How is modeling used to change behavior? Give an example.
Techniques of modeling are utilized to alter behavior by subjects observing model under a circumstance which generally causes anxiety to them. For instance, children being scared of dogs look at another child of same age approaching and touching a dog.
Looking from a safer distance, the scared children watch the model makes continuously nearer and gutsy movements in the direction of dog. As a consequence of this situation of learning which is observational, the fear of children can be decreased.
In a modification of this experiment, subjects may observe models playing with the object which is being feared, like a snake, and following that subjects make continuously nearer actions in the direction of the object till the time these are actually being able to deal with it.
Bandura’s kind of therapy of behavior is extensively utilized in business, classroom and situations and is supported by thousands of empirical studies. It is effective in eradicating fears about heights, open and closed spaces and snakes.
Work by Bandura is being adapted for television and radio programs built up to represent models for proper behavior for addressing national and social issues like avoiding pregnancies which are unwanted, control of AIDS’s spreading, promotion of literacy, raising women’s status and adoption of strategies of family-planning.