Flashcards
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
Cards in this deck (12)
- 1THEORY OUTLINE (AO1)Social Learning Theory (SLT) suggests we learn aggression through observation and watching the behaviour of role models and then imitating their behaviour if we identify with them. Children will also observe and learn about the consequences of aggressive behaviour by watching others being reinforced or punished for it. This is called vicarious reinforcement.
By observing the consequences of aggressive behaviour, a child may gradually come to learn what is considered effective and whether such behaviours are worth repeating. Behaviours that achieve the models outcomes would be repeated, even if it is through aggression. - 2Part 2Bandura claimed for social learning to take place, the child must be able to form a mental representation of the events in their social environment. The child must also imagine possible rewards and punishments for their aggressive behaviour in terms of expectancies of future outcomes. When appropriate opportunities arise in the future, the child will display the learned behaviour as long as the expectation of reward outweighs any possible expectation of punishment.
- 3Part 3Children who are rewarded in some way for aggression – by getting what they want for example will come to attach value to aggression and thus repeat the behaviour. Children who have had little success with aggression will be confident in its use and thus use other means.
- 4RESEARCH/EVALUATION (AO2/AO3)The main supporting evidence for this theory comes from Bandura himself in a study known as The Bobo Doll study. This involved children observing aggressive and non-aggressive adult models and then being tested to see whether they would imitate the behaviour. Children were aged 3-5 years old, both male and female. Half were exposed to aggressive adult models behaving aggressively towards a life-size Bobo Doll and the other half were exposed to non-aggressive models.
- 5RESEARCH/EVALUATION (AO2/AO3) part 2Following exposure to the model, Children in the ‘aggression’ condition reproduced a good deal of physical and verbal aggressive behaviour similar to the model. Children in the non-aggressive group exhibited virtually no aggression towards the doll.
Bandura & Walters conducted a separate study to identify why a child would be motivated to perform the same aggressive behaviours in the absence of a model. Children were divided into 3 groups, each seeing a different ending to a film of an adult model behaving aggressively towards a Bobo Doll. - 6part 3Group 1 saw the model rewarded for showing aggressive behaviour, Group 2 saw the model punished and Group 3 observed the model but there were no consequences for their aggressive behaviour. They found that the children’s subsequent behaviour was affected depending on which ending they had watched.
Children in Group 1 showed a higher level of aggression in their own play, children in Group 2 showed a low level of aggression while those in Group 3 were somewhere in between. Bandura claimed that this type of vicarious learning supported SLT as children were basing their behaviour on the likely consequences and shaping it accordingly. - 7part 4A weakness in these studies is that it involved children and may have little generalisation to the adult population. Therefore such a study may be better at explaining how children learn aggressive behaviour rather than adults. However, a study by Phillips et al found that homicide rates in the US almost always increased in the following week after a major televised boxing match. This suggests SLT may apply to adults too as they imitate the behaviour they had watched in violent boxing matches, supporting the theories wider generalisation.
- 8part 5A criticism of this study however is that we cannot be sure of cause and effect, whether it was the exposure to aggression on television that caused this or whether other confounding variables also contributed. We cannot confidently be sure that those committing the acts of aggression were even to the boxing matches.
It is also possible that in Bandura’s study, children were displaying behaviour they believed was expected of them and showing demand characteristics. Support is shown by Noble et al who reported how one child was overheard telling his mother “Look mommy, there’s the doll we have to hit”. This makes the behaviour observed lack realism and validity. - 9part 6Similarly, children were also aware that such a doll is not real nor is there any fear of it fighting back hence the behaviour being demonstrated may lack generalisation to real acts of aggression to real people. Yet, Bandura did show how children would imitate aggression towards a real clown after being exposed to such modelled aggression towards a filmed clown, supporting the theory.
- 10part 7Cultural variations were also found to exist in aggression. In the Kung San tribe of the Kalahari Desert, aggression is found to be rare because of child-rearing practices. The parents of children who argue or fight do not reward or punish them but physically separate them. Physical punishments or aggressive posturing are also avoided by adults and devalued by the Kung San tribe as a whole. The lack of any direct reinforcement for aggressive behaviour means there is little opportunity for the Kung San children to learn the aggressive behaviour.
- 11IDAA limitation of SLT is that it’s reductionist as it portrays humans as simple creatures and stimulus ignoring the role of emotional cognitive factors and even biological factors. There is evidence of genes being involved pre-disposing some individuals to higher levels of aggression which SLT doesn’t consider.
- 12IDA part 2It is also deterministic as it assumes that people are always likely to be aggressive when exposed to such behaviour and there being rewards for it. In truth this is not the case as people have free will and the ability for conscious thought that can override such. Supporting evidence comes from Bandura’s study where children that were most aggressive were general noted as being aggressive outside the study as well. This suggests some children who were less aggressive and still exposed to aggression exercised this choice of free will and thus, displayed less aggressive acts.
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- AS Level Psychology (Aggression) Flashcards on SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY, created by Talentless Academic on 11/03/2015.
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