Observing others as a skill?
@denniechantrain (31)
Belgium
January 9, 2012 5:26pm CST
In our daily life we spend a specific amount of time observing others. It's how we learn to portray specific behavior, it's how we learn certain actions. Particularly when we're young we need others in order to figure out what to do or how to do it. If a kid's watching his older brothers fight, he or she will check out the reaction of the parents, so if the parents are laughing with that, then the child will respond in a similar way. There are many more examples of such instances of learnt behavior. Sometimes I wonder whether the majority of our behavior is not defined by the copying of others in some way. Nonetheless, I think it's even more interesting to try and figure out how we use observation of others in later stages of our lives. How does a 30 year old observe younger and older people, with what purpose, what does he or she get from it? Is it the same for a 60 year old one? Why do you observe others? What do you (think you) get out of these observations? Could it be a skill to observe others? How does it influence your behavior?
2 people like this
1 response
@lilaclady (28207)
• Australia
10 Jan 12
I learn a lot from watching other people, I try and even learn from their mistakes, I think with small children their little brains are like sponges, they take in everything this is why parents must be very careful around their children, my favourit saying is "monkey see, monkey do" and it is true.
@denniechantrain (31)
• Belgium
10 Jan 12
Monkey see, monky do, indeed. There's actually quite a brilliant theory around this: the theory of mirror neurons. Children copy a smile a couple of hours and days after birth, because we have in our wires (our brain) something very special. When we see someone catch a ball, part of the brain that would be used to catch the ball ourselves is activated. It's interesting to know that these mirror neurons keep doing that for the rest of our lives.
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