Psychological theories have traditionally emphasized learning from direct experience. If knowledge and skills could be acquired only by trial and error, human development would be greatly retarded, not to mention exceedingly tedious and hazardous. Moreover, limited time, resources, and mobility impose severe limits on the places and activities that people can directly explore to gain new knowledge and competencies. Nevertheless, humans have evolved an advanced cognitive capacity for observational learning that enables them to abbreviate knowledge acquisition by learning from the examples provided by others. Indeed, nearly all behavioral, cognitive and emotional learning that results from direct experience can be duplicated by observation of others' behavior.

A special power of social modeling is that it can transmit new ways of thinking and behaving to countless people in widely dispersed locales through symbolic modes of communication. By drawing on this symbolic modeling, observers can transcend the bounds...