What term best describes learning by watching others perform a behavior?

• A. Classical Conditioning
• B. Observational Learning
• C. Operant Conditioning
• D. Insight Learning

Answer: (B)

Observational learning is learning that happens by watching others perform a behavior and note its consequences, then imitate what you saw. The idea is that you can acquire new actions without doing them yourself, often guided by modeling. For this to occur, attention to the model, memory to retain the observed behavior, the ability to reproduce the action, and motivation to imitate are important, with motivation sometimes arising from seeing the model be reinforced or punished. This differs from classical conditioning, which is about forming associations between stimuli; operant conditioning, which relies on reinforcement or punishment of one’s own actions; and insight learning, which is a sudden approach to a solution after some reflection rather than imitation.