Most of our classic psychological theories were developed long before the invention of television. They focused mainly on influences operating in the immediate physical and social environment. During much of this time, behaviourism dominated the field of psychology. According to this theory, human behaviour is shaped primarily by paired association (classical conditioning) and rewarding and punishing response consequences (operant conditioning).
From my point of view, I found it difficult to imagine a culture where language, values, and all the complexities of social, political and cultural systems, were shaped by such laborious trial-and-error learning. Observation of everyday life shows that social modelling shortcuts this mechanistic process.
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