmental Science Is Multidisciplinary. Psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, neuroscientists, and medical

researchers all share an interest in unlocking the mysteries of development through the life span.

Development Is Contextual. All development occurs within a context or setting. Contexts include families, schools, peer
groups, churches, cities, neighborhoods, university laboratories, countries, and so on. Each of these settings is
influenced by historical, economic, social, and cultural factors.

Contexts, like individuals, change. Thus, individuals are changing beings in a changing world. As a result of these
changes, contexts exert three types of influences:
 ▪ Normative age-graded influences are similar for individuals in a particular age group. These influences include
biological processes such as puberty and menopause.

▪ Normative history-graded influences are common to people of a particular generation because of historical
circumstances. Long-term changes in the genetic and cultural makeup of a population (due to immigration or
changes in fertility rates) are also part of normative historical change.

▪ Nonnormative life events are unusual occurrences that have a major impact on the lives of individual people.
These events do not happen to everyone, and when they do occur they can influence people in different ways

Development Involves Growth, Maintenance, and Regulation of Loss. The mastery of life often involves conflicts and
competition among three goals of human development: growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss. As individuals age
into middle and late adulthood, the maintenance and regulation of loss in their capacities takes center stage.

Development Is a Co-construction of Biology, Culture, and the Individual. Development is a co-construction of

biological, cultural, and individual factors working together. For example, the brain shapes culture, but it is also shaped
by culture and the experiences that individuals have or pursue.

The Nature of Development: Biological, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes

▪ Biological processes – produce changes in an individual’s physical nature. Genes inherited from parents, brain
development, height and weight gains, changes in motor skills, nutrition, exercise, the hormonal changes of
puberty, and cardiovascular decline are all examples of biological processes that affect development.
▪ Cognitive processes – refer to changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence, and language.
▪ Socioemotional processes – involve changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in
emotions, and changes in personality.
The prenatal period is the time from conception to birth.

Infancy is the developmental period from birth to 18 or 24

months or the first 2 years of life. It is a time of extreme
dependence upon adults. The term toddler is often used to
describe a child from about 1 ½ to 3 years of age. Toddlers
are in a transitional period between infancy and the next
period, early childhood.

Early childhood is the developmental period from 3 to 5 or 6

years of age. This period is sometimes called the “preschool
years.” During this time, young children learn to become
more self-sufficient and to care for themselves.

Middle childhood is the developmental period from about 6

to 10 or 11 years of age, approximately corresponding to the
elementary school years.

Adolescence is the developmental period of transition from

childhood to early adulthood, entered at approximately 12
years of age and ending at 18 to 20 years of age. Adolescence
begins with rapid physical changes—dramatic gains in height
and weight, changes in body contour, and the development
of sexual characteristics such as enlargement of the breasts,
growth of pubic and facial hair, and deepening of the voice.
Early adulthood is the developmental period that begins in the early twenties and lasts through the thirties. It is a time
of establishing personal and economic independence, advancing in a career, and for many, selecting a mate, learning to
live with that person in an intimate way, starting a family, and rearing children.

Middle adulthood is the developmental period from approximately 40 to about 65 years of age. It is a time of expanding
personal and social involvement and responsibility.

Late adulthood is the developmental period that begins during the sixties or seventies and lasts until death.

DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

▪ Nature and Nurture - The nature-nurture issue involves the extent to which development is influenced by
nature and by nurture. Nature refers to an organism’s biological inheritance, nurture to its environmental
experiences. By contrast, other psychologists emphasize the importance of nurture, or environmental
experiences, in development.

▪ Continuity and Discontinuity - Debate about whether we become older renditions of our early experience
(stability) or whether we develop into someone different from who we were at an earlier point in development
(change).

▪ Stability and Change - Debate about the extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative change
(continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).

Theories of Development

▪ Scientific method - An approach that can be used to obtain accurate information. It includes the following steps:
(1) conceptualize the problem, (2) collect data, (3) draw conclusions, and (4) revise research conclusions and
theory.

▪ Theory - An interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain phenomena and facilitate predictions.

▪ Hypotheses - Specific assumptions and predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES

Psychoanalytic theories describe development as primarily unconscious (beyond awareness) and heavily colored by
emotion. Psychoanalytic theorists emphasize that behavior is merely a surface characteristic and that a true
understanding of development requires analyzing the symbolic meanings of behavior and the deep inner workings
of the mind.

Freud’s Theory – Psychosexual Stages of Development

According to Freud, children go through a series of psychosexual stages that lead to the development of the adult
personality. Freud’s stages of human development, which consisted of five psychosexual stages describes how
personality develops over the course of childhood.

▪ Freud believed that personality developed through a series of childhood stages in which the pleasure-seeking
energies of the id become focused on certain erogenous areas. An erogenous zone is characterized as an area of
the body that is particularly sensitive to stimulation.

▪ During the five psychosexual stages, which are the oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital stages, the erogenous
zone associated with each stage serves as a source of pleasure.
Psychoanalytic theory suggests that personality is mostly established by the age of five. Early experiences play a
large role in personality development and continue to influence behavior later in life.

Each stage of development is marked by conflicts that can help build growth or stifle development, depending upon
how they are resolved. If these psychosexual stages are completed successfully, a healthy personality is the result.

If certain issues are not resolved at the appropriate stage, fixations can occur. A fixation is a persistent focus on an
earlier psychosexual stage.

The Oral Stage – Age Range: Birth to 1 Year

Erogenous Zone: Mouth

▪ During the oral stage, the infant's primary source of interaction occurs through the mouth, so the rooting and
sucking reflex is especially important. The mouth is vital for eating, and the infant derives pleasure from oral
stimulation through gratifying activities such as tasting and sucking.

▪ The primary conflict at this stage is the weaning process--the child must become less dependent upon
caretakers. If fixation occurs at this stage, Freud believed the individual would have issues with dependency
or aggression.

The Anal Stage – Age Range: 1 to 3 years

Erogenous Zone: Bowel and Bladder Control

▪ During the anal stage, Freud believed that the primary focus of the libido was on controlling bladder and bowel
movements. The major conflict at this stage is toilet training—the child has to learn to control their bodily
needs. Developing this control leads to a sense of accomplishment and independence.

▪ According to Freud, success at this stage is dependent upon the way in which parents approach toilet training.
Parents who utilize praise and rewards for using the toilet at the appropriate time encourage positive outcomes
and help children feel capable and productive.

▪ Inappropriate parental responses can result in negative outcomes. If parents take an approach that is too
lenient, Freud suggested that an anal-expulsive personality could develop in which the individual has a messy,
wasteful, or destructive personality.

▪ If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed that an anal-retentive
personality develops in which the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive.

The Phallic Stage – Age Range: 3 to 6 Years

Erogenous Zone: Genitals

▪ Freud suggested that during the phallic stage, the primary focus of the libido is on the genitals. At this age,
children also begin to discover the differences between males and females.

▪ Freud also believed that boys begin to view their fathers as a rival for the mother’s affection. The Oedipus
complex describes these feelings of wanting to possess the mother and the desire to replace the father.
However, the child also fears that he will be punished by the father for these feelings, a fear Freud
termed castration anxiety.

▪ The term Electra complex has been used to describe a similar set of feelings experienced by young girls. Freud,
however, believed that girls instead experience penis envy.
 ▪ Eventually, the child begins to identify with the same-sex parent as a means of vicariously possessing the other
parent. For girls, however, Freud believed that penis envy was never fully resolved and that all women remain
somewhat fixated on this stage.

▪ A boy experiencing an Oedipus complex loves his mother, fears that his father will retaliate by castrating him,
and resolves this conflict through identification with his father.

▪ Identification - involves taking on or internalizing the attitudes and behaviors of another person; the Oedipal
boy defends against his forbidden desire for his mother and hostility toward his father by possessing his mother
vicariously through his now-admired and less fear-provoking father.

▪ Meanwhile, a girl experiencing an Electra complex ultimately resolve her conflict by identifying with her mother.

The Latent Period – Age Range: 6 to Puberty

Erogenous Zone: Sexual Feelings Are Inactive

▪ The development of the ego and superego contributes to this period of calm. The stage begins around the time
that children enter school and become more concerned with peer relationships, hobbies, and other interests.

▪ The latent period is a time of exploration in which the sexual energy is repressed or dormant.

▪ Fixation at this stage can result in immaturity and an inability to form fulfilling relationships as an adult.

The Genital Stage – Age Range: Puberty to Death

Erogenous Zone: Maturing Sexual Interests

▪ The onset of puberty causes the libido to become active once again. During the final stage of psychosexual
development, the individual develops a strong sexual interest in the opposite sex. This stage begins during
puberty but last throughout the rest of a person's life.

▪ Unlike many of the earlier stages of development, Freud believed that the ego and superego were fully formed
and functioning at this point.

Criticisms of the Psychosexual Stages of Development

▪ The theory is focused almost entirely on male development with little mention of female psychosexual
development.

▪ His theories are difficult to test scientifically.

▪ Future predictions are too vague.

▪ Freud's theory is based on case studies and not empirical research.

▪ Ignores Homosexuality

Defense Mechanisms

To defend itself against anxiety, the ego adopts unconscious coping devices called defense mechanisms. Some examples
include:

▪ Repression or removing unacceptable thoughts or traumatic memories from consciousness.

▪ Regression or retreating to an earlier, less traumatic stage of development.

▪ Projection or seeing in others the motives we fear we possess.

▪ Reaction formation or expressing motives that are just the opposite of one’s real motives
Erikson: Neo-Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory
The Neo-Freudian who most influenced the thinking about life-span development was Erik Erikson.

Erikson studied with Anna Freud and emigrated from Germany to the United States when Hitler rose to power.

Like Sigmund Freud, Erikson concerned himself with the inner dynamics of personality and proposed that the personality
evolves through systematic stages. However, compared with Freud, Erikson:

▪ Placed less emphasis on sexual urges as the drivers of development and more emphasis on social influences
such as peers, teachers, schools, and the broader culture.

▪ Placed less emphasis on the unconscious, irrational, and selfish id and more on the rational ego and its adaptive
powers.

▪ Held a more positive view of human nature, seeing people as active in their development, largely rational, and
able to overcome the effects of harmful early experiences.

▪ Put more emphasis on development after adolescence

▪ Erikson believed that humans everywhere experience eight major psychosocial stages, or conflicts, during their
lives.

▪ According to Erikson, developmental change occurs throughout the life span.

▪ Freud viewed early experience as being far more important than later experiences, whereas Erikson emphasized
the importance of both early and later experiences
Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial stages of Development
▪ Trust versus mistrust is Erikson’s first psychosocial stage, which is experienced in the first year of life. The
development of trust during infancy sets the stage for a lifelong expectation that the world will be a good and
pleasant place to live.

▪ Autonomy versus shame and doubt is Erikson’s second stage. This stage occurs in late infancy and toddlerhood
(1 to 3 years). After gaining trust in their caregivers, infants begin to discover that their behavior is their own.
They start to assert their sense of independence or autonomy.

▪ Initiative versus guilt, Erikson’s third stage of development, occurs during the preschool years. As preschool
children encounter a widening social world, they face new challenges that require active, purposeful,
responsible behavior. Feelings of guilt may arise, though, if the child is irresponsible and is made to feel too
anxious.

▪ Industry versus inferiority is Erikson’s fourth developmental stage, occurring approximately during the
elementary school years. Children now need to direct their energy toward mastering knowledge and intellectual
skills. The negative outcome is that the child may develop a sense of inferiority—feeling incompetent and
unproductive.

▪ Identity versus identity confusion - If adolescents explore roles in a healthy manner and arrive at a positive
path to follow in life, then they achieve a positive identity; if they do not, identity confusion reigns.

▪ Intimacy versus isolation - At this time, individuals face the developmental task of forming intimate
relationships. If young adults form healthy friendships and intimate relationship with another, intimacy will be
achieved; if not, isolation will result.

▪ Generativity versus stagnation – Erikson’s seventh developmental stage, occurs during middle adulthood. By
generativity, Erikson means primarily a concern for helping the younger generation to develop and lead useful
lives. The feeling of having done nothing to help the next generation is stagnation.

▪ Integrity versus despair – is Erikson’s eighth and final stage of development, which individuals experience in late
adulthood. During this stage, a person reflects on the past. If the person’s life review reveals a life well spent,
integrity will be achieved; if not, the retrospective glances likely will yield doubt or gloom—the despair Erikson
described.

Theory of Cognitive Development – Jean Piaget

▪ Jean Piaget – a Swiss psychologist, states that children go through four stages of cognitive development as they
actively construct their understanding of the world.

▪ Each child goes through the stages in the same order, and child development is determined by biological
maturation and interaction with the environment.

The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: Birth to 2 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

▪ The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions (moving around and exploring
their environment).

▪ During the sensorimotor stage, a range of cognitive abilities develop. These include object permanence; self-
recognition; deferred imitation; and representational play.
The Preoperational Stage (Ages: 2 – 7 Years)

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

▪ Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental
imagery.

▪ During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing, such
as a word or an object, stand for something other than itself.

▪ A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It is not yet capable of logical
(problem-solving) type of thought.

▪ The child has difficulties with class inclusion; he can classify objects but cannot include objects in sub-sets, which
involves simultaneously classifying objects as belonging to two or more categories.

▪ Infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living objects
(such as toys) have life and feelings.

The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 – 11 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

▪ During this stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events.

▪ Children begin to understand the concept of conservation; understanding that, although things may change in
appearance, certain properties remain the same.

▪ During this stage, children can mentally reverse things (e.g. picture a ball of plasticine returning to its original
shape).

▪ During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think
and feel.

Formal Operational Stage

11 years old Through Adulthood

Major Characteristics And Developmental Changes:

▪ Begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems

▪ Begins to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require theoretical and
abstract reasoning

▪ Begins to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information

The adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic, and logical ways

The formal operational stage, which appears between the ages of 11 and 15 and continues through adulthood, is
Piaget’s fourth and final stage. In this stage, individuals move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think in
abstract and more logical terms.

As part of thinking more abstractly, adolescents develop images of ideal circumstances. In solving problems, they
become more systematic, developing hypotheses about why something is happening the way it is.
Schemas

▪ Piaget claimed that knowledge cannot simply emerge from sensory experience; some initial structure is
necessary to make sense of the world.

▪ Piaget (1952, p. 7) defined a schema as: “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions
that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning.”

Operations

▪ Operations are more sophisticated mental structures which allow us to combine schemas in a logical
(reasonable) way.

▪ As children grow they can carry out more complex operations and begin to imagine hypothetical (imaginary)
situations.

The Process Of Adaptation

▪ Piaget also believed that a child developed as a result of two different influences: maturation, and interaction
with the environment. The child develops mental structures (schemata) which enable him to solve problems in
the environment.

▪ Adaptation is the process by which the child changes its mental models of the world to match more closely how
the world actually is.

▪ Adaptation is brought about by the processes of assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation

▪ Assimilation occurs when the new experience is not very different from previous experiences of a particular
object or situation we assimilate the new situation by adding information to a previous schema.

Accommodation

▪ Accommodation: when the new experience is very different from what we have encountered before we need to
change our schemas in a very radical way or create a whole new schema.

Equilibration

▪ Equilibrium occurs when a child’s schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However,
an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas
(assimilation).

▪ It is the force that drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance
by mastering the new challenge (accommodation).

Vygotsky's Theory of Sociocultural Cognitive Development

▪ The sociocultural theory of cognitive development explores the influence the world has on individual
development. It asserts that learning is a mostly social process whereby development occurs through
interactions with people who possess more knowledge or skill than the learner.

▪ Psychologist Lev Vygotsky established this theory of learning, believing that parents, teachers, peers, caregivers,
and society at large influence an individual’s cognitive development.
Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development

▪ The concept of the zone of proximal development is used to explain a child's potential for cognitive
development and ability when they are guided through a task, rather than asked to do it in isolation.

▪ It can be described as the distance between the actual developmental level when assessed independently and
the level of potential development when assessed in collaboration with peers or mentors or under the guidance
of a teacher.

Stages - Zone of Proximal Development:

▪ Tasks a learner can accomplish without assistance

This refers to tasks that the learner can perform independently. If the learner has reached this stage, the teacher or
mentor will need to increase the level of difficulty of the task in order to facilitate further learning.

▪ Tasks a learner can accomplish with assistance

This is referred to as their zone of proximal development. In this stage, the learner needs the guidance of a more
knowledgeable other to help them complete the task.

▪ Tasks a learner cannot accomplish with assistance

This refers to tasks that the learner cannot do, even with the guidance of a more knowledgeable person. If the
learner's ability falls within this range, the level of difficulty may need to be decreased to accommodate their skill
set.

BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORIES

Behaviorism as a movement in psychology appeared in 1913 when John B. Watson published the classic article
Psychology as the behaviorist views it.

Everything from speech to emotional responses were simply patterns of stimulus and response. Watson believed
that all individual differences in behavior were due to different experiences of learning.

John Watson proposed that the process of classical conditioning (based on Pavlov’s observations) was able to
explain all aspects of human psychology.

Ivan Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning is a type of unconscious or automatic learning. This learning process creates a conditioned
response through associations between an unconditioned stimulus and a neutral stimulus.

One of the best-known examples of classical conditioning is Pavlov's classic experiments with dogs. In these
experiments, the neutral signal was the sound of a tone and the naturally occurring reflex was salivating in response
to food. By associating the neutral stimulus (sound) with the unconditioned stimulus (food), the sound of the tone
alone could produce a salivation response.

In a famous experiment, Pavlov demonstrated how dogs, who have an innate (unlearned) tendency to salivate at the
sight of food, could learn to salivate at the sound of a bell if, during a training period, the bell was regularly sounded
just as a dog was given meat powder.
Neutral Stimulus

A neutral stimulus is a stimulus that doesn't initially trigger a response on its own. If you hear the sound of a fan but
don't feel the breeze, for example, it wouldn't necessarily trigger a response. That would make it a neutral stimulus.

Conditioned Stimulus

A conditioned stimulus is a stimulus that was once neutral (didn't trigger a response) but now leads to a response. If
you previously didn't pay attention to dogs, but then got bit by one, and now you feel fear every time you see a dog,
the dog has become a conditioned stimulus.

Unconditioned Response

An unconditioned response is an automatic response or a response that occurs without thought when an
unconditioned stimulus is present. If you smell your favorite food and your mouth starts watering, the watering is an
unconditioned response.

Conditioned Response

A conditioned response is a learned response or a response that is created where no response existed before. Going
back to the example of being bit by a dog, the fear you experience after the bite is a conditioned response.

Skinner’s Operant Conditioning

B. F. Skinner (1905–1990), probably the most famous American psychologist had a long, distinguished career at
Harvard University and a huge impact on approaches to behavior change.

Operant conditioning, or instrumental conditioning, is a theory of learning where behavior is influenced by its
consequences. Behavior that is reinforced (rewarded) will likely be repeated, and behavior that is punished will
occur less frequently.

Skinner identified three types of responses, or operant, that can follow behavior:

▪ Neutral operants - responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a
behavior being repeated.

▪ Reinforcers - Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated.
Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.

▪ Punishers - Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.
Punishment weakens behavior.

Reinforcement in Operant Conditioning

Reinforcement is any event that strengthens or increases the behavior it follows.

▪ Positive reinforcers - are favorable events or outcomes that are presented after the behavior. In positive
reinforcement situations, a response or behavior is strengthened by the addition of praise or a direct reward.

▪ Negative reinforcers - involve the removal of an unfavorable events or outcomes after the display of a behavior.
In these situations, a response is strengthened by the removal of something considered unpleasant.

Punishment in Operant Conditioning

Punishment is the presentation of an adverse event or outcome that causes a decrease in the behavior it follows.
There are two kinds of punishment.
 ▪ Positive punishment - sometimes referred to as punishment by application, presents an unfavorable event or
outcome in order to weaken the response it follows.

▪ Negative punishment - also known as punishment by removal, occurs when a favorable event or outcome is
removed after a behavior occurs.

Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory

American psychologist Albert Bandura (1925– ) is the leading architect of social cognitive theory. Bandura emphasizes
that cognitive processes have important links with the environment and behavior. His early research program focused
heavily on observational learning (also called imitation or modeling), which is learning that occurs through observing
what others do.

Origins: The Bobo Doll Experiment

Social cognitive theory can trace its origins to Bandura and his colleagues; in particular, a series of well-known studies on
observational learning known as the Bobo Doll experiment.

The children in Bandura’s studies observed an adult acting violently toward a Bobo doll. When the children were later
allowed to play in a room with the Bobo doll, they began to imitate the aggressive actions they had previously observed.

The following steps are involved in the observational learning and modeling process:

▪ Attention: In order to learn, you need to be paying attention. Anything that distracts your attention is going to
have a negative effect on observational learning. If the model is interesting or there is a novel aspect of the
situation, you are far more likely to dedicate your full attention to learning.

▪ Retention: The ability to store information is also an important part of the learning process. Retention can be
affected by a number of factors, but the ability to pull up information later and act on it is vital to observational
learning.

▪ Reproduction: Once you have paid attention to the model and retained the information, it is time to actually
perform the behavior you observed. Further practice of the learned behavior leads to improvement and skill
advancement.

▪ Motivation: Finally, in order for observational learning to be successful, you have to be motivated to imitate the
behavior that has been modeled. Reinforcement and punishment play an important role in motivation.

The SCT suggests that we learn from one another throughout our lives via the following processes:

▪ Observation – We observe other people’s behavior.

▪ Imitation – Following observation, we assimilate and imitate the observed behavior.

▪ Modeling – We are more likely to imitate behavior modeled by people we perceive as similar to ourselves.