Observational learning is learning that occurs by watching others. The observer acquires new behaviors, information, or rules without direct reinforcement of their own actions.

Albert Bandura’s social-learning theory placed observational learning at the center of human development. Children learn aggression, cooperation, language patterns, and social norms by attending to models, remembering what they saw, being able to reproduce the behavior, and having some motivation to do so. Models who are similar, high-status, or rewarded are especially influential. Media characters, parents, teachers, and peers all serve as models.

Observational learning can produce both prosocial and antisocial outcomes. It allows rapid transmission of skills across a group without every individual having to discover the solution by trial and error. Mirror-neuron systems may provide part of the neural basis for the capacity to map observed actions onto one’s own motor repertoire.

Much of what people know how to do was first seen rather than directly experienced.