Thursday, December 15, 2011

Learn from Mistakes!

What is vicarious learning?

Observational learning (also known as vicarious learning, social learning, or modeling) is a type of learning that occurs as a function of observing, retaining and replicating novel behavior executed by others.
--Wikipedia

I've probably mentioned the fact that people should learn from other people's mistakes before, but I want to elaborate on this idea. It seems as though a LOT and I mean a majority of people do NOT learn vicariously. I know that I learn this way, especially when it comes to making decisions in life.

I see it like this...There are 3 types of people when it comes to vicariously learning & mistakes. (In my opinion and from observing people)

1.) People like me see mistakes made by other people and make a decision to not make those same mistakes so they don't end up in the same bad situations. We learn to avoid those mistakes since we already know the outcome. We avoid those bad consequences all together by PREVENTING them from ever occuring. Therefore, we don't have to deal with all the drama and heartache that goes along with those consequences. Now doesn't that sound nice?
2.) Then there are those people (most people) that have plenty of examples of bad situations that occured from mistakes made in life, but they still choose to make those EXACT SAME MISTAKES that the others before them have. These people even know what the outcome could possibly be, yet they just can't put two and two together to learn vicariously. So finally, after this type of person makes a terrible mistake, they finally learn a lesson.
3.) Finally there are those people who just will NEVER get it. They've seen others make mistakes that can be detrimental. They've made the mistakes on their own and faced the consequences, BUT they decide to continue to make those same mistakes over and over and over again for whatever reason. It's this type of person that I really don't pity much. If you know what you are doing is wrong and will lead to bad things, then why would you set yourself up for failure again?! I just don't get it. I don't get person #2, but I really don't get person #3.

People confuse me. The end.

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