Social learning was one of the most fascinating topics that I had the opportunity to dive into. It is something that is all around us, every day, and at times we are aware of it, others it is just natural. After covering it as a topic and actually putting a name and some concepts and methodologies behind it, became that much more fascinating to me. Before getting too far, lets quickly define what social learning is. Penn State online commentary provides the following, “The basic idea of social learning is captured in the name itself; it is about learning from others in the social environment. Slightly more specific, it is about how people learn behavior by observing others behave.” (PSU WC, 2020, L. 5)
Let’s put this concept to work! Have you ever had the opportunity to just stand back and observe what happens when you get a large group of younger children together? If you ignore everything else that is going on and focus on the what is really happening with the children, you are witnessing something truly incredible. I had this opportunity over the weekend with a get together with some close friends and family. Two events took place that really showed off the idea of social learning perfectly.
It started in the backyard when a good song came on that my daughter and son started doing a silly dance they came up with. Before I knew it, I was witnessing seven other children, joining in and doing exactly like my kids did. What is amazing with this is, there was not a time when my kids were teaching the others, it was just something was observed and performed.
A bit later in the day I was back in the house and one of my nephews asked to play a video game. As I went to turn it on for him my friend’s son, to be specific, an eight-year-old, explained to be that he could do it for me. I watched as he turned on the TV, video game console, and receiver to get the game running. Now everyone knows the feeling as you are trying to figure out how all their audio/video equipment works to just get TV at someone else’s home. I asked my friend’s son how he knew how to do all that and he replied that he saw me do it earlier in the day.
These two events may be small, but we are seeing what organizations today are striving for with their employees. Social learning has the capacity and potential to expedite the learning process and it is built-in to all of us. For the past few weeks we have been looking at concepts that all relate back to global organizations. With global organizations comes an extensive and diverse population that is ripe to learn from one another. The last piece I’ll leave you with on this topic is post on Penn State’s lesson notes from Albert Bandura.
“According to Bandura (1986), social learning is different from other types of learning because it allows for creativity in addition to learning something from others. Social learning is not mimicry or imitation (which would be an exact copy of the behavior); it is known as modeling. The person doing the learning sees a behavior and replicates it, but also modifies it based on his or her own experiences and desires.” (PSU WC, 2020, L. 5)
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2016). OLEAD 410 Lead Global Context. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2041071/modules/items/27977820
After reading your post, I also want to learn more about social learning. I have found this course to be very helpful so far in naming many different concepts I’ve seen or experienced organically without learning the theories and history.
As someone who works in education, we experience social learning everyday. Students learn from one another in every aspect of daily high school life; socially among themselves, athletically relating to skills and techniques they see, and academically as teachers demonstrate concepts across all subjects. One area I find fascinating among students today is how quickly their dialect changes in a 3-5 year span. Words or phrases that meant one thing a few years ago have been assigned new meanings, and sometimes they are WAY different. For example the term “Bad” or “Sick” had negative meaning 30 years ago. 20 years ago, those had a significantly positive meaning. The word stayed the same, but it was used in a different way. Today, the term “hook up” has gone through an immense makeover; what began 15 years ago as a term meaning let’s-fine-a-time-to-hang-out-socially became a term for “making out”, and now it’s more than that.
These terms, when used among high school students today carry different meanings, yet our language defines them as another. Through social learning, students and teachers alike learn how to communicate with one another using a dialect specific to the student group at the time.
I was intrigued by your post as I experienced my social learning observation a couple of weekends ago while at the airport in Minneapolis. You mention your children began to dance to a song, and along came other children to do the same. My daughter willfully disobeyed my husband as he asked her not to touch the poles that are in transport tram from terminal to terminal, given the coronavirus alerts. She saw other people holding on, and so she was determined to do the same and argue with her dad.
In my own experience, I’ll share that any visit to a new restaurant always has me on edge notably, because I don’t understand the protocol yet, such as where to order, was to form a line, what’s on the menu and so forth. I enter a new restaurant, stand aside while I observe others order, and then take time to read through the list so that when I’m next, I know exactly what I need to do.
In Bandura (1986) as cited in (PSU WC, L5, 2020) with his term of “modeling” versus imitation or mimicry. As a parent, I know my behavior will influence my children to some degree; however, I teach my children to question everything, including me, but to remain open-minded, be kind, and compassionate to others and to stand up for themselves when needed. Social learning is undoubtedly powerful, necessary in many cases, and has a potential for negative impact and influence on our youth. YouTube, while entertaining and informative, has a significant influence on our youth as young as one and two years of age. Of course, I’m not confusing social media with social learning, and while there is a difference, there is overlap between the two. I’m sure as parents; we’ve all heard the “well so and so in my class watches x on YouTube. Why can’t I?
Reference:
Pennsylvania State University. (2020). Lesson 5: Learning and Change in a Global Setting. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2041071/modules/items/27977843
Hello: Very interesting points you made. Social learning is very important in the global context. When companies have locations in other countries, you can train your employees and you can tell them the customs, etc., but the only way to truly learn about the country is to experience the country. Social learning will keep situations in other countries from becoming awkward. As a negotiator it will be important to learn ques from the people in which you are negotiation with. That can be learned by immersing yourself in the culture. That is why it is so important to not just observe, but immerse yourself in different cultures.