ABSTRACT
It is widely assumed that the occurrence of imitative or observational learning is contingent on the administration of reinforcing stimuli either to the model or to the observer. Ac cording to the theory propounded by Miller and Dollard (1941), for example, the necessary conditions for learning through imitation include a motivated subject who is positively reinforced for matching the rewarded behavior of a model dur ing a series of initially random, trial-and-error responses. Since this conceptualization of observational learning requires the subReprinted by permission of the publisher from the JOURNAL OF PERSON
ject to perform the imitative response before he can learn it, this theory evidently accounts more adequately for the emission of previously learned matching responses, than for their acquisition.
