Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 
Module 19 
Cognitive Approaches to Learning 
201 
Neuroscience in Your Life: 
Learning Through 
Observation
FIGURE 2
Mirror neurons are neurons in the brain that respond both during the observation 
and execution of an action, suggesting a mechanism that may be involved with learning 
through imitation. In a study investigating the mirror neuron system in humans, participants 
were scanned while observing actions relating to communication (a) and objects (b). The brain 
scans (c and d) illustrate the areas of the brain that form the human mirror neuron system that 
respond during the observation and execution of these actions. 
(Source: Montgomery et al., 2007.)
Ok
(a)
Communication-related movement
(c)
Turn Key
(b)
Object-related movement
(d)
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202 Chapter 
6 
Learning
viewed more than 8,000 murders and more than 800,000 violent acts on 
network television (Huston et al., 1992; Miffl in, 1998). 
Most experts agree that watching high levels of media violence makes 
viewers more susceptible to acting aggressively, and recent research sup-
ports this claim (Boxer et al., 2009; Carnagey, Anderson, & Bartholow, 
2007; Savage & Yancey, 2008). For example, one survey of serious and 
violent young male offenders incarcerated in Florida showed that one-
fourth of them had attempted to commit a media-inspired copycat crime 
(Surette, 2002). A signifi cant proportion of those teenage offenders noted 
that they paid close attention to the media. 
Violent video games have also been linked with actual aggression. In 
one of a series of studies by psychologist Craig Anderson and his col-
leagues, for example, college students who frequently played violent 
video games, such as Postal or Doom , were more likely to have been 
involved in delinquent behavior and aggression. Frequent players also 
had lower academic achievement (Anderson et al., 2004; Anderson & Car-
nagey, 2009; Swing & Anderson, 2007). 
Several aspects of media violence may contribute to real-life aggressive 
behavior (Bushman & Anderson, 2001; Johnson et al., 2002). For one thing, 
experiencing violent media content seems to lower inhibitions against car-
rying out aggression—watching television portrayals of violence or using 
violence to win a video game makes aggression seem a legitimate response 
to particular situations. Exposure to media violence also may distort our understand-
ing of the meaning of others’ behavior, predisposing us to view even nonaggressive 
acts by others as aggressive. Finally, a continuous diet of aggression may leave us 
desensitized to violence, and what previously would have repelled us now produces 
little emotional response. Our sense of the pain and suffering brought about by aggres-
sion may be diminished (Bartholow, Bushman, & Sestir, 2006; Carnagey, Anderson, 
& Bushman, 2007; Weber, Ritterfeld, & Kostygina, 2006). 
What about real-life exposure to actual violence? Does it also lead to increases in 
aggression? The answer is yes. Exposure to actual fi rearm violence (being shot or 
being shot at) doubles the probability that an adolescent will commit serious violence 
over the next two years. Whether the violence is real or fi ctionalized, then, observing 
violent behavior leads to increases in aggressive behavior (Allwood, 2007; Bingen-
heimer, Brennan, & Earls, 2005).
When a member of the Chilcotin Indian tribe teaches her daughter to 
prepare salmon, at fi rst she allows the daughter only to observe the 
entire process. A little later, she permits her child to try out some basic