Imitating Others, Becoming Us: Social Cognitive (Learning) Theory (SE European University, SEEU)

The second type is known as operant conditioning.

Operant conditioning is when I encourage your behavior by giving you something, giving you a reward.

The reward doesn't have to be a physical thing, material thing. The reward could be a smile, or the reward could be a compliment, or the reward could be a word of encouragement. The reward could be a material thing, could be money for example.

And so people learn to behave in a way that will maximize the reward.

They want more of the rewards, so they behave in a specific way, and they learn to behave only that way, not to lose the reward.

I will tell you about an experiment, a famous experiment. There was a professor, someone like me, and he had students, and then he invited these students to a conversation, one-on-one conversation.

And what he did is whenever the students said, I went home, I watched a movie. Whenever they used the word I, the professor did this.

Of course, the student was not aware of that. It was an experiment. The student was not aware of it.

And whenever the student said me, you know, me and my friend or whatever, the professor smiled and nodded, and whenever the student said, myself, myself, or mine, etc.

What happened is, students who were exposed to this experiment increased the use of these words. The use of these words exploded exponentially.

So if initially the student was saying, I went home and I ate something, after the student has been exposed to the professor, and the professor's smile and the professor's nod, the professor's encouragement, the professor's nod and the professor's encouragement, the student used the word I five times more because he wanted the professor to react this way.

The professor encouraged, the professor conditioned the student to use the words, I, my, myself, and so on.

This is known as a pronoun density experiment.

Pronoun density experiment.

So this is an example of operant conditioning.

Every time you behave in a certain way, every time you say the word I, you get a reward. Every time you say the word I, the professor smiles at you. It's a good feeling. You want the professor to smile at you. You want to be noticed by the professor, and so on. So you begin to say the word, I, more and more and more.

Now imagine that you are a different type of person. Imagine that you hate attention. You do not like attention.

Okay? It would have the opposite effect. If you don't like attention and every time you say I, the professor is smiling at you, professor is giving you attention, then you would use the word I less and less.

I repeat, if you hate attention, you don't like attention, you don't want the professor to notice you. And you say the word I and the professor smiles at you, then you would use the word I less and less to not attract the professor's attention.

So it could go both ways, depending on who you are, depending on your personality and on your needs.

The first mistake in behaviorism that we know of today is that conditioning is not objective and not universal and not neutral.

It depends on the person, depends on the psychology of the person, depends on the personality of the person, depends on the traits of the person, and above all depends on the psychological needs of the person.

I just gave you an example. The same behavior, you know, you say, I, the professor smiles.

This is not going to lead from A to B. It could lead from A to B, but it could lead from A to C.

Depending who you are.

If you like attention, you will increase the use of the word I.

If you hate attention, you will decrease the use of the word I.

So this is the first mistake, that the connection between stimulus and behavior depends crucially on the personality of the individual involved.

Bear that in mind because today we are going to study the work of Albert Bandura, and to some extent Piaget, and so you will see where this comes in.

Okay, so this is the first thing.

In order to understand how all this works, we need to get acquainted with the word reinforcement.

Reinforcement is a stimulus or a situation that encourage or discourage behavior.

So you could have positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is a stimulus or a situation that encourage behavior, increase the frequency of the behavior, positive reinforcement.

For example, if I were to tell you, if you do your homework, you can have a selfie with me on Instagram. It's a positive reinforcement. Or maybe a negative. I'm not sure. We'll think about it. That's a positive reinforcement, you know?

You would like to have your photo with me on Instagram. I have no idea why. But, okay, let's assume. That's a positive reinforcement. So you would do your homework because you want to get the selfie.

Okay?

Negative reinforcement is exactly the opposite.

But negative reinforcement means if you behave in a certain way, you will not be punished.

There are very few people understand negative reinforcement correctly. I even heard professors in Cambridge, in Harvard, in serious universities, making a mistake.

Negative reinforcement is not punishment.

You say positive reinforcement is a prize, a reward, nagrada. Yes? Positive reinforcement is a nagrada of some kind.

So, negative reinforcement will be the opposite.

Punishment. No? No.

Negative reinforcement is not punishment. Negative reinforcement is the promise that if you behave yourself, you will not be punished. So it's actually the promise of non-punishment. It's not the punishment. It's a promise that you will not be punished. This is called negative reinforcement.

Okay. And you will be among the very few people in the world who get it right, I hope.

There is also internal and external reinforcements.

An example of external reinforcement is, as I said, you do your homework, you get to have a selfie with me. That's an external reinforcement.

An internal reinforcement is, I am bored sick in this lecture and I want to go home. So you have an internal need, an internal reinforcement.

You could be exposed to external and internal stimuli. You could be exposed to an external situation and an internal situation.

In other words, you can become your own reinforcers.

A reinforcer is a stimulus or a situation that creates a reinforcement.

You don't need to wait for something to happen outside. You can reinforce yourself from the inside.

Let me give you an example.

You can say to yourself, I'm on a diet, I'm on a diet, so if I succeed and I don't eat today, if I meet my goals in my diet, I'm going to treat myself, I'm going to buy myself a beautiful bag. Right? Or shoes or whatever it is that you're buying.

So if I want to lose weight, if I succeed to lose weight, if I succeed to lose 5 kilos, I will buy myself new shoes.

That's a process of self-reinforcement.

Self-reinforcement with an external stimulus.

So the reinforcement is actually internal. It's a promise you are making yourself to reward yourself if you behave in a certain way.

Similarly, you could have a negative reinforcement. You could say if I don't succeed to lose weight, I may be punished. So I will lose weight in order to avoid punishment. That would be a negative self-reinforcement.

Now, reinforcement is a very important concept. Reinforcement is a very important concept because it explains a lot of human behavior. It explains a lot.

Can you give me an example how society uses reinforcement?

Not individuals, all of society. How society uses reinforcement.

You want me to give you an example and then you give me another example? We can trade. We can make a deal. I'll give you one example and you give me another.

Okay. Here's an example how society uses reinforcement in orderto control your behavior. In order to make sure that you behave in highly specific ways.

Society says, if you shoot this annoying professor, you will go to prison. Okay? So this is a kind of reinforcement. It says, you say to yourself, I will not shoot this annoying professor in order to avoid the punishment. That is negative reinforcement.

So that's an example. Criminal law is an example of negative reinforcement. People behave themselves to avoid punishment, which is negative reinforcement.

Can you give me an example of positive reinforcement?

Maybe you're too young for that. I'm not sure.

In Macedonia, if you pay VAT, DedeVe, you can get some of it back. You can scan it and you get some of it back.

That is positive reinforcement. It encourages you to pay VAT, to pay the DeVé, because then you get a gift, get some kind of gift.

Society, therefore, uses negative and positive reinforcements as the main tools, the main instruments of controlling the behaviors of citizens.

But society can't come to you and tell you, we are behaviorists. Society cannot say the state is a behaviorist. And you are animals. Animals. We give you stimulus and we get behavior.

Society cannot say this, of course, because then you will be very angry and you may misbehave.

That happened with COVID.

During the COVID pandemic, society said you must receive the jab. You must receive the vaccine. You know? And if you do not receive the vaccine, there are penalties. You will pay a price, there are punishments. Social punishments, legal punishments, monetary punishments. There are many punishments if you don't take the vaccine.

And society then treated people as if they were essentially animals. You know, this is it, this is the behavior, and if you don't, this is the punishment or this is the reward.

And it was a serious mistake. The fact that society ignored, all societies, by the way, not only one country. The fact that society ignored the fact that people are not animals and they are not devices and they are not instruments.

So, when society tells you to do something, when society provides you with positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, they tell you a story. It is in the form of a narrative.

Society doesn't just come and say, this is what you must do.

No. Society tells you, this is what you must do because and then there is a story.

For example, this society can tell you, you must pay taxes. You must pay taxes. Now, society doesn't have to give you an explanation. If you don't pay taxes, you go to prison.

But society does give you an explanation. Society says you must pay taxes because we use taxes to help the poor. We use taxes to construct roads and hospitals and schools.

So they give you a whole big story, why you have to pay taxes.

This narrative is known as norm. Norm, no me, I think in Macedonian also. Norms.

A norm is a narrative that justifies and explains and puts in context reinforcement, positive or negative. That is a norm.

And we live in societies with behavioral norms and we are normative people. We obey the norms. We observe the norms. We follow the norms. Most of us, most of the time. Not all of us and not all of the time, we follow the norms. Most of us, most of the time. Not all of us, and not all of the time, but most of us, most of the time.

Sometimes, however, there is such crisis that the norms are challenged. An example of such a crisis is the pandemic. COVID-19.

Another example is war, when there's a war, in Ukraine or in Israel.

So, such major crisis, they challenge the norms. They challenge the narrative. They undermine the story, the common story that everyone accepts is suddenly in question.

Similarly, when you discover huge corruption among politicians, it undermines the narrative. You begin to doubt the stories that you are told by society. You begin to think twice. Is it true? Are they manipulating us? Are they lying to us?

So, this creates a state known as anomie. Anomie.

Anomie is when the norms collapse, when the belief in the norms and the trust in the norms and the willingness to obey the norms and to comply with the norms and to act in a normative way collapse.

And they collapse because there is a breach of trust. There is mistrust and distrust between society and the individual because society misbehaved or agents of society, the elites misbehaved, or some crisis happened, or there was a major malfunction, society did not work properly, something happened and the trust between individual and society broke down, and there are no norms, and there is anomie.

I'm teaching all this, then we'll take a break, and then we'll start to learn Bandura's work. Okay. There's not much left.

So, schemas. Schemas are the ways we organize knowledge.

We know a lot about a certain environment. We know a lot about certain behaviors and the outcomes of these behaviors. We know a lot about specific people. We know a lot about a lot. You know a lot more about a lot, more than you know. You are not aware how much you know. You know a huge amount of information.

And all this information is organized in schemas. Schemas is the plural, the singular is scheme.

So a typical scheme contains facts, beliefs about the facts, values that you may have, expectations of outcomes, this is known as outcome expectancy, expectations of outcomes, and what is known as heuristic rules, rules of how to behave, rules of thumb.

So all this mess is known as schema. Scheme, I'm sorry.

And you have multiple schema. You have one scheme in class with a professor. You have one scheme with your boyfriend, if you're unlucky enough to have a boyfriend. You have one scheme with family. You have one scheme with a policeman if he stops you.

When a policeman stops you in a traffic light, immediately you have a scheme that tells you you should not shout at the policeman or slap him. That's not a good idea.

So this is a scheme. The schemes shape your behavior because they are like encyclopedia repository of knowledge about everything that is relevant to the situation or the circumstances.

One type of scheme is known as script. One type of scheme is known as script. One type of scheme is known as script, whereas a scheme can apply to any field of knowledge.

You could have a scheme about, for example, how to behave in a chemistry laboratory, or how to behave in a chemistry laboratory or how to behave in a medical laboratory that's a scheme or what to do there or knowledge about a laboratory that's also a scheme but scripts are behavioral only scripts are about how to behave and the outcomes of your behaviors.

So, a scheme is about knowledge, all kinds of knowledge. Behavioral knowledge, not behavioral knowledge, that's a scheme.

For example, you could have a scheme of your beliefs, what you believe and what you don't believe, or a scheme about your values, what are your values, what you agree with, disagree with, what you will never do, what is right, what is wrong. There's also a scheme.

Scripts teach you how to behave.

Now, one of the most famous scripts is the sexual script. Or more precisely, the social sexual script.

The sociosexual script teaches you how to flirt with each other, how to court each other, and then when to have sex. That's a social sexual script.

Studies byby Lisa Wade and other scholars have discovered, have revealed that current adolescents, nowadays, they are very confused about the social sexual script, especially boys. Girls not so much, but especially boys.

They're very confused. The social sexual script nowadays is very, very confusing.

And so in studies when women and men your age, not exactly adolescents, but young adults, when they were interviewed about, for example, how do you flirt, how do you flirt with the opposite sex? Or how do you flirt with the same sex, depending on orientation, yes. How do you flirt with the opposite sex? Or how do you flirt with the same sex, depending on the orientation? How do you, when do you decide to have sex? What happens during the sex?

They were totally lost, especially the men, especially the boys. They were very confused. They had no idea how to flirt, how to court, what is allowed, what is not allowed, what is socially acceptable, what is socially rejected and so on.

And the reason, of course, is that we are in a period of transition. We are transitioning. Women are acquiring more rights, more independence, more autonomy. The role of men is being redefined.

So men are confused, women are confused, everyone is confused. It's total disorientation.

And exactly like anomie, you remember what is anomie? Anomie is when norms in society break down. Exactly like anomie, we live in a period where schemas are breaking down, and especially behavioral scripts.

I've been teaching for almost, well, since the last dinosaurs roamed the Earth. I've been teaching a long time, and I can compare generations already. I'm in a time and I can compare generations already. I'm in a position that I can compare generations of students.

If I were to ask my class, let's say in the 1980s, which is 40 years ago, if I were to ask my class, how should you behave in this situation? No problem. Everyone would have the same answer, more or less. Class, how should you behave in this situation? No problem. Everyone would have the same answer, more or less, and everyone would immediately know the answer. There would be no period of hesitancy.

But today, if I were to ask you, you here, a question about anything. Sexual behavior, social behavior. You're four people, you would probably have four opinions. And you would disagree about many things. And you would argue, and you would be unsure, and you would try to convince each other. In other words, it would become a debate, there would be a debate because you don't have scripts. There are no valid scripts, universal scripts, social scripts.

Okay, okay, okay.

Two last things.

In one of the previous lectures, I mentioned gender roles, that we actually learn how to become men and we learn how to become a woman.

We are born female and male. Of course, in the vast majority of cases, we are born female and male and the differences are very clear and I will not go into them right now because that would be pornography, but we are born female and male.

But we learn to become men and woman and this is known as gender roles. Gender roles are examples of schemas and scripts. Gender role is a script. You're told how to be a woman, you're told how to be a man, how to behave. What you should do, what you shouldn't do. What if you do challenges your identity as a woman. If you behave in a certain way, you're not a man. If you behave in another way, you're not a woman. And so on and so forth. So this is a script actually.

And the script is a social script. In other words, society enforces this scriptactually. And the script is a social script. In other words, society enforces this script.

If you misbehave as a man, society punishes you. And if you misbehave as a woman, society punishes you. If you behave as a man, society rewards you. And if you behave well as a woman, society rewards you.

So society regulates and manages your scripts as men and women. It's actually the greatest, the biggest script, the most important script there is, men and woman.

And it's an example of a script that goes with reinforcements, negative and positive, and has become normative. In other words, if you misbehave as a woman, misbehave as a man, you are breaking the norms.

In many, many countries, actually in the majority of the countries in the world, if you are misbehaving as a man or misbehaving as a woman, that's a crime, a literal crime. You go to prison. That's the majority of countries. Not in the United States, not in the United Kingdom, not in most countries in Europe, but in the majority of countries in the world, gender roles are normative, legal, you must act in a certain way, or you go to prison, and they involve reinforcements and punishments, negative and positive, and they involve scripts and schemas.

There you see how society makes use of all this put together.

Okay.

Albert Bandura is one of the most important modern psychologists. And the reason he is very important is that he breached the gap between the two schools of psychology. The school that said that people are determined by the environment, and the school that said that people determine the environment.

You remember the debate we started with in the previous lesson?

So Bandura said, Bandura breached this gap. He created a theory that incorporates, includes the individual, the environment. He created a theory of everything in psychology under a single conceptual roof.

Bandura is a very important figure and we will dedicate the lesson right now to his work.

It's important to point out the differences between Bandura's work and Freud's work, because until more or less the 1960s or 1970s, or even 1980s, psychoanalysis, which is Freud's work, and psychodynamic theories, for example, Jung's work, similar, object relations schools. These were the dominant schools.

If I were teaching you psychology 40 years ago, I would be teaching you Freud, I would be teaching you a Jung, I would be teaching you Winnicott and Fairbairn, I would be teaching you object relations schools and so on and forth.

While today in most modern universities, these people are not, the works of these people are not being taught anymore. And the use of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies and so on is much diminished. And there has been a transition to more scientifically rigorous theories, one of which is Bandura's and another one is known as information processing theory or information processing theories. It's a family and we will discuss them in one of the next classes.

But I wish to start with Bandura.

What are the differences between Bandura and Freud? What are the important differences?

Number one, Freud said that the period between the time you're born and the time you are more or less six years old, and especially the period between zero and three years old, this is the period when you become. That's it. Your development stops when you are six year old. That's more or less who you are. That is according to Freud, and these are known as the formative years.

Bandura did not accept it and he said that learning continues lifelong, change continues lifelong. This is known as plasticity and he therefore negated or contradicted or disagreed with Freud that the most crucial years of life are the first six.

He said it's not true. Adolescence is as crucial. Young adulthood is crucial. Every period in life is as important as every other period in life.

And in this sense, Bandura is much closer to Piaget, to Erikson, I'm sorry, to Erickson, than to Freud.

So there is one disagreement between them.

The next disagreement between them is that Freud postulated, he did not invent it, by the way. The idea of the unconscious is not an invention of Freud, as people mistakenly believe. But he adopted the idea.

Freud used the idea of the unconscious to create a whole theory of the mind. He divided the mind to three parts.

I think we need to close the window or something.

He divided the mind to three parts and then he explained the dynamics between these parts, how they work together, how they conflict with each other and so on so forth, while Bandura said they're essentially ignored, Bandura ignored the role of the unconscious.

Bandura said that everything that's happening is happening cognitively.

So Bandura belongs to a group of schools in psychology known as the cognitive schools. It is an extension of the cognitive schools.

And the cognitive schools, not only Bandura, they don't pay much attention to instincts, to drives, to unconscious urges, to conflicts, to all this language of psychoanalysis is not used in these theories.

Let's see what else is different.

Freud said that the child, when the child grows up, the child identifies with the same-sex parent. So a boy identifies with a father, a girl identifies with mother.

And if you go online to online forums and online support groups, people still use this. They say a daughter is influenced by her mother, or a son is influenced by his father, or opposite. A daughter is influenced by the father, the son is influenced by the mother.

According to Bandura, according to cognitive schools, according to most modern psychology, this is nonsense. This is simply nonsense. Whether you're a boy or your girl, you're influenced by both parents, and you're influenced in a way that Bandura described.

Bandura's greatest contribution was to show how the qualities and the traits and the personality characteristics of people are transmitted to other people. How people transmit their personality to other people?

It's a process called modeling and we will discuss it a bit later.

So these are the big differences between Bandura and the previous schools.

And Bandura is a very important figure, as I said, because he bridges the gap between...

Yes. He bridges the gap between earlier theories and later theories. Okay.

You know, we have the tendency which started in the Renaissance, it's a new tendency, to identify an author, someone who invented something.

Like who invented the camera? Who invented the computer? Who invented the unconscious?

We attribute, and so we have stars like superstars. We have stars in movies, we have stars in psychology, we have stars in physics, we have stars in...

But that is of course nonsense. That's not the way science works.

Similarly, Bandura's main ideas, most of them are not original, not his. He borrowed them from others. That's how science works.

The only condition is that when you borrow something from someone else, you identify the source, you give credit, but it is legitimate to borrow the work of other people, to help your own work. And this is what Bandura has done.

Bandura borrowed heavily from Piaget, from Jean Piaget. Piaget came up with the concept of adaptation.

Piaget says that behaviors change in order to secure positive outcomes in ever-changing environments. As the environment changes, you change your behaviors, you change your emotions, you change your cognition, you change your choices and so on, because you want to extract the best possible outcomes, the best results, the best consequences, or to avoid negative consequences.

So this is called adaptation. We have positiveadaptation. It's an adaptation that improves your ability to operate in a new environment.

That's a positive adaptation, and we have maladaptation or negative adaptation. That's an adaptation that reduces your self-efficacy, reduces your ability to be efficient in a new environment.

So adaptations happen also in the body. This is what is known as evolution.

In evolution we have adaptations. The bodies, organisms, adapt themselves via a process known as mutation.

Piaget said that adaptation is not limited to evolution. Adaptations happen in the mind.

In other words, Piaget said that the mind also mutates. The mind also changes all the time. And he called it adaptation.

So he said that adaptation involves two processes, assimilation of new information, and accommodation, change, change in behavior, change in cognition, change in emotion.

So accommodation is the change that responds to the assimilated information.

So here you are and there is a professor who speaks English. English is not your first language. There's a professor who speaks English. English is not your first language. There's a professor who speaks language, English.

If your goal is to succeed in the course, it's a rational goal, I hope some of you adopt this goal, what would be a positive adaptation since the professor speaks English?

The fact that the professor speaks English is your environment. Your environment is the professor. And the fact that he speaks English is a change in the environment because usually you're exposed to Macedonian or to Albania or whatever, but very rarely to English.

So an English speaking professor is a new environment with a changed situation. There's a change there.

What would be a positive adaptation? Give me an example how you would positively adapt to this situation.

That's not an adaptation.

Adaptation means that if you change yourself, accommodation, you accommodate yourself. You change something in yourself in order to get better outcomes in a new environment.

The English speaking professor is a new environment. What do you need to change in yourself to become better adapted?

Do you learn a better?

Yes.

A positive adaptation in this case would be if you learn English, or you learn more English, or you learn more English, or you invest in English, in learning English. That would be a positive adaptation.

The environment has changed.

What would be a negative adaptation?

You would say, the hell with this professor, I'm listening to Taylor Swift.

That's an adaptation. You shut the professor off. You're no longer faced with a change environment.

But it's a negative adaptation, mainly because this particular professor does not like Taylor Swift. I mean, listen to something else. Okay. Okay, got the picture? What is adaptation and so on?

Another school...

So, Bandura borrowed this concept.

Bandura said, human beings interact with the environment and the environment interacts with human beings. The interaction is two-way. Human beings change the environment and the environment changes human beings.

We'll come to it a bit later, but he borrowed this concept that the environment changes behavior. He borrowed this concept from Piaget. It is not his original contribution.

Similarly, he borrowed these concepts, these two concepts which I will discuss in a minute, he borrowed them from information processing theories.

Bandura said that there are two very important elements in human cognition.

Remember that Bandura is a cognitive. He is a cognitive psychologist.

The theory of Bandura, I forgot to mention, the theory of Bandura is called social cognitive theory. It used to be called social learning theory.

So originally it was called social learning theory, but then the new name is social cognitive theory.

So, Bandura said that we interact with the environment through our cognition. We think about the environment. We all the time think about the environment.

He says the main thing we do. The main thing we do is not acting, it's not action. The main thing we do is thinking. We spend a lot more time thinking than acting in effect.

So he said when we think about the environment, we engage in two types of activities we process information obviously and we predict outcomes we predict what would be the outcomes of our actions if we do A the outcome would be B if we do C the outcome will be D.

So we have like big tables, big tables. If I do this, this will be the outcome. If I do this, this will be the consequence. If I choose this, this will be the result.

This is known as outcome expectancy. And these are the two processes that underlie the work of Albert Bandura when it comes to cognition.

As I said, Bandura's main contribution and where he was a bit original, although again it's very reminiscent of Piaget, but okay, is what is known as reciprocal causation.

Reciprocal causation.

Bandura said the mistake of previous psychologists, he said, the mistake of all previous psychologists, is that they assume that there is one cause and one effect.

Human being affects the environment.

No, no, no, the environment affects human beings. No, no, no. Human beings affect human beings. It's like always one cause and one effect. He said, that's a mistake.

Every cause is an effect, and every effect is a cause. When we change the environment, the changed environment changes us. When the environment changes, it changes us. We change our behavior and our changed behavior changes the environment. These are infinite loops of change.

We change, the environment changes, we change again, the environment changes again, we affect the environment, the environment affects us. Reciprocal causation. Everyone is a cause and everyone is an effect. Everything is a cause and everything is an effect. There's no such thing as being only cause or only effect.

Okay? If you're faced with a new...

Let's try to create an example for reciprocal causation.

You're faced with a totally new environment. And you need to change yourself.

To survive in that environment, to succeed in that environment, you need to change yourself, you need to change your behavior.

Let's think of a case where the change in your behavior in reaction to the new environment would change the environment as well.

So there's a new environment, you change your behavior, and it changes the environment.

So there's again a new environment.

Can you think of an example?

If I will move here, it won't mean the environment, she will not change the environment. The environment will take her and maybe she won't do the book.

But in front, it would be reversed.

Like two examples, she would be more, she would see that she wants to read books. And there she would be like her behavior will be accepted. She will not change so much in the environment, but she will double into it.

This is an example of how the environment affects behavior.

So this is where the environment is the cause and the individual is the effect.

The individual changes the behavior in order to conform to the environment, to fit into the environment, to get positive outcomes from the environment.

But Bandura said that every time you change your behavior, you're affecting the environment. so automatically the environment changes.

He said, there's no such thing as I only change my behavior and the environment stays the same.

He said, every change you make changes the environment, every change in the environment forces you to change your behavior.

It's a constant unstable state. It's unstable. It's what we call dynamic state.

Maybe if you change the environment and just breathing the good, others will give her, she will change the environment and really will. And others will change the environment and changes the others.

Yes.

If she gives an example by reading a book and other people around her start to read books, then she has changed the environment. So that's a reciprocal example. The environment affected her, she affected the environment, and so.

Always there is a flow. There's a flow of influence from the individual to the environment and from the environment to the individual.

You know there's a famous saying in psychology, don't try to change other people. Never try to change other people. Change yourself. If you change yourself, they will change.

It's quite true. We know it in psychotherapy. If you change yourself, they will change.

They may not change the way you want them to. They may change in a way which would be surprise you or be negative for you, but definitely people will react if you change.

Imagine, for example, that you grow up in a family where it is known that everyone can torture you, everyone can attack you, everyone can abuse you, and you will never respond. Never.

So everyone uses you as a punching bag, you know? Everyone takes out their frustrations on you in the family. Your siblings, your mother, your father, everyone, your grandmother, grandfather. Everyone learned to mistreat you. Everyone learned to abuse you.

Why? Because you never react. They know you never react.

In other words, their actions have no costs. Their actions have no consequence.

And then imagine that one day, one day, someone abuses you and you slap them badly.

Of course, your action of slapping the abuser would change the environment because it would change the behavior of the abuser, and the environment would change, because everyone will learn that they can no longer abuse you with impunity. They have to be worried. You may slap them. You're fighting back.

So your behavior, you change yourself, and by changing yourself, you change your behavior.

Now you have to adapt yourself to the new environment where you are respected. You're not used to being respected. You don't know how to be respected.

And suddenly everyone respects you. Everyone is afraid of you. That's a new experience.

So the environment, the new environment, again changes you. You change the environment by fighting back. The environment has changed, and now you have to change yourself to the new environment where you are respected and feared.

That's an example of reciprocal causation.

Okay. But Bandura was stuck like many, many psychologists before.

Okay, the individual affects the environment, the environment affects the individual.

How? What is the transmission mechanism? How do individuals change the environment and how do environments change individuals? Is that a signal? Does it have to be verbal? Is it body language? Is it maybe a social contract? How does this change happen?

And that was probably Bandura's greatest contribution, the idea of modeling. Modeling.

He says that people, when they observe other people, they end up imitating them.

Now, of course, there were thousands of thinkers and scholars and academics and professors who have written about imitation and observation long before Bandura.

But what Bandura said is that observation always leads to imitation. In other words, it's inevitable.

Now the imitation could be in a variety of ways.

But generally speaking, when you observe something, it influences you, it affects you.

And even if you are not aware of it, you end up imitating what you have observed. You end up copying the behavior.

Now, many people think that this is nonsense. Not psychologists, but many laymen, people who are not psychologists.

They think it's nonsense. It's not true. I'm a strong person. I have a strong core, well-defined core. I have an identity. I have my own personal history. I'm educated. No one can influence me. No one can influence me. I can watch Marian for the next 20 years. Nothing. I will not be influenced by him. There's no way he can influence me because I'm a strong man.

That is not true. That's not what experiments in psychology show. Experiments in psychology show that there is contagion between people. People affect each other. People modify each other's behaviors via expectations, via norms, via collusions or conspiracies. There are many ways that people influence each other. Body language is absolutely contagious. Body language, for example. Facial expressions.

Remember how we opened this lecture when we discussed mirror neurons, the cells in the brain that reflect other organisms' behaviors.

So whenever we see someone behaving in any way, our brain wakes up and creates a representation of what we are seeing inside. And this representation has an impact on behavior.

So he said that it is not true to say that you can observe and remain safe. And it is also not true to say that you can choose to imitate, that there is a choice here.

He said that observation leads to imitation, which very often is involuntary.

And he was attacked. Bandura was attacked. Many, many psychologists attacked him for many decades.

Finally, finally, he was fed up and he made the famous Bobo Doll experiment. You can watch it online, but I will describe it to you.

The Bobo Doll experiment was 20 or 30 years after he came up with his theory because he was constantly being attacked. People disputed this. People said it's not true. Observation can be divorced from imitation. And imitation is only voluntary. It's not involuntary.

And then he made the Bobo Doll experiment. Bobo Doll experiment is one of the most brilliant experiments in psychology, in my view. It's meticulously, impeccably, perfectly designed, and it has been repeated many times. It's a cornerstone of psychology.

What he did, he took 72 children. He took 72 children and he divided them to three groups. How many were in each group? 72 divided by three? Anyone here remembers mathematics? No, 24. Okay, each group had, Marian, I'm disappointed in you. And shocked. I'm not going to imitate you. I am not going to imitate you. And I'm not going to observe you. Okay. So each group had 24 children, normally.

One group was exposed to violence and aggression. One group was not exposed to violence and aggression, and one group was exposed to a modulated type of violence and aggression.

The violence and aggression were there was a room with a window, a big window. And in the room there were adults. And the adults were playing with a bobo, with this kind of doll. It's known as a bobo doll. A bobo doll is like a punching bag. You know what is a punching bag? With a doll painted on the punching bag, a face of a doll, painted on the punching bag. So the punching bag becomes a doll. It's called a bobo doll.

So the adults in the room, visible through the window to the children, were punching the doll, kicking the doll, punching the doll, cursing the doll, cursing the doll, shouting at the doll. Very aggressive interactions with the doll.

And then, so the children were at which stage was it? Which of these two stages? What were the children doing?

Observing.

Guys, don't be so afraid to speak up. Nothing will happen to you. I give you my word.

The children were observing. Okay? That's the first stage.

According to Bandura, the children who observed would be forced to imitate. It's involuntary. They cannot help it. They will become violent and aggressive. Because the minute you observe violence and aggression, you become violent and aggressive. You imitate.

So this was the big experiment.

If Bandura had failed and the children did not become aggressive, then his theory was a mistake. And if Bandura had succeeded and the children suddenly become very aggressive, then he proved his theory.

Because the children were just observing. They were not participating. They were just looking.

And so what he did next phase of the experiment, he took these children and he gave them beautiful toys. He gave them beautiful toys. More beautiful than this.

He gave them beautiful toys and then he took the toys away. He triggered them. He frustrated them. He pissed them off. He made them angry. He gave them a toy. He took the toy.

And so the children became angry.

And then the children who observed the aggression against the Bobo doll became much, much more violent than the children who did not observe the dolls.

In other words, when these children were frustrated, all of them became angry. It's not that some of them were happy. All of them were angry because he took away the beautiful toys.

But the children who were not exposed to the Bobo doll violence were not aggressive. They were not violent.

The children who were exposed became super violent and super aggressive.

So they observed aggression and then they imitated it.

When they were faced with the difficulty in life, they became violent and aggressive.

And dramatically, the difference was dramatic. It's not like they were a little more violent. They were super violent, super aggressive.

And all these children, before they started the experiment, all of them were identically non-aggressive. All of them were non-aggressive before they started the experiment.

So this is why today, in most universities in the world, it is forbidden. We are forbidden. We are not allowed to repeat this experiment anymore because it's considered to be unethical.

The children were not aggressive and we made them aggressive.

So, Bandura succeeded to prove that being exposed to something, being exposed to someone, observing someone, the behavior of someone else, the choices of someone cause us to imitate. We begin to imitate.

And then, based on this observation, that observation leads to imitation, he created his modeling theory.

He said that all of us we have role models. All of us have people who teach us how to behave.

So can you give me an example of a role model?

A role model, again to define it for you, a role model is someone you observe, and then you imitate. You adopt the behavior of the role model.

That's why it's called a role model. Role is how to behave, how to function, you know, gender role. And model means you imitate or you copy the behavior of the role model.

So can you give me an example of a role model? Which kind of person would become a role model?

Do you understand the concept of role model? It's a person that you observe and then you imitate.

Okay? So can you give me an example of a role model?

Yes, of course, the number one mega role model is mother.

Successful people, exactly. Celebrities, stars, and so on.

Father is also a role model, in most cases, is also a role model.

Any other role models that you can think of?

Some teachers, not me, but some teachers, peers, influential peers, try to imitate them and so on.

These are role models, but Bandura said that these are live role models. They are people, living, breathing people. So he called them live role models.

He said that there are the types of role models. For example, verbal role models.

Verbal role models are books. Do you know, books are an example of verbal role models.

Do you know there are some people who identify themselves with a character in a book or a character on a television series or even an influencer on the internet. So these are verbal role models. They create the effect via words.

And so these are verbal and then there are symbolic role models.

Symbolic role models are symbolic role models. Symbolic role models are actors, you know, celebrities usually.

Sorry?

When I was young, when I was young, which was the end of prehistory, at that period, scientists were role models.

So I remember when I was growing up, the biggest celebrity, the megastar, the rock of all ages, was Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein was the, you know, we all, you know, wanted to be Albert Einstein.

Who was, no one thought about, I mean, footballers and singers, and they were like, who are these people? Losers, losers who can do nothing else but kick a ball.

So for us, scientists and authors, writers of books, authors of books, were the greatest, like, wow, author. To meet an author was like to die.

And so each generation have their own repository or their own group of role models.

Today's generation, the emphasis is on singers, footballers, instant celebrities, influencers, and so on so forth.

What it says about today's generation, I will leave up to you, but that's the situation.

So we have live role models. These are people that you meet in life, meet face-to-face, spend your time with, grow up with, life. It could be a sibling, by the way. Could be a brother, big brother, big sister. Anyone could be a role model. Right?

Verbal, these are usually texts. Verbal are usually texts, like books, but also professors. Professor would be a verbal. A verbal.

Symbolic, a teacher. Teacher would be a verbal. Teacher is not live. Although it is a live person, the words of the teacher are the model.

Symbolic, these are the people, celebrities. Symbolic is celebrities are the people, celebrities, symbolic celebrities. Okay.

Now, how does modeling work?

It says what happens is people, when I say people, by the way, I'm talking about six months old babies, I'm talking about two-year-old infants and three-year-old toddlers, and I'm talking about 64-year-old professors of psychology.

All of us have models. All the time we have models. All the time. We have role models. All the time. All the time. All the time we have models. All the time. We have role models. All the time. All the time.

Unconsciously, we observe and imitate. Observe and imitate.

In very subtle, imperceptible ways, our body language changes. We choose words, specific words, that are taken from our role models. We make preferences and choices that reflect the preferences of choices of role models.

There is no human being alive who does not observe and imitate role models. None. And no age, it's not limited in age, to a specific age.

So, how does this process of modeling work?

It involves acquisition. In other words, we acquire the information, we acquire the observation. We acquire knowledge, we acquire skills, we acquire beliefs and values, we acquire skills, we acquire beliefs and values, we acquire behaviors, attitudes, motivations, and emotions, including emotional reactions, so acquisition, we acquire. We bring from the outside.

Now this is a bit frightening because it's like saying that you don't really exist, that you're like a mirror. You're just a mirror, you know. Your emotions are not your emotions, your attitudes are not your attitudes, your thoughts are not your thoughts. You took everything from everyone else.

That's not what Bandura says.

Bandura says that you take all this from the outside, from other people, that part is true, but then you make it your own. You combine it in a way that is specific to you, that is only you.

So you could have three children, three, let's say twins, you could have twins, identical twins. Okay, so they look alike, everything is identical. Born the same second, identical twins, raised up by the same mother and the same father, and yet when they grow up, they will have different personalities to some extent. In the case of twins it's much more limited, but to some extent they will have different personality. How is this possible? They took the very same things.

But they used these things. They combined them in ways which were specific, which were idiosyncratic.

You know what it reminds me? It reminds me of the periodic table. This is two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen. That's all it is. But I can take the two substances, oxygen and hydrogen, and combine them in a different way, and I will not get water. I will get something completely different.

So you and I can be influenced by the same role model and copy the same everything and everything, but we will never be the same. Because the number of permutations, the number of combinations is almost infinite. So that's where our personality comes.

So this is acquisition.

He then said, he described the process of observational learning, which we will deal with in the next lesson.

Observational learning is learning through observation, but it's much more complex than this. We'll discuss it later.

And he said that while all this mess is happening, there are mediating processes.

What is the role of mediating processes? And again, that is an original contribution of Bandura.

Bandura said it is true that when you observe, you end up imitating. That part is true.

But even as you imitate, you keep asking yourself, is this the right thing to do? Is this the desirable thing to do? Is this the appropriate thing to do? Will it have good results for me? Am I doing the right thing?

So all the time, there is some control, some form of control, some form of censorship, some form of analysis going on. So that you don't imitate mindlessly. You're not like imitation machine, but you observe, you start to imitate, and then if the imitation works against you, if the imitation is bad for you, then you stop it. You have the capacity to stop it.

And this is the mediating processes, which include attention, representation, production, and motivation.

In 1980, it's probably 20 years before you were, no, what am I talking about? More than 20 years before you were born. In 1980, we studied the question of how many friends people have the door? How many friends people have?

But I mean close friends. Friends that they can confide in. And if you're in big trouble, you go to this friend, and you can cry on the friend's shoulder, or this shoulder, whichever one you prefer, and so on.

So how many friends do you think people had in 1980? Close friends, not like Facebook friends, but close friends.

No. 1920? No. Which year? 1980, I'm sorry. Give a guess.

24? 24? 3 to 4 anyone else 2 2 wow you come from a rough environment 5 5 you are the closest to the truth.

In 1980, people had on average 10 best friends. 10.

This concept is alien to you. You can't imagine it. It's difficult enough to have one best friend, enough of a mess to have one best friend.

People had 10 best friends.

Fast forward to 2020, when we ran the same questionnaire again, when we asked the same question again. How many close friends do you think people had? 40 years later? Good friends, close friends.

Do you guys, how many? True.

A bit less than one. 0.9.

I've never seen a 0.9 friend, butokay, that's the result. A bit less than one. 0.9. I've never seen a 0.9 friend, but okay, that's the result.

A bit less than one. In other words, in 40 years, there's been a collapse of 90% in the number of friends that people have.

Real life friends, of course. 90%.

Okay.

In around the year in 1980, there was a period in the 1980s that we were trying to create a map of society.

So around the same year, we asked thousands of women your age to describe themselves using adjectives, they had like a small dictionary, and they could choose any adjective that suited them, that described them.

So a woman could say, for example, I'm beautiful, or I'm shy, or I'm caring, or I'm loving or so she could choose an adjective to describe herself. That was about 40 years ago. And the adjectives were divided to masculine and feminine. So masculine adjectives, I am ambitious, I'm ruthless, I get results, and this and that, men, you know, boys.

And the feminine adjectives were I'm loving, I'm caring, I'm empathic, I'm understanding, I'm warm, and this and that.

On average, a woman your age in 1980 chose eight out of nine adjectives, feminine adjectives.

In other words, she described herself as a typical woman using typical adjectives that are typically attributed to women, stereotypicallyattributed to women.

40 years later, the same test, women chose eight out of nine adjectives that are masculine. Women describe themselves as men.

Actually, there was no difference between the answers of women and men. That is 40 years later.

So there has been clearly a change in how women perceive themselves.

They perceive themselves as men.

Completely perceive themselves as men.

I'm talking about the United States, yes?

And I have a question for you.

Why would women perceive themselves as men? Why would this change happen? Why would they first describe themselves as women in the 80s and then 40 years later they would describe themselves as men.

Why do you think this happened? Can you guess why women would prefer to be men?

Would we be more to be a man?

In other words, to be a man who was helpful to survival. It was a good strategy for survival.

That's what I understand the answer.

In other words, to be a man, guaranteed, better outcomes, better results.

Or, to put it simply, it's much better to be a man than a woman.

To put it very simply, it's much better to be a man than a woman.

So women chose to become men.

And today in psychological tests, we find very few differences between men and women compared to 40 years ago.

Women and men are becoming more and more one and the same, indistinguishable.

I call it unigender, only one gender.

And this is an example of Bandura's and application of Bandura's work.

Because what women did, they observed men.

And then they said, wow, it's much better to be a man than a woman.

I mean, men make more money, men get more jobs, men become politicians, men, I mean, much better to be a man.

So they observed men, they decided that it is positive to be a man, much more positive than to be a woman, and then they became men. They imitated. There was a process of imitation.

And this is an example of social learning. This is how social learning evolves.

Similarly, in the 1980s, people had many friends, but then they observed people without friends. And they said, wow, it's much better to be without friends. Because friends consume resources, friends are a nuisance, friends have demands, you have fights with friends, friends betray you. It's not such a good thing to have friends.

So they observed people who were friendless and then they imitated them.

But it's important to understand that imitation doesn't happen automatically, I mean it happens automatically, but it doesn't happen unless it's beneficial.

Unless it's beneficial.

So there is some process between observation and imitation where you ask yourself, should I imitate? Is it good to imitate? Will it make my life better? Will I be more successful, more acceptable, more liked, more popular, more something?

And only when you answer this question, the imitation automatically follows.

But if your answer is, I'm observing now, but I'm afraid because if I imitate there would be bad consequences, bad outcomes, bad results, then imitation will not follow.

And this is something that is a bit difficult to understand.

Because on the one hand, when you observe your influence, and when you influence, the imitation follows automatically. When you observe your influence it.

But what Bandura says is that if there is fear involved, if you're afraid that the imitation will cause you damage somehow, will be bad for you, then it will stop the imitation. This fear will, this inhibition will stop the imitation.

And so he said that the process of imitation is not so simple.

Where's my ear? Who stole my pen? No.

He said that the process of imitation is not so simple.

He broke it down. He broke it down to stages.

He said the first stage, if you want to observe, and this is observational learning, this process is called observational learning. Okay?

He said the first stage in observational learning, you have to notice someone. You have to pay attention to someone.

If you don't notice that someone exists, if you don't notice that someone is there, if you don't notice that someone is behaving in a specific way, and so on, there will be no imitation. No imitation without observation, no observation without attention. This is the sequence.

So first, attention. You need to notice the other person.

Once you pay attention to the other person, at that point you ask yourself, the behavior of that other person, the choices of that other person, the decisions this other person is making, are they likely to be good for me or are they likely to be bad for me?

And if the answer is what this person is doing, if I imitate them, I'm going to end badly. It's going to be bad for my interest, for my well-being, for my psychology, for my...

Then the process stops. There's no continuation.

But if you say to yourself, the behavior of that person could be useful, could help me, could make my situation better, then the process continues.

And the next stage after attention is retention.

Retention is when you have observed another person, and you have stored, put in storage, you have stored the information that you have gathered. You have stored your observations.

It's like a hard disk, storing it on a hard disk.

So this is retention.

But what to do with all this information?

I watch an individual, I watch someone, and I see how they behave. Okay. And I say, well, this behavior is not bad. I would like to do the same. I would like to do the same.

Let me take a video. Let me take a photo, a snapshot of this behavior.

And you create like a video of the behavior. And then you store this video.

Okay, great.

But as Marianne can tell you, there's a big difference between raw material and the final product.

So you store the information about the other person's behavior as raw video. Raw video. Raw video is very difficult to play, you cannot upload it to YouTube. It's pretty useless.

So you store it as raw video. You need to convert it from raw video to real video. Video that you can play on DVD or upload to YouTube or watch on a smart TV, you know, kind of video that is accessible. MP4, some kind of format that is accessible.

And this is the cognitive representational mediating process. That's the second process. This one.

What you do, you take all the observations about the other person, the observations you've made about the other person, that are now raw, you edit them, you convert them, there's post-production, Marian understands, you convert them and you get a video.

And this video you can watch all the time. It's in your mind, and this video represents that other person. It's a symbol. It symbolizes the other person. It encodes. It creates like a code, a coding of the behaviors of the other person.

And this is why it's known as representational. Because it's like a code.

What do I mean when I say it's like a code? What do I mean?

Your memory is visual. You remember the other person what the other person did. You have a visual memory of that.

And you store the visual memory, but then you create an index. You create like an index.

And you say, okay, this is visual memory, 372. And you don't remember the visual memory, but you remember 372.

And then at the right time, you click on 372 and the visual memory opens.

So there is a representational encoding system. There's a system of codes.

Each code represents a specific behavior of a specific person at a specific moment in time.

And you are using these codes to access the... It's like icons on a computer or avatars.

So this is a cognitive representational face.

Next thing is, you find yourself in a situation similar to the situation of the person that you have observed.

You have observed someone. You said, wow, this could be useful, I want to store it, you created a video, you stored the video, you created an index for the video, you know, file name or whatever, and then 10 years later, 15 years later, 2 years later, you find yourself in a situation where the behavior that you have observed could be useful and you want to imitate it.

So then what you do is what we call behavioral production or behavioral reproduction.

So, for example, when I was pretty old actually coming to think of it, I was like 19. I didn't know how to tie a tie. I didn't know how to make a tie. There was something called Oxford. Oxford way. I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to do it.

And there was this guy that I was hanging out with. He was like a father figure, is much older than me. And he was always making a tie. He was always putting on ties and everything.

And I observed him. I observed him putting the tie.

And I said, wow, this could be useful.

Because I was about to emigrate and become whatever, businessmen. I said, wow, this could be useful.

So I kept observing him, kept to see.

And I created video files, video files in my mind of this guy tying the tie.

But I was in the army at the time, and so I didn't need to put a tie, and I didn't need to put a tie for like a few years.

Years later, many years later, four or five years later, I went to Europe, to Switzerland, and I had to put a tie.

At that point when I had to put a tie, I behaviorally reproduced.

What does it mean? Or produced? What does it mean?

I clicked on the index. I clicked on the index in my mind. The file opened. The file opened.

And I repeated what I saw in this video. I was watching the video in my mind. And I was repeating.

And I had a tie on. So this is behavioral production or reproduction. Some people call it production, some people call it reproduction.

Now I put on the tie, I put on the tie. That is motor production, motoric production, because I move my hands and so on. It's a body-based production.

Where I disagree with Bandura is that he says that the only form of production is motor production. I disagree with that. I think you could have mental production or psychological production.

In other words, you could observe someone, you can create a video file or whatever and so on, and then you can produce it for psychological reasons, not motorically, not with your body, but for psychological reasons.

So I add to the theory the idea of mental production, not only motor.

And finally, in the process of observational learning, there are motivational mediating processes.

What Bandura is saying is that imitation, observation imitation, social learning is not such a simple process, not simple at all, and doesn't happen all the time.

If it is not good for you, it's not going to happen. If it doesn't respond to your needs, it's not going to happen.

And by the way, this is also true for conditioning, for reinforcement. Reinforcements do not work when they do not cater to your needs, when they do not correspond to your needs.

So the last stage is motivational.

Motivational is when you reproduce the behavior, when you produce the behavior, and everyone around you says, wow, you're great, this is wonderful.

In other words, when the environment gives you positive reinforcement, when you produce a behavior and the environment gives you positive feedback, you gain motivation to repeat this behavior again and again.

So this is the motivational mediating process.

Bandura said that sometimes when you watch someone else, you watch someone else and that person is doing the behavior, is repeating the behavior, producing the behavior, and they get positive reinforcement.

So for example, I want to put on a tie, and then I see someone putting on a tie, and then people treat him nicely and with respect and so on.

So I will learn from the experience of that other person that it's good to put on a tie.

And this is known as vicarious reinforcement when the rewards are only observed.

So Bandura said you can produce behavior, you can produce behavior, and you can get positive feedback, positive input, positive reinforcements from other people. And then you will have motivation to repeat this behavior again and again.

But even if you see that other people are behaving this way and that when they behave this way, they get positive reinforcements, even then you will have motivation because you will say they are getting positive reinforcements, they are getting rewards, everyone appreciates them, they are liked, say they are getting positive reinforcements, they are getting rewards, everyone appreciates them, they are liked, they are popular, I want to behave the same way because I want the same outcomes.

And this is known as vicarious reinforcement.

Bandura said that people appreciate effort, people appreciate hard work more than talent.

And you appreciate hard work more than talent.

Because if you are talented, then whatever you do comes to you naturally. It doesn't prove anything. It's not proof of anything.

But if you work hard, that means that the outcomes are meaningful. If you're talented, then whatever you do, whether you do it or not, is not very significant because it's not you, it's your talent.

But effort and hard work, an investment and commitment, they demonstrate that you are, you know, someone to be respected.

So he said that generally speaking, motivation is enhanced with effort, not with talent.

This is known asthe control bias.

Now we all know that this is actually true. We know that this is true.

Do you know these good looking guys and they think just because they're good looking, they deserve everything? They don't have to work hard, they don't have to study, they don't have to do anything. They're good looking, it's enough.

So this is an example of control bias. Where I'm good looking, it's enough. I don't need to invest, I don't need to do anything further.

Bandura said that the motivation to imitate someone depends on the status of the role model.

We imitate higher status people, more than lower status people. We imitate people who work hard more than people who are talented. We imitate people who are obtaining positive outcomes.

When we see that people are getting positive outcomes, we are motivated to imitate them. When we see that they are working hard and succeed, we are motivated to imitate them. When we see that they are high status, we are motivated to imitate them. And when we see that the environment reacts well and favorably to the behavior, we are motivated to imitate them.

Now there is this phenomenon of coaches, you know, online coaches, offline coaches, and they tell you, if you just put your mind to it, if you just think really hard about it, everything will happen. You will get, you become rich, you will be, you know.

So they tell you you don't need to work hard, you just need to focus, you need to really want it, you need to really think about it, and it will happen.

There are programs like The Secret and Law of Attraction and bullshit like this, excuse me for the language, and they teach you that actually the universe will arrange itself to accommodate your needs and to cater to your wishes. Your wishes will be fulfilled just because you want them to be fulfilled.

And nothing else is needed. None of this is needed. You know, you just because he want them to be fulfilled. And nothing else is needed. None of this is needed. You know? You just need to want something.

And there are other programs, types of programs, that tell you that you are capable of anything. That no matter what it is, you can accomplish it. It depends just on you. You can even manifest things, you know, manifesting, you can create things, bring them into material reality.

And there is an example of Awaken the Giant Within. Everyone is a giant within. I don't know where the giant would have place in me, but okay. Everyone is a giant within and you just have to wake up the giant. And then you will become a giant, you know.

And there's the famous saying in America, fake it till you make it. Pretend that you're accomplished. Pretend that you know. Pretend the.

And finally, you will be a success.

All these are never going to work. They're simply never going to work because they contradict social learning theory. They contradict everything we know about success, everything we know about self-efficacy.

So that's why these programs basically are addictive because they never work, so you buy the next lesson and the next book and the next cassette and the next, you know, because they never work.

In MLM programs, MLM programs, which are very common in Macedonia, all these pyramid schemes, basically, they tell you that you don't have to work hard. You just have to convince other people to work hard or you have to convince other people to buy something or you have to convince other people to act and you will get some percentage or whatever.

So the message is you don't have to work hard. You just have to be there.

And the statistics show that 98.9% of people who are involved in these schemes lose money, in effect.

Only a tiny percentage at the top make money, and they're making money by deceiving the other people.

So anything that is too good to be true, remember this.

If you remember anything from this course, anything that is too good to be true is never, ever true. Period.

And that includes, by the way, boyfriends and girlfriends. Anything and anyone that are too good to be true are not true. This is fake.

Why am I teaching you all this? You could say, wait a minute, this course is about from adolescent to adult. What does this have any of this to do with it?

That's how we become adults.

We become adults by imitating, according to Bandura.

According to Bandura, the process of personal growth and personal development across the lifespan is by imitating.

As children, we imitate mother, and later father. As adolescents, we imitate peers. As young adults, we have gurus and mentors.

And we go through life, imitating people.

And this is the engine of growth and development, according to social learning or social cognitive theory.

It is not the only theory of personal development and growth, of course. I've already introduced you to a few others. And next class we will discuss the information processing theories of personal development.

But you see, I think that's my personal attitude, shall we say, or personal inclination.

I don't like to focus on lists. Children behave this way. Children, when they're angry, they do this, and adolescents behave this way. I don't like to do this.

Because honestly, you know about children and about adolescents, not much less than a typical psychologist. We've all been exposed to adolescents and we've all been exposed to children. And we've all been exposed. I mean, I don't see the use of making lists of how adolescents behave and how children behave. We all know this.

You see social learning theory? This is the cutting edge of psychology. This is the latest in psychology, together with information processing. Theories, that's the latest and so.

My grandmother knew this. My grandmother knew all this. Not one element is missing.

Psychology, all psychologists put together are equal one good, wise grandmother, honestly.

So we should focus on the science, not on the wisdom.

There's a lot of wisdom in psychology, and there's a lot of literature in psychology.

But every grandmother has this wisdom and everyone who has read books has been exposed to a lot of analysis of human nature. These are not the advantages of psychology.

This wisdom is not the advantage of psychology.

Psychology is supposed to be a science and we need to explore whether it can be or cannot be.

So when you see an experiment like the Bobo doll, that's impressive. That's not something a grandmother would do.

But when I read, for example, the other day I read an article by Gottman. Gottman is a brilliant psychologist and so on, but okay, I read an article by Gottmann.

Gottman is a brilliant psychologist and so on.

But okay, I read an article.

This is amazing, you know, like, there are two types of parents. Parents who encourage children to express their emotions and parents who discourage children to express emotions, especially negative emotions.

And right, of course, he's right. These are known as emotion coaching parents and emotion dismissive parents.

Okay, but what is the difference between this and what any good friend would tell you, what any parent would tell you? Everybody knows this. Is there anyone in this room who doesn't know that some parents encourage your children and some parents discourage your children?

What is, I don't understand, what is the, and this article is one of the greatest discoveries in psychology.

It is quoted in all the biggest textbooks.

And I'm standing there and I'm saying, what on earth? What is this?

You know, I come, I'm a physicist. I have a PhD in physics. This is science. I don't see the science in such.

So that's why I, in my courses, I don't teach literature. I don't teach, a child behaves this way. A child does this, mother does this, child, father, the mother, that's very nice.

But for me, it's not a science. For me, a science is something like this, definitely information processing theory.

And I'm teaching you the scientific core, the scientific core, not the descriptive core, not the literary core, which you can find on your own, by the way, online, on a big deal.

So it's a lot more boring. Science is boring because science is repetitive and science is detail-oriented and science breaks everything to small elements.

You could say, this is boring. And yes, it's boring, of course. Science is boring on the one hand but on the other end what you learn through science is for life and it is for sure what you learn through observations I call them Baba observations, you know, grandmother observations, is nice, but it changes.

And most of these observations change all the time, by the way.

Things that were written in psychology in the 1940s, contradict things that were written in the 60s, contradict things were written in the 80s, contradict things, etc.

So what's the point in all this? What's the point in you?

I'm trying to teach you things that will never change in my view. Things that I could teach 50 years from now or could have taught 40 years ago.

This is the true core of psychology. I hope you understand.