Lecture 9
Overview of topics
Social Learning Theory
Inferential Social Learning
Sociocultural Theory and Zone of Proximal Development
Study proposal
A central question in cognitive development research: How do children achieve the
incredible amount of learning that they do in the first year of life?
Social learning theory and observational learning
children learn by observing others and imitating what they see - this is how they
acquire novel behaviors
faster than trial and error and independent exploration
cultural learning and socialization
Al Bandura
children can do so much more than imitate
build abstract theory-like beliefs of the world and how we interact with it
Inferential Social Learning
learning and teaching are social processes that operate through the same
inferential mechanisms
both learners and teachers are active participants
when a teacher the child will
is shown to be unreliable be more discerning and/or choose to learn from someone else
(Pasquini 2007, mills 2013)
consistently fails to provide full
explanations
rely more on own exploration rather than taking demonstration
at face value (gweon, 2014)
change their learning behavior based on the inferences they have made about their
teachers
in order to fully understand how children learn from others, we must look closely at
how children reason about the social learning interactions they engage in
how children approach challenges
