Someone walks over, introduces themselves, and raises their hand out in front of you. How do you know what you’re supposed to do next? The answer comes from observational learning.

If this were the first time you saw this behavior, you wouldn’t have a clue what to do. If you were from an Eastern culture, you might go to bow toward this person; you know what to do because since childhood, you’ve observed many adults shaking hands.

Observational learning is a learning theory in psychology that describes how we learn by watching and imitating others.

In this article, we will look into what observational learning really is and how it helps you learn and grow.

What Is Observational Learning?

Young children learn many of their behaviors and expressions through observation. We pick up things as fundamental as walking, playing, gestures, facial expressions, and body postures via observational learning.

In the 1970s, psychologist Albert Bandura outlined a four-stage process of how observational learning occurs:^[1]

1. Attention: Notice something in the environment.
2. Retention: Recall what was noticed (memory).
3. Reproduction: Copy or mimic what you noticed.
4. Motivation: Get reinforcement or punishment from the environment for completing the behavior (or not).

Neuroscience provides further evidence. Mirror neurons fire when one animal acts and another animal observes, as if the neurons in one brain are mirroring the patterns of another brain.

The result?

You make a funny face at a baby, and the baby starts imitating the behavior by making the same funny face.

What Influences Observational Learning

Observational learning doesn’t always occur, so it’s essential to understand the conditions in place when it does.

When are we more likely to imitate others? It happens when:

• You doubt yourself and your abilities.
• You are confused or in an unfamiliar environment.
• You’re in a position of authority, like a boss, leader, or celebrity.
• Someone is similar to you in some way: interest, age, or social class.
• You see someone getting rewards and punishment for their behaviors.

For example, let’s say four people go out to an upscale restaurant. One person frequents this type of restaurant, but it’s the first time for the other three individuals.

The person who is comfortable in this environment knows what to do: when and where to place the napkin, how the place setting works, and how to communicate with the wait staff. Because she knows what to do in this situation, she’s the authority.

The rest of her company are in an unfamiliar environment, and when we don’t know how to behave, we tend to look around and observe the behavior of others.

Somehow, we know who to observe by picking up subtle cues. Without having to think about it, the rest of the party subconsciously looks around and begins to discern who the “expert” is and what she’s doing. This sort of process frequently happens throughout our development and the rest of our lives.

How Observational Learning Supports Your Personal Development

Observational learning usually occurs subconsciously in social situations. That is, our basic need to belong, or “fit in,” drives us to adapt our behavior to the actions of others.

However, the real power of observational learning comes from making this process active and conscious.

Once you understand how observational learning works, you can choose to apply it in ways that support your personal and professional development.

Modeling

Modeling

is another term for observational learning. Let’s say you want to become an expert presenter. Start by finding a few presenters that you believe are highly skilled and watch what they do.

Pay attention to how they hold themselves, when they pause, and what points they emphasize. Are they using slides, imagery, sounds, and gestures to get their points across?

Modeling the success of others is perhaps the fastest way to elevate your game and make rapid progress in your development.

Shadowing

In the workplace, observational learning is often called shadowing.

By shadowing an experienced employee for a period, you’ll naturally learn how to perform the tasks this person does each day. This process works effectively in sales environments, too.

Apprenticeship

If you study the masters of any field, you quickly learn that they had great teachers or masters from whom they learned.

In Mastery, author Robert Greene points out that those who reach the level of mastery in any field submit to a rigorous apprenticeship to absorb the secret knowledge of those with many years of experience.

Similarly, in The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle highlights that anyone who cultivates talent has a master coach who knows how to break things down and teach things in a way that accelerates the process of learning.

So if there’s any area of your life that you’re seeking mastery in, with whom can you form an apprenticeship?

In this article, you can learn more about apprenticeship at work: What Is an Apprenticeship and What Value Can It Bring to Your Career?

Hijacking Your Behavior

Our brains, in many ways, are like sponges in that we absorb what we observe. While this observational learning can be a powerful tool for our personal growth and development, it can also be a destructive force.

Consider all of the bad behavior we witnessed when we were kids (and still today):

• Poor attitudes
• Nastiness and rudeness
• Passive-aggressive behavior
• Neurotic tendencies
• Addiction
• Deceit and lying
• Greed
• Procrastination
• Negative self-talk

The list goes on. And yes, we observed and absorbed these behavioral patterns too from our parents, teachers, family members, and friends.

We also adopt behavior we observe on television and in the media. Studies show, for example, that teens who watched a lot of sexual content were more likely to start having sex soon after.^[2]

Does this mean that watching violent movies will make you act violently? Not necessarily, but these images are imprinted in our unconscious and often later express themselves under the right conditions.

Here’s the bottom line:

Be very conscious of the media you consume and who you spend your time with. Our minds are like computer hardware, and what we observe is like the software. Choose positive and life-supporting software if you want your brain to mimic it!

5 Ways to Use Observational Learning to Your Advantage

Here are five tips to make observational learning work for you:

1. Be Highly Selective on What, Who, and When You Observe

Remember, observational learning is taking place whether we want it to or not. To harness this powerful force, consciously select who you are observing and modeling and in what context.

For example, if you know someone who’s highly productive in their work, ask to shadow them.

However, keep in mind that this individual may be an entirely different person when they aren’t working, so be mindful of what behavioral patterns you’re absorbing.

2. Pay Attention to the Details

Those who achieve mastery in any area of their lives do so by mastering the fundamentals and then continually improving on more subtle levels. To the inexperienced eye, it’s often difficult to notice what they do differently.

In the case of negotiations, for example, a skilled negotiator knows how and when to disarm the other player. Sometimes these skills express themselves instinctively, so you may pick up on details in behavior the individual doesn’t even know they are doing during observational learning.

3. Maintain a Playful Attitude

Many of us are conditioned to believe that seriousness is a valuable quality for learning. Psychologist Abraham Maslow, however, found that self-actualizing individuals,^[3] or individuals with positive mental health, tend to have a more innocent, playful attitude when they are learning and developing.

Research also shows that we learn up to ten times faster in the areas that interesting to us.^[4] Therefore, stay curious, open, and ready to learn.

4. Rehearse What You Observe in Your Mind

Studies show that rehearsing specific patterns of movement in our mind’s eye can help our brains encode desired actions and behaviors.^[5] Many peak-performance athletes and musicians use this form of creative visualization training.

Visualization practices are extraordinarily powerful when you do it right before bedtime so your subconscious mind can process in the images while you sleep.

5. Don’t Just Observe; Do

To make observational learning stick, you must also do whatever it is you’re observing . Many companies combine shadowing experienced employees with hands-on training to accelerate the learning and development.

The Bottom Line

In the personal development space, observational learning is often called modeling the success of others.

Here are three questions to help you get started right now:

1. What skills and behaviors do you want to learn?
2. Who already possesses these skills and behaviors?
3. How can you start modeling these individuals right away?

Take a look around and identify people and places that can help you get started with purposeful observational learning.

More About Learning

• 6 Common Types of Learners (With Learning Hacks for Each)
• 15 Ways to Cultivate Continuous Learning for a Sharper Brain
• 7 Most Important Cognitive Skills for Fast and Successful Learning

Featured photo credit: Tyler Nix via unsplash.com

Garry Kasparov is a chess grandmaster – and also a former world chess champion. Over the last few decades, he’s beaten hundreds of first-class chess players. It’s no surprise then, that many people consider Kasparov to be one of the greatest chess players of all time.

However, in 1997, Kasparov lost a game of chess to a computer. A year earlier, he had played against IBM’s Deep Blue chess computer and defeated it. But the computer was to have its revenge, as just one year later, when the rematch took place, Deep Blue defeated Kasparov.

Over the next few years, humans and computers traded chess moves and blows. Fast-forward to 2017, and the picture is crystal clear: today’s best chess programs can easily beat the world’s best human chess players.^[1]

As the Kasparov story demonstrates, even the world’s top players – who practiced a lot – can end up losing.

Now consider your friends, family and colleagues. How many of these people think they’re doing well in what they do? And how many think they are doing better than the average and have stopped looking for ways to improve themselves? The answer is, a lot.

Why Learning Can Lead to Stagnation

When people learn well – they pick up knowledge and quickly become skillful. And the smarter the people, the easier they pick up knowledge, and the easier and faster they become very good at something.

These types of individuals find learning effortless, and therefore, they pick up knowledge and skills much better than the average person.

Take a look at the picture below. The tool in their hand represents the skill they have learned, and the cloud is the level they are currently on – in this case ground level.

When these learners become knowers, they believe that they know what they’ve learned extremely well. This may be the case, but in reality, they’re already better than average. Because of this, they are unlikely to find anyone who can surpass them. It’s at this point that they may think to themselves, “I’m good enough” and “there’s no need for me learn anything more.”

As I’ll show in the next few paragraphs, people’s egos can stop them from learning and improving themselves.

For example, let’s take a look at an expert pianist. They can perform proficiently because of their hard work and practice that they’ve put in over the course of many years. To help them, they may have had a tutor who developed their skills and brought out their talent.

The consistent tutoring and practicing led them to become an accomplished pianist – one who regularly performs paid concerts in front of decent-sized audiences. However, their success has led them to believe that they don’t need to make any further changes or improvements to their musical skills.

When experts stop learning – they start to fall behind. This is because others will keep improving, and eventually get ahead of them.

The world is constantly changing, so sticking to the same way to practice (and failing to improve) will lead to people dropping the ball. A recent study predicted that one in five U.K. employees are under threat of losing their jobs to automation. A person who’s comfortable in their job today, may find themselves replaced by a computer or robot tomorrow. If this prediction comes true, millions of people will soon find themselves out of work.^[2] This is a real life example of how people can fall behind when they stop learning and improving themselves.

Clearly, any experts who stop learning and improving, will be replaced by those who keep learning – whether these are humans or machines.

When You Think You’ve Learned Enough, You Fall Behind

The cloud depicted in the visuals isn’t concrete, and it’s prone to fall and disappear any time when you stop paying attention to your own learning and development.

Everyone, no matter how good they believe themselves to be at something, should never stop learning. Reaching an ‘acceptable’ performance only means that you’re doing okay. It doesn’t mean that you’re doing it to the best of your ability or potential.

As I stated earlier (but well worth repeating again)… When you stop learning, you’re falling behind.

Push Yourself to Reach New Heights

To keep ahead of your competitors, you need to keep learning and practicing. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean doing things in the same way. You may need to step outside of your comfort zone in order to improve.

Do what you can’t

When you think you’re doing something well enough, find what you can’t do – and then do it! Here are four key things to remember about pushing your boundaries:

1. If you never push yourself beyond your comfort zone, you will never improve.
2. Getting out of your comfort zone means trying to do something that you couldn’t do before.
3. Sometimes you’ll run into something that stops you in your tracks. Find ways around these hurdles by focusing on improving your skills and knowledge, and then practicing them until you become proficient.
4. Don’t be afraid to experiment. You may need to try different ways to make things happen.

Set yourself specific goals as you practice

People who achieve great things set themselves definite goals. And I highly recommend that you do the same.

One great way to do this is to follow the SMART and Stretch goal methods, which will help you set a big goal, while at the same time giving you baby steps on how to reach it. When SMART and Stretch goals are combined, your goal setting will have genuine purpose and power. You’ll be motivated by the giant goal, while having confidence in the small, incremental steps that will lead you there.

Find out more about goals setting in my other article: How to Get Bigger Things Done in the Coming Year

Along the way, you need to get feedback to help you improve

It goes without saying that to make progress, you’ll need feedback to identify exactly where and how you are falling short. This feedback can be from yourself or from outside observers (e.g., your audience, your mentor, your peers).

Do you know why computers can beat humans at chess after those times they’ve lost against them? The answer is, that people who program the computers have learned through all the steps humans have performed. They also gathered valuable feedback through their computers losing against some competitors. The programmers pick up the clues and change the way the computers perform in their next matches.

Learning Should Never Come to an End

When we’re young we naturally crave learning. We constantly seek out new knowledge, skills and experiences. However, as we mature, there’s a tendency for us to stop learning new things.

If this happens, you can be sure that stagnation is just around the corner. And as nature shows, nothing (even stagnation) stays the same for long. Things are either building up – or breaking down.

To avoid the latter, you must maintain a positive outlook that embraces big goals and constant learning. By doing these things, you’ll stay fresh, lively and ahead of the pack of hyenas snapping at your heels!