Understanding Kayla's Actions Through Vicarious Reinforcement
Why did Kayla imitate her older sister's behavior of sharing toys?
Kayla's actions are most likely from vicarious reinforcement.
Learning via watching others is referred to as vicarious reinforcement. By rewarding the subject with a stimulus, behavior is strengthened through reinforcement. Vicarious reinforcement, then, is when someone alters their behaviour because they desire to experience the same reward that another subject did by adopting the same conduct. The seen conduct and result are deemed desirable, thus the observer will attempt to act in a similar fashion. Similar to the given instance, Kayla saw her older sister rewarded for lending toys to her friends in the present one. After observing the behaviour, she emulated her sister by sharing her toys in an effort to obtain the same reward. The action is a result of vicarious reinforcement.
Final answer: Kayla's actions represent vicarious reinforcement, a concept from the social learning theory. Witnessing her sister get rewarded for sharing encourages Kayla to mimic this behavior. This fits into Piaget's preoperational stage of cognitive development.
Explaining Kayla's Behavior Through Vicarious Reinforcement
Kayla's actions demonstrate a psychological process known as vicarious reinforcement. This process occurs when an observer, such as Kayla, sees a model - in this case, her older sister - being rewarded for a certain behavior, which then makes the observer more likely to replicate that behavior. Kayla sees her sister sharing toys and getting rewarded, and, by understanding the link between the action and the reward, she mimics the action in hopes of receiving a similar reward.
This is related to the concept of social learning theory where individuals, especially children, learn from their surroundings and others' behaviors. The fact that Kayla is five years old also relates to Piaget's preoperational stage of cognitive development (from approximately 2 to 7 years old), whereby children begin to develop an understanding of symbols and cause-effect relationships, thus leading her to mimic her sister's behavior to get a reward.