Reid Park Social Learning Theory

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My findings at Reid Park are very impressing and further support the Social Learning Theory. I sat there studying several children between the ages of 18 months to six years old. As a scholar of the social learning theory I particularly keyed in on the influence that other people have over another persons behavior. Watching as children act on their environment weather it is with other children or with the adults who are watching them. As said by Albert Bandura, “…They create it, preserve it, transform it, and even destroy it… in socially embedded interplay.” I also note all actions of modeling the children display, trying to evaluate if it is from admiration or similarity. Since modeling is most likely to occur when the observer is uncertain…show more content…
My dog Aj barks at another dog being walked a good distance away. At this time more children have appeared at the park. One young African American boy who is obviously trying to make friends notices my dog’s bark and begins to bark at other children. Soon child by child join in barking and running around. One Hispanic child runs while barking and taps the African American child on the shoulder then runs away. The African American child chases after him and touch’s him back. This cycle repeats with other children noticing the events and soon joining in. The barking stops but the children are still chasing each other tagging one another. Thus a game of “Tag” has begun. (This is modeling which started with the event of my dog’s bark causing the African American child, who was uncertain of how to make friends to bark, triggering a chain of barking amongst the children. The event between the Hispanic and African American boys lead to other children mimicking their fun leading to a wide spread game of…show more content…
My attention is broken by the sound of a mother yelling “don’t you climb on there like that!” I look over to see a quite obese woman yelling at her daughter who is climbing the side of a slide trying to get to the top. She is older then the other children and hangs her head back looking at her mother with worry. She yells at her to get down and to go sit in time out for “acting up in public.” The girl cries and runs to her grand parents. The grandfather makes an, “ugh” sound and keeps reading on his tablet. Her grand mother hugs her and looks toward the obese woman criticizing her for not catching it sooner. The obese woman places her hand on her forehead and sighs, “ugh.” She then tells the little girl she is grounded for a week, at which the girl sighs her very own “ugh.” The mother rolls her eyes and focuses on something else. The grandmother then lets her granddaughter go play again. I look over to the slide she was climbing and it sits low to the ground. In fact the little girl stands taller then the slide. (This example of self-efficacy explains how people think strict parents believe they are powerful but the opposite holds true. The obese woman most likely feels powerless in her life because of her inability to control her weight and her own parental problems. She also views her daughter as strong willed for being adventurist when she is playing. Guzell and Vernon-Feagans explain that this may be a result of their own parents, in this case the grandparents, not
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