Marina Chapman was kidnapped and abandoned with fear and hunger in a forest when she was five-years-old. Finally, a group of monkeys adopted her and raised her up. She in turn followed them and copied not only what they ate and drank but their social activities and language. She also learned to catch birds and rabbits with her bare hands. After 5 years, she returned to the so-called civilization. She was being beaten and groomed to be a prostitute. She escaped and earned a living by picking pockets and led a gang for a number of years.
The story mentioned is closely associated with one contemporary perspective, behavioral model. Behavioral model focuses on observable behavior and stimulus-response relationships. The importance of environmental forces(i.e. reward and punishment) in shaping behavior is emphasized in the approach. We can observe that Marina’s living style had changed to Tarzan style. It is the survival matter (stimulus) that forces Chapman to change her behavior(response). Her changes are resulting from observational learning which is the learning of new behaviors through observation and imitation of a model. There are 4 steps of learning the new set of survival skills.
Attention  Memory/retention  Imitation/reproduction  Motivation
Firstly, she observed and paid attention to the monkeys’ behaviors, such as how to catch birds and how they communicated when she was staying with them. The little Marina discovered that the ways they caught animal is effective and useful and specific sounds conveyed specific meanings. Then, she stored the news skills and knowledge in her memory. During the time she lived in the forest with many wild animals, she imitated and applied what she had learnt. By observational learning, whether people will perform what they learnt is based on the motivation and the benefit. There were so many things and organisms that