Social Learning Theory

Social Learning Theory

1. Learning through observing others and imitating behaviours that are rewarded.

2. Bandura 1986 In order for social learning to take place, someone must carry out or ‘model’ the attitude or behaviour to be learned.

3. Modelling - A form of learning where individuals learn a particular behaviour by observing another individual performing that behaviour.

4. Imitation - The action of using someone or something as a model and copying their behaviour.

5. Identification - is a form of influence where an individual adopts an attitude or behaviour because they want to be associated with a particular group or person.

6. Bandura and Walters (1963) noted that children who observed a model rewarded for aggressive behaviour were much more likely to imitate that behaviour than children who had observed a model punished for the same behaviour. Bandura called this Vicarious Reinforcement

   • Vicarious Reinforcement - Learning that is not a result of direct reinforcement of behaviour, but through observing someone else being reinforced for that behaviour.

7. The role of Mediation Processes

   • Social learning differs from other learning approaches in that it places special importance on internal mediation processes.
   • Mediation Processes - refer to the internal mental processes that exist between environmental stimuli and the response made by an individual to those stimuli.
   • Bandura (1986) claimed that in order for social learning to take place, the observer must form mental representations of the behaviour displayed by the model and the probable consequences of that behaviour in terms of expectancies of future outcomes

8. Bandura et al 1961

   • Procedure - Bandura et al carried out an experiment involving children who observed aggressive or non-aggressive adult models and were then tested for imitative learning in the absence of the model. Half of the children were exposed to adult models interacting aggressively (displaying distinctive physical aggressive acts towards the doll eg striking it with a mallet, accompanied by verbal aggression such as saying ‘POW’) with a life-sizes Bobo doll and half exposed to non-aggressive models. Following exposure to the models children were frustrated by being shown attractive toys which they were not allowed to play with. They were then taken to a room where among other toys there was a Bobo doll.
   • Findings - Children who observed the aggressive model reproduced a good deal of physically and verbally aggressive behaviour resembling that of the model. Children who observed the non-aggressive model exhibited virtually no aggression towards the Bobo doll. One third of the children who observed the aggressive model repeated the models verbal aggression. In a follow up to this study Bandura and Walters found that children who saw the model being rewarded for aggressive acts were more likely to show a high level of aggression in their own play.

9. Strengths and Limitations

   • - A problem in determining causality - eg is delinquency a result of exposure to deviant role models or is the exposure a result of the possession of deviant attitudes before exposure.
   • - Useful applications - increased understanding of human behaviour eg criminal behaviour

10. Although a certain amount of learning takes place through direct reinforcement, much of what a child learns is acquired through imitation of attitudes and behaviours that are modelled by parents and significant others.