VICARIOUS LEARNING REVISITED - A CONTEMPORARY BEHAVIOR ANALYTIC INTERPRETATION

Beginning in the 1960s, social learning theorists argued that behavior al learning principles could not account for behavior acquired through observation. Such a viewpoint is still. widely held today. This rejec tion of behavioral principles in explaining vicarious learning was bas ed on three phenomena: (1) imitation that occurred without direct rein forcement of the observer's behavior; (2) imitation that occurred afte r a long delay following modeling; and (3) a greater probability of im itation of the model's reinforced behavior than of the model's nonrein forced or punished behavior. These observations convinced social learn ing theorists that cognitive variables were required to explain behavi or. Such a viewpoint has progressed aggressively, as evidenced by the change in name from social learning theory to social cognitive theory, and has been accompanied by the inclusion of information-processing t heory. Many criticisms of operant theory, however, have ignored the fu ll range of behavioral concepts and principles that have been derived to account for complex behavior. This paper will discuss some problems with the social learning theory explanation of vicarious learning and provide an interpretation of vicarious learning from a contemporary b ehavior analytic viewpoint. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.