This week's resource is a video clip that can be used to show "real life" examples of children imitating the behaviour of their parents. It is a fantastic illustration of Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory.

This week's resource is a video clip showing one of Edward Thorndike's experiments with his puzzle box. Thorndike put hungry cats in these boxes and put pieces of tasty fish outside them to motivate them to escape. To escape, the cats had to push a lever and pull on a string. When first put in the box, the cats would behave in a fairly random way, pacing up and down, scratching at the sides etc., but eventually, by chance, they would push the lever and pull on the string in the correct sequence. They would then be rewarded by being able to eat the fish.

Albert Bandura proposed that most behaviour develops through imitating others, although some develops through conditioning. Unlike behaviourism, however, Bandura’s theory also takes into account the role of cognition; learning can occur without a corresponding change in behaviour. Social learning theory also suggests that reinforcements and punishments merely determine whether a learned behaviour is exhibited.