An analysis of Bandura's work with children and bobo dolls.

Bandura Albert Bandura proposes that cognitive developmental change occurs mainly through observational learning; where a child learns through imitation, and modelling; where a child learns the behaviour and personality traits of another. An example of a theory, which explores imitational behaviour, is the social learning theory. The Social Learning Theory - Badura argues that people learn from what they see. - Children will imitate what they see - His experiment was done with a bobo …

…is more powerful than vicarious reinforcement. This influences early years settings today as it has been proven that vicarious punishment is an effective way to encourage correct behaviour. A classroom example of this is making an example of a naughty child by reprimanding them in front of the rest of the group. This doesn't prove that punishing a child's mistakes will be more helpful to their cognitive development than praising them when they do well.