Problems You Face When Growing up

My brother and I were close growing up. My mother is a severe parent, and anything contrary to what she has instructed you to do has never gone unpunished. My brother is two years older than me, so he was the most mischievous of us and frequently got himself into trouble. He liked stealing things without asking, so when a cookie jar was left behind, he had to take some for himself. This did not go undetected in most circumstances, as he was penalised for it. I never stole the cookies because I was the younger brother and was terrified of getting punished, as well as wanting to please our mother. This was due to the reason that I saw what happened when to my brother as he was being punished when he took the cookies and I never wanted that to happen to me. The desire of not being punished as well as trying my best to impress our mother by not taking the cookies made me her favorite kid and this was motivation enough for me to uphold this behavior of being a good child. This is an example e form my real life experience showing and illustrating how the Bandura theory works.

Does the example shows the necessary conditions for effective modeling?1 Why or why not?

Yes it does show the necessary conditions for effective modeling. There are four stages involved in this modeling theory. The first one is attention; in the example above this is demonstrated by the need I had to please our mother this shows that I was paying attention to what she likes. Also it is demonstrated by how I noticed what happened to my brother when he took the cookies and I did not like it as he was regularly punished for it. The second is retention; this is shown by the fact that I internalized what was happening around me and I was trying to make good out of it instead of heading the same direction my brother was headed. The third stage is reproduction where by the behavior is now shown. I never took any cookies from the jar or for that matter take anything without asking permission from my mother. I was rarely punished because I was rarely on the wrong side. This was reason enough for me to continue looking up to my mother as an inspiration as well as even want to do more to please her. Motivation is the last stage in this observational learning process and for me not being punished was a motivation enough to keep me going as well as in some cases my good behavior was rewarded by a cookie.

Bandura considered personality as an interaction between three components: the environment, behavior, and one’s psychological processes (one’s ability to entertain images in minds and language). Compare and contrast this view with traditional behaviorist views on learning.

Learning may occur in different ways. There are traditional ones like operant conditioning which takes place when a response to a certain new stimuli is reinforced. This may be seen in animals such as dog when they are being trained. Handing out a treat after a dog sits down for the first time and continuing to hand out a treat every time it sits down will make the dong associate the word sit to a treat and know that when it sits down something good will come out of it. This will make the dog learn how to sit. On the other hand the Bandura learning theory somehow in the first stages occurs sub consciously as one may not be aware that it is happening. In my case above I was learning from the mistakes of my brother not by will but because I was present and saw what was happening to him when he went the wrong way. I did not like the environment created when he was being punished hence I tried my best to avoid finding myself in the same situation and as a result I was always a good child and never found on the wrong side.

 In Sternszus and Cruess (2016) we read about a study done by Passi & Johnson (2016) which studied the role of social learning while training future physicians. The authors indicate that “Only by encouraging reflection on what has been modelled can one ensure that the tacit and implicit has been made explicit”. Do you have, or any of your teachers implemented, a mechanism of reflection (writing, discussion, etc) to facilitate your learning? How effective is this mechanism of reflection for your own learning processes?

Yes, personally I have employed reflection in my learning process many times as well as seen many of my teacher’s incorporating in to the learning process. Reflection is a very important stage and part of learning as one is able to look behind at what they have covered and make sense out of it. Forming a group of five people after the end of a class that was difficult to understand will help has helped me many times to be able to get what the teacher was saying in class as we all have different understanding capacities hence what I get may not be the same as what my other four friends will grasp but by coming together as a group and discussing the whole lesson will help as we will share what each and every one of us understood and at the end of the day we will all have learned something more than what we had in the beginning. Wring down or taking notes is also another method reflection that really helps the learning process. When we write down we are more likely to remember than when we only listen. Personally I like to write a lot whenever I read something I and want to remember it, usually I go ahead close the book after finishing to read then take a notebook and star putting down whatever I can remember. In most cases anything that I write down I always remember it hence reflection is a very important part of the learning process.

1Necessary conditions for effective modeling are attention, retention, reproduction and motivation.