When reading all the chapters in the book, it is easily seen that learning can take place in different fashions. While reading I was reminded of an experiment that I had learned about in my sociology class that did play a role in our material. It was called the doll test, and it was done on a group of children and they would have to say which doll was the pretty doll or the nice doll, and the doll was either black or white. We can see by this experiment how much observational learning plays a part in a child's life. They pick up these negative thoughts based on the places they live, or maybe even by observing their parents displaying these negative thoughts. Observational learning is a huge part of Bandura's social learning theory and can be seen all throughout this test.
I have seen this experiment before and always am blown away by it. First of all it really saddens me that children make these kind of connections between "good" and "bad" based on colors of skin. Secondly it just amazes me how much children can pick up on from listening and observing from parents and guardians or just from things they see on TV or out in the world.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Caitlin's comment, no matter how many times one can watch this experiment, I am always shocked. This proves there is much to learn and carry life lessons from when you are so young. I believe in today's world that more things are becoming diverse and more people seek to become culturally competent. Observational learning plays a huge role in the all lives but especially children... We could only hope to change the way our children see the world so they grow up to teach the future generations to come.
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