Questions on the essay on Social Learning

Social Learning

Introduction

From an evolutionary perspective, both individual and social learning
can be viewed as forms of phenotypic plasticity. Both modes of learning
are developmental processes that cause organisms to acquire different
behaviors in different environments. Phenotypic plasticity may be
adaptive in temporally or spatially varying environments if the use of
environmental cues enables organisms to acquire behavior that is
adaptive in each local habitat. For example, by sampling novel foods and
learning to avoid noxious food types, a cosmopolitan species like the
rat can acquire an appropriate diet in a wide range of environments.
Mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity may also have fitness costs. By
sampling novel foods, the rat incurs risks that could be avoided by an
animal with rigid genetically specified food preferences (Wright, 1995).


The ways in which individual learning and social learning allow
organisms to adapt to different environments are, however, quite
different. Behavioral variants acquired by individual learning are not
transmitted from one generation to the next. This means that each
individual's behavior develops independently based on the interaction of
genetically inherited learning mechanisms and the local environment.
Generic variation underlying learning mechanisms may evolve, but the
behavioral variants acquired by learning do not. Individual learning is
adaptive if it bestows some advantage on the individual. In contrast,
behaviors acquired by the imitative and observational forms of social
learning are transmitted from one individual to another and thus from
one generation to the next. From an evolutionary biologist's perspective
social learning is interesting because it mixes aspects of a system of
inheritance with aspects of ordinary phenotypic flexibility, creating a
system for the inheritance of acquired variation. To understand the
conditions under which social learning is adaptive we must understand
how individual learning and social learning interact to determine the
evolutionary dynamics of the behavioral variants themselves as well as
the genes that underlie learning processes.

The evolutionary properties of the inheritance of acquired variation
have received relatively little theoretical attention. This inattention
may be due to the fact that evolutionary biologists have supposed that
the inheritance of acquired variation is rare in nature, essentially
restricted to human culture and a few unusual animal systems, such as
the songs of some birds. Those biologists who have imagined that social
learning is common in animals besides humans have not always taken
proper account of the difficulty of demonstrating true imitation in the
face of several processes that can mimic its effects. With a few
exceptions recent theoretical work on cultural transmission has
concentrated on explaining human culture rather than on the more general
properties of social learning (Blonski, 1999).

Under what circumstances should natural selection favor a growth of
reliance on social learning at the expense of individual learning? The
answer to this question is important because it seems likely that social
learning originally evolved in species with extensive individual
learning abilities. Our focus on the adaptive value of social learning
does not imply that selection is the only important evolutionary
process, or that all behavior is adaptive. We do believe, however, that
understanding the conditions under which social learning is adaptive is
an important first step in understanding its evolution and the
conditions under which one would expect to find social learning in
nature.

At first glance, it may seem that social learning will always be the
superior form of phenotypic plasticity. Acquiring adaptive behavior by
conditioning and other forms of individual learning is often an
inefficient process. Learning trials divert time and energy from other
fitness-enhancing activities, they may entail serious risks, and there
may be substantial chance of not acquiring locally adaptive behavior. It
thus seems much more efficient to acquire behaviors by social learning.
Studies of humans suggest that social learning can be both rapid and
accurate. It is plausible that by simply copying the behavior of others,
individuals can acquire locally adaptive behaviors without incurring the
costs associated with individual learning.

This argument is problematical, however. It certainly makes sense to
imitate others if the most common behavior among available models is
adaptive in the local environment. The problem is that as individuals
come increasingly to rely on social learning, models exhibiting locally
adaptive behaviors might become uncommon. To see that this is the case,
consider the very simple example in which there are two kinds of
individuals in population-- learners who acquire their behavior by a
process of individual learning that results in adaptive behavior, and
imitators who depend completely on imitation. As long as imitators are
rare, they are likely to copy the adaptive behavior of learners.
Assuming that imitation is less costly than individual learning,
imitation will be more adaptive. However, as imitators become more
common, they are more and more likely to acquire their behavior by
copying another imitator, who may have also copied an imitator and so
on. In a variable environment, the most common behavior may not be the
most adaptive behavior, and individual learning may be more adaptive
than imitation (Laland, 1996).

The reason that elementary general models are useful, despite their
simplicity and unrealism, is that even the simplest evolutionary
processes are hard to understand. Thus, simple models serve as an
essential supplement to intuition, which is often misleading. In the
case at hand, several quantitative variables, such as accuracy of
individual learning, costs of achieving a given level of accuracy, and
patterns of environmental variation, interact to affect the mixture of
social and individual learning that selection would favor. Furthermore,
the optimal mix of social and individual learning is affected by
population-level properties of social learning; because behaviors can be
spread from individual to individual by social learning, long-run
outcomes over many generations are relevant to the problem. It is not
trivial to keep all these interacting parts of the problem straight.
Simple models can serve as a check on less formal methods of deductive
reasoning, as a basis for constructing more realistic models, and as an
unambiguous standard of comparison for purposes of discussion.

Biological Development and Social Learning

The process of biological evolution is based upon a complex function of
mutation and genetic recombination under the influence of environmental
selection. This phylogenetic process displays two modes --adaptive
specialization and adaptive generalization. The former acts to improve
the adaptation of stereotyped organism behavior. The latter acts to
improve the adaptability of the organism. The one may narrow the
operational environment of the species while the other tends to broaden
it. Both modes of adaptation are manifestations of phylogenesis, and
adaptive generalization usually opens the way for a whole new round of
adaptive specializations (Schlag, & Pollock, (1999).

The process of phylogenesis displays the characteristics of a learning
system. It describes the process through which the behavior of a biotype
becomes transformed by virtue of the biological population's internal
capacity to generate new behavioral ideas through interaction with the
environment. This learning process exhibits both the capacity for
behavioral refinement and behavioral innovations.

The innovative transformations are of special interest to us because
they are manifestations of a learning system performing as a
developmental system. We note that the adaptive generalization acts to
increase the complexity and improve the rational organization of
organisms and this is the morphological counterpart to the development
of more adaptable behavior. Adaptability is fostered by a series of
improvements in environmental tolerance, organism mobility, and
discriminatory capacities of the organism. The latter, as manifest in
the development of the nervous system and the brain, has been especially
important in the evolutionary history of adaptable behavior.

We observe that the phylogenetic process, as conventionally described,
falls short of internalizing all of the creative elements of
selfreorganization or behavioral reprogramming. However, we can see
that, at the level of the biosystem as a whole, many of the
environmental changes that form the shaping edge of the creative
dialogue are themselves a product of biological evolution. We can
visualize them as components in an internal feedback response that makes
of the evolutionary process an endogenous learning system (Wright, 1995)


This aspect of the process cannot be satisfactorily detailed because it
has not been adequately attended to by the life scientists. However, the
nature of the process is sufficiently well known to characterize it as a
stochastic process that does not support positive prediction. It turns
out, therefore, that it does not provide a fully adequate model for
describing social change, nor does it form an adequate base for the
conduct of social prediction and planning. Nevertheless, it may
illustrate some aspects of this process and, as a base for comparison,
serve to highlight some of the unique characteristics of the social
process.

Social Development and Social Learning

We have come to the Point that we recognize that economic and social
development implies changes in modes of behavior. This, in turn, implies
that development is essentially a learning process. Learning processes
can be conceived as taking the form of programmed learning or creative
learning. In the interest of investigating model concepts that can be
characterized as creative learning; we have investigated the stochastic
learning model represented by the modern synthetic theory of biological
evolution. That review makes plain that there is another creative
learning model that we characterize as social learning. In order to give
this model a more complete articulation, let us examine the principal
features of the process of social learning and the way in which it has
emerged (Hunt, 1962).

Consider, first, the way in which the process of social learning came
into being. This process has both an individual aspect and a group
aspect.

The Learning System at the Level of the Organism

The most striking thing about evolutionary history is the fact that the
operation of phylogenesis in its generalizing mode has created
improvements in organism adaptability until it has generated learning
organisms. This gives special point to one of the large-scale features
of evolution already emphasized. We observed earlier that instead of
modifying the genetic base of behavior by pruning and reshaping a
stereotyped pattern, adaptive generalization, by promoting adaptability,
provides the organism with the power to modify its own behavior during
its life cycle without sole recourse to another round of selective
transformation of the genotype. We observed that this power was
particularly served by the development of a nervous system and brain
that permits discriminating behavioral responses, and that this power
has reached its highest manifestation in man. These traits persisted and
developed because, once invented, they enormously enhanced the survival
characteristics of the organisms and populations so favored and became
inscribed in the genetic base of the species.

Expressed another way, the behavioral reprogramming of organism behavior
that is phylogenesis gradually evolved a program (genotype) that
provides the organism with the power to reprogram itself--to act as a
true learning system at the organism level. Phylogenesis operating as a
learning system produced a learning subsystem--the learning
organism--that operates at a different level and by more direct means.

The development of this new biological capacity did not create a way for
the new adaptive behavior (acquired by the organism in the course of its
lifelong encounter with the environment) to be passed on to its progeny
through the genetic material. Thus, during the earlier phases of the
evolution of this discriminating process, there was no means for
accumulating acquired behavior and each organism had to "rediscover" the
world for itself (Estes, 1984).

As these learning powers became enhanced in later species, we could see
the emergence of a new learning dynamic. As organisms acquired the power
to perceive their environments, interpret those perceptions, and
generate a feedback response, they found that their environments
included other members of their own species engaged in a learning
response to the environment. In time, the power of mental abstraction
arrived at the point where the behavioral responses of others could be
perceived and interpreted in a way that permitted behavioral mimicry.
This opened the door to the accumulation of acquired behavior in a
population not subject to the mortality constraints of organisms. In
short, the learning capacity of the organism became socialized into a
more general learning system that operates once again at the level of
the population rather than the individual. But the process at work here
obviously exhibits a different dynamic form than that of phylogenesis.

The advantages of shared learning for behavioral adaptation and survival
assured the reinforcement and development of this mode of learning. It
reached its peak in man, in whom the power of abstraction is raised to a
level supporting formal symbolic modes of communication or sharing of
acquired experience. In the human species the learning organism reaches
the point where learning becomes largely socialized because the dominant
aspect of the individual organism's learning environment is the presence
of and the sharing with other human learning organisms (Scharfstein, &
Stein, 1990).

The development of socialized learning opens the way for an important
change in the way learning systems operate. The phylogenetic process
always operated through genetic differentiation. Under the influence of
variations in environmental ranges genetic pools became progressively
differentiated into subsets (the process of speciation). In a few
instances the rudiments of genetic diffusion were present. This is a
process that brings about the transformation of biological systems by
the diffusion of genes between species through introgression or
hybridization. Where this occurs it leads to a convergence of species
characteristics rather than the divergent characteristics of adaptive
radiation. This mechanism has played a greater role in the evolution of
plants than animals, but its role for the most part has been extremely
limited in both. It is obvious however, that the process of socialized
learning places great reliance upon the process of information diffusion
with its attendant convergent qualities.

Is Social Learning an Adaptive Specialization?

Learning, like other behavioral or structural traits, may vary in its
usefulness according to the particular environmental problems an animal
faces. In psychology, Rozin and Kalat (1971) were the first to propose
explicitly that some learning abilities could be seen as adaptive
specializations molded by natural selection to cope with particular
ecological demands. Three major assumptions underlie this view: (1)
learning is not a single, general, set of rules for the modification of
behavior, but an assemblage of discrete abilities that may be oriented
in different directions in different contexts; (2) because different
species face different ecological contexts, learning abilities can be
expected to vary across species; and (3) the origin of ecologically
correlated learning differences is divergent natural selection.

Adaptive specialization is part of a wider, ecological, program for the
study of learning. Several logical and mathematical models for the
evolution of learning also fall within this ecological program, as does
recent comparative work on spatial memory in birds and mammals and
flower exploitation skills in hymenoptera.

Like any other learning ability, social learning can also be seen as an
adaptive specialization to particular environmental demands. The degree
of social flocking will be found to show a positive correlation with the
ability to learn avoidance and other responses through empathic
processes.

In all three cases, interspecific differences in social learning appear
to support the ecological view. Mandrills are quicker at social learning
of an avoidance response than are baboons, which are, in turn, more
rapid than are vervet monkeys; these differences are in the same
direction as species differences in gregariousness. Opportunistic great
tits learn avoidance discrimination more easily in social conditions
than conservative greenfinches. Great tits and blackbirds, more
opportunistic than their respective congenerics the marsh tit and
songthrush, also socially learn a new food searching behavior more
rapidly. At first glance, the comparative literature therefore seems to
suggest that social learning is an adaptive specialization to
opportunist and gregarious lifestyles.

Social Learning Theory

Social learning theory is an objectivist theory that emphasizes the
application of universal (scientific) principles. This perspective
emphasizes that the practitioner need not apply (social learning)
behavioral theory differentially, but can achieve effective
interventions if the theory's practice assumptions are sensitively and
accurately undertaken. Other behaviorists, such as those espousing
cognitive-behavioral theory, may emphasize other learning mechanisms
(Blechman, 1984) and may contend that the behavioral approach is not as
value-neutral as is presented.

The application of the principles of social learning theory to the field
of social work is almost three decades old. The earliest behavioral
article authored by a social worker appeared in 1965, and the earliest
book was published in 1967. Since that time the field of behavioral
social work has expanded enormously. Social learning theory is now a
preferred orientation for a large minority of social workers, and the
approach is well represented in professional curricula, textbooks, and
journals.

The social learning theory foundation of behavioral social work has
produced an approach to understanding human behavioral development and
diversity of expression that is characterized by an empirical approach
to re- search, largely (although not exclusively) quantitative in
orientations and committed to understanding objective relationships
between human beings and their psychosocial environments. This empirical
orientation has proven to be professionally productive: Well over 50% of
the controlled outcome studies with positive results that have appeared
in the social work literature have been based on social learning theory
(Scharfstein, and Stein, 1990).

That the behavioral approach is represented in professional training and
practice and is relatively well documented as efficacious for a wide
variety of problems addressed by social workers seems reasonably
established.

The Role of Biological Factors

The biological differences that imperfectly distinguish various cultural
and ethnic groups obviously arise from genetic factors, but a given
person's genetic endowment is itself the function of many generations of
natural shaping by the environments in which human beings have lived.
Indeed, recent developments in the field of sociobiology suggest that
aspects of behavior, not just physical features, may be genetically
mediated. Extensions of the influence of biological factors are also
being made into the realm of those behaviors giving rise to what we call
ethnicity. Although it is clear that nurture has a role as well as
nature in accounting for cultural diversity, from the perspective of
social learning theory, most cultural differences are not intrinsic to
people but to the different environments in which they live and from
which they learn.

1. People's actions are lawful and shaped by personal history and
biology; all persons, therefore, deserve equal respect regardless of
behavior. This is true regardless of race, sex, age, ethnicity, class,
religious or sexual preferences, educational level or disability.

2. Cultural practices emphasizing mutual respect and cooperation
generally produce greater overall satisfaction and reinforcement than do
those based on oppression, competition or coercion; therefore acting
for the common welfare is generally valuable (Scharfstein, & Stein,
1990).

Although clearly derived from social learning theory, these elements of
Mattaini's Behavior Code would seem highly relevant to social work
practice in general, and to practice with culturally diverse client
groups in particular.

Definitions and Mechanisms of Behavior Change

One definition of behavioral social work is the following:

Behavioral social work is the informed use, by professional social
workers, of interventive techniques based upon empirically-derived
learning theories that include but are not limited to, operant
conditioning, respondent conditioning, and observational learning.
Behavioral social workers may or may not subscribe to the philosophy of
behaviorism.

The foundations of social learning theory were originally developed
outside the field of social work, primarily through the work of
experimental psychologists, but the last three decades have seen ample
evidence that the principles of learning established in the experimental
laboratory with other organisms are isomorphic with those operating with
human beings. That humans present vastly more complex elaborations of
behavior is undeniable, but it seems clear that to a very large extent
our comportment develops through the three learning mechanisms described
in the above definition.

Respondent conditioning is the most fundamental learning mechanism
shared by humans and other animals. Shown to occur in all animal species
ever tested, including single-cell organisms, even individual nerve and
muscle cells are capable of respondent learning. Pavlov and his
associates demonstrated how a neutral stimulus, if presented one or more
times immediately prior to the occurrence of an event (unconditioned
stimulus) that produced an innate reflexive response (unconditioned
response), the previously neutral stimulus could come to elicit a
similar response. After such conditioning trials the neutral stimulus
that now elicits such responses is called a conditioned stimulus (CS)
and the largely involuntary response to the CS is called a conditioned
response. The types of bodily responses involved in such conditioning
processes are called respondent behaviors, and the learning process is
called respondent conditioning. It appears that significant components
of human sexual behavior, emotional reactions, and even glandular
secretions can be modifiable through the processes of respondent
conditioning. The capacity for such learning in human is present at
birth.

The second major form of learning addressed by social learning theory
(actually the dominant one) is called operant conditioning, which
examines how the consequences that have followed a behavior in the past
come to influence its present occurrence. This is a completely different
mechanism than respondent conditioning, which focuses on how stimuli
that occur before a behavior come to elicit relatively simple reflexive
acts. In the operant model developed by Skinner and others, the
consequences that follow a behavior can take four major forms: something
good is presented (positive reinforcement), something bad is taken away
(negative reinforcement), something bad is presented (positive
punishment), or something good is taken away (negative punishment).
Reinforcement (both positive and negative) tends to strengthen behavior,
whereas punishment tends to weaken it. Building upon these conceptually
simple operations, a vast edifice of operant theory has been
established, strongly supported by empirical research, which addresses
most of those human activities we call voluntary behavior (the term
operant is derived from the fact that our behavior can be said to
operate upon our psychosocial environment). Virtually all animal species
have been shown to acquire new behavior or to modify existing
repertoires through operant learning processes, a capacity that seems to
be present in humans even at birth (Laland, 1996).

Learning via imitation of others (also called modeling) is a third
important mechanism of learning. The capacity for imitation appears to
be present in humans at birth and has been demonstrated in other
animals. The development and maintenance of complex imitative
repertoires seems strongly mediated by operant factors and is held to
account for much of an individual's acquisition of culturally and
gender-specific behaviors. The innate capacity for imitation is itself
strongly affected by the consequences of one's own modeled behavior. A
child who imitates a peer and obtains reinforcement for this is
simultaneously strengthening two repertoires: the particular behavior
that was imitated, and the generic likelihood to model others. Over the
time course of childhood development, most individuals develop strong
imitative skills, skills that are durable in part because of the
sometimes inconsistent occurrence of being rewarded for imitation. By
adolescence and often earlier, generalized imitation will persist for
quite some time even in the absence of reinforcing consequences.

The focus of social learning theory on these three processes for
developing and changing behavior does not deny the possible relevance of
other factors. Rather it represents a parsimonious determination to
explore as fully as possible the possible role of environmentally
mediated learning prior to developing accounts based on other
mechanisms. This is similar to other fields, such as genetics (Hunt,
1962). Geneticists examine the influence of chromosomal factors in their
accounts of the development of the human body and its actions. They
largely ignore operant factors occurring during a person's life,
possible psychodynamic influences, drug ingestion, and so forth.
Nevertheless, genetics is seen as a credible field whose findings are
accorded respect. To have a clearly defined focus is scientifically
acceptable, and the focus of behavioral social work is on how the
environment gives rise to behavior via learning processes. No other
explanatory principles are necessarily deemed to be unimportant. This
focus upon learning mechanisms that are based on the transactions
occurring among persons and their environments is obviously congruent
with central themes adopted by the field of social work and represents
one manner of operationally defining the historic person-in-environment
perspective of our field.

Basic Assumptions

It is not well recognized that behavioral social work's learning theory
foundations have given rise to an approach to practice that is almost
exclusively oriented toward the person-in-environment perspective that
has long characterized the field of social work (Estes, 1984).

A behavioral analytic perspective on human development is a viable
alternative to traditional stage theories. Rather than postulating a
hierarchy of stages in cognitive-moral-behavioral-development, behavior
analysis attempts to explain the emergence of differential human
capabilities and expressions in terms of the operation of various forms
of empirically supported learning theories. These mechanisms of learning
are said to apply to all cultures and races and to men and women
equally. The psychosocial environments in which they operate may
considerably vary, but the fundamental mechanisms are understood to
remain the same.

Practice Assumptions

Behavioral social work does not strongly rely upon traditional theories
of human development in attempting to understand culturally diverse
clients. This is justified because the validity of traditional stage
theories is increasingly coming into doubt, and because of the growing
evidence that they may fail to capture cultural diversity issues related
to development. Similarly, traditional practice wisdom and contemporary
research about culturally diverse groups is being questioned. For
example, it appears that most applied research on African-American women
has involved limited or nonrepresentative samples. Most studies that
examine racial differences highlight between-group differences, ignoring
the fact that within-group variation is typically very large, and that
various racial groups more often than not share far more features in
common than differences. A similar caveat has emerged from meta-analyses
of research on purportedly significant gender differences in cognitive
functioning. From a social learning perspective, a middle-class white
adolescent may have more in common with a middle-class black teenager
than with a poor white youth from Appalachia (Arthur, 1992).

Social learning theorists do recognize that differences among clients
exist, and that these differences need to be assessed and taken into
account when practicing with persons from culturally diverse
backgrounds. For the behavioral social worker, effective culturally
diverse practice does not consist of assuming that skin color or ethnic
heritage exerts a predictable influence on one's role as a client.
Rather, it consists of some traditional social work practices such as
conducting individualized assessments, attempting

to leave behind preconceptions of what people should be like, based on
their race or gender

to take what clients bring to the practitioner in a non-condemnatory way


to respect clients' views

to try and conceptualize the problem in a manner consistent with social
learning theory and to translate this conception to the client in a
manner he or she can understand

to propose, based upon empirical research if such exists, one or more
courses of joint action

to develop a means to assess client change in a manner that is
acceptable to the client, and is at the same time reliable and valid

to alter treatment plans as the client and/or data indicate
modifications are needed

and to recruit significant others into treatment as needed to help
ensure the maintenance and generalization of meaningful change.

The above is not meant to disregard those cultural differences that may
exist between clients, but is intended to emphasize that such
differences need to be revealed through individualized assessment,
rather than assumed to exist by the social worker.

Behavioral social workers make no pretence that the behavioral approach
is value free or can be applied across the board with different persons,
regardless of their individual likes and dislikes or learning histories.
But it is sufficiently flexible that a skilled social worker, drawing
upon an informed knowledge of social learning theory, is in a good
position to devise an interventive program that takes into account such
individual differences and that will be of benefit to the client.

Critique and Limitations

In discussing the real and potential limitations of utilizing social
learning theory in social work practice with culturally diverse clients,
the one limitation that strikes the author most forcibly is the extent
to which this approach continues to fall prey to misconceptions about
the nature of behavioral practice.

A second limitation, shared with colleagues from other theoretical
orientations perhaps, is the temptation to apply techniques in a
rotelike manner.

A third limitation is that the study of the principles of social
learning theory and of the practice techniques comprising behavioral
social work could consume an entire M.S.W. training program. This is a
conceptually rich orientation, which has generated literally hundreds of
interventive methods, each with its own degree of empirical support and
applicability to clients from culturally diverse backgrounds. The design
and content of most M.S.W. programs does not allow for mastery of this
content. As a consequence, social workers are often not aware of the
remarkable degree of empirical support that this approach to practice
has garnered, and are poorly trained in the skillful delivery of
behavioral interventions (Blonski, 1999).

Social learning theory is itself an evolving body of knowledge. The
traditional distinctions between respondent and operant conditioning
have been called into doubt by some researchers, and it may emerge that
learning via imitation is a complex form of operant conditioning as
opposed to a conceptually distinct mechanism. Fifty years ago the field
now known as social learning theory did not exist. It is to be hoped
that 50 years hence the present formulations will have been replaced by
a conceptual framework that captures even more of nature's truth and
that yields ever more effective methods of social work practice. In the
interim, it must be acknowledged that the present framework is an
incomplete one and that many areas of social work practice, particular
those dealing with culturally diverse client groups, lack a strong
foundation of empirical support for the application of behavioral
methods. Recognition of this fact should not obscure the impressive
achievements that have been made to date in this area, but rather should
serve as a stimulus for further conceptual and empirical progress.

Social learning theory has much to offer social work in terms of helping
members of our profession offer culturally sensitive and effective
interventive services to diverse client groups. The theoretical
foundation of behavioral social work is strongly supported by empirical
research, and numerous replication studies across clients representing
various cultures, races, ethnic backgrounds, nationalities, sexual
orientations, and other aspects of diversity suggest that this approach
produces positive benefits generalizable to various clients groups. A
social learning theory perspective on diversity issues suggests that
cultural/ethnic differences arise through the operation of common
learning processes occurring within the context of differing
psychosocial environments. No particular group is held up as normative
standard, and an individual's behavior can only be properly understood
when examined within the context in which it developed. By viewing
client problems as arising from past and/or present environmental
learning experiences and as a function of various physical, social, and
psychological resources, an inherently nonpathological, respectful, and
optimistic perspective arises from which to promote positive changes.

Reference:

Arthur, W. Brian (1992) 'On Learning and Adaptation in the Economy',
Discussion Paper Number 854, Queen's University, May.

Blonski, Matthias (1999) 'Social Learning with Case-Based Decisions',
Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organisation, 38(1).

Estes, W. K. (1984) 'Human Learning and Memory', in Marler, Peter and
Terrace, Herbert S. (eds.) The Biology of Learning (Berlin:
Springer-Verlag).

Hunt, Earl B. (1962) Concept Learning: An Information Processing Problem
(New York, NY: Wiley).

Rozin, P. and J.W. Kalat. 1971. Specific hungers and poison avoidance as
adaptive specializations of learning. Psychol. Rev. 78.

Laland, Kevin (1996) 'Is Social Learning Always Adaptive?', Paper
presented at ELSE Interdisciplinary Workshop.

Scharfstein, David S. and Stein, Jeremy C. (1990) 'Herd Behaviour and
Investment', American Economic Review, 80(3),

Schlag, Karl H. and Pollock, Gregory B. (1999) 'Social Roles as an
Effective Learning Mechanism', Rationality and Society, 11(4),

Wright, W. A. (1995) 'Sequential Strategy for Learning Multi-Stage
Multi-Agent Collaborative Games', Draft Paper.

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