Observational learning provides a framework for understanding the intergenerational cycle of abuse. Research indicates that children who witness parents using violent or aggressive acts to manage anger and frustration can learn these behaviors themselves. This modeling helps explain why a notable percentage of child abuse victims, approximately 30%, later become abusive parents, as they tend to replicate the behaviors they know.

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Observational learning can produce both positive (prosocial) and negative (antisocial) outcomes. Individuals may adopt helpful behaviors by observing positive role models, leading to prosocial effects. Conversely, observing aggressive or harmful actions can result in antisocial effects, where negative behaviors are imitated. Classic experiments, like Bandura's Bobo Doll study, demonstrate how observed consequences influence whether prosocial or antisocial behaviors are replicated.

Prosocial and Antisocial Effects of Observational Learning

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

People are more likely to help others in a variety of ways after being exposed to media promoting prosocial behavior (i.e playing a prosocial video game or listening to a song with prosocial lyrics)

Effects of Media on Prosocial Behavior

Priming: The process of spreading activation in one area of the brain that deals with external observed stimulus excites another part of the brain that represents cognition, emotion, or behavior. The external stimulus is connected to cognition. The primed concepts allow for behaviors to be attached easily. If media violence excites aggressive concepts, then it is likely that aggression occurs. 

Arousal: Aggressive behavior arouses the observer briefly based on excitation transfer and general arousal. A stimulus arousing an emotion is more severe due to the emotional response being wrongfully identified. If an increase in arousal is stimulated, then the inhibition of inappropriate responses decreases, and dominant responses are exhibited in social problem-solving. 

Mimicry: This process is seen as a particular case of observational learning. Children observing social behaviors around them are likelier to mimic or copy them. This can be attributed to mirror neurons that start when a behavior is seen or copied.

Short-Term Effects of Media Violence

Observational Learning: A person's social behavior is controlled by the interaction between a situation and their emotional state, schemas of the world, beliefs on what is appropriate, and how to behave socially. Throughout childhood, children encrypt what behaviors to reenact into their memory based on observing others around them. They create individual beliefs as they engage in activities and view their world.

Desensitization: There is an increase in long-term effects based on mass media, video games, and emotions. Continuous exposure to specific media or video games leads to tolerance and a lack of natural reactions to the content. For a person to become desensitized to violent media or games, they consume enough for there to be a lack of negative responses. 

Enactive Learning: Children learn how to act in specific ways by interacting with different media types. Engaging in violent behaviors through violent games can have long-term effects on arousal in comparison to other forms of media.

Long-Term Effects of Media Violence

An example of the antisocial effects of observational learning is a scenario where a mother, frustrated with her son's misbehavior, disciplines him by hitting him with a belt. Later, she observes her younger daughter imitating this exact aggressive action by whipping a teddy bear with a belt. This demonstrates how a child can model a parent's punitive behavior, leading the parent to realize the negative impact of her actions and seek alternative discipline methods.

Observational Learning: A Child Imitating a Parent's Aggressive Discipline

Prosocial models are individuals who demonstrate positive, socially acceptable behaviors. According to Bandura's findings, observing these models can encourage learners to adopt similar helpful and constructive actions.

Prosocial Models in Observational Learning

Observational Learning and the Cycle of Abuse

Analyze the following scenario. Identify one potential prosocial outcome and one potential antisocial outcome for the observer. Explain your reasoning for each, specifically referencing the model's behavior and its perceived consequence.

Observational Learning in the Classroom

Albert Bandura's Bobo doll experiment provides a famous example of a behavioral measure used to operationally define physical aggression in a naturalistic setting. Researchers allowed children to play in a room containing a clown-shaped punching bag and counted the specific number of aggressive acts—such as hitting with a mallet, punching, or kicking—that each child committed during a $$20$$-minute period.

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