Social Learning theory
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- Created by: jess_field26
- Created on: 04-06-19 10:14
Key assumptions
- Bandura agreed with the behaviourist approach that learning occurs through experience. However, he also proposed that learning takes place in a social context through observation and imitation of other's behaviour.
- Children (and adults) observe other people's behaviour and take note of its consequences.
- Behaviour that is seen to be rewarded (reinforced) is much more likely to be copied than behaviour that is punished (vicarious reinforcement).
Identification -
- Children are more likely to imitate the behaviour of people with whom they identify. Such role models are similar to the observer, tend to be attractive and have high status.
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Mediational processes
There are four mediational processes:
- Attention - when behaviour is noticed
- Retention - whether behaviour is remembered
- Motor reproduction - being able to do it
- Motivation - the will to perform behaviour
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Bandura's research
1 -
- Children watched an adult either:
- Behaving aggressively towards a Bobo doll.
- Behaving non-aggressively towards a Bobo doll.
When given their own doll to play with, the children who had seen aggression were much more aggressive towards the doll.
2 -
- Children saw an adult who was either:
- Rewarded
- Punished
- Neither rewarded nor punished
When given their own doll to play with, the chldren who saw the aggression rewarded were much more agressive themselves.
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Children model aggressive behaviour
- The Bobo doll studies suggest that children are likely to imitate acts of violence if they observe these in an adult role model.
- It is also the case that modelling aggressive behaviour is more likely if such behaviour is seen to be rewarded (vicarious reinforcement).
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Strength - Importance of cognitive factors
- Neither classical conditioning nor operant conditioning can offer a comprehensive account of human learning on their own because cognitive factors are omitted.
- Humans and animals store information about the behaviour of others and use this to make judgements about when it is appropriate to perform certain actions.
- SLT provides a more complete explanation of human learning than the behaviourist approach by recognising the role of mediational processess.
Counter argument: Relies too heavily on evidence from lab studies:
- Many of Bandura's ideas were developed through observation of children's behaviour in lab settings and this raises the problem of demand characteristics.
- The main purpose of a Bobo doll is to hit it. So the children in those studies may have been behaving as they thought was expected.
- Thus the research may tell us little about how children actually learn aggression in everyday life.
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Limitation - underesimates the influence of biolog
- A consistent finding in the Bobo doll experiements was that boys showed more aggression than girls, regardless of the specifics of the experimental condition.
- This may be explained by differences in the levels of testosterone, which is present in greater quantities in boys and is linked to aggression.
- This means that Bandura may have underplayed the important influence of biological factors on social learning.
Counter argument: can account for cultural differences in behaviour:
- Social learning principles can account for how children learn from other people around them, as well as through the media, and this can explain how cultural norms are transmitted.
- This has proved useful in understanding a range of behaviours such as how children come to understand their gender role.
- In contrast, the biological approach can only explain universal behaviours because human processes do not change with culture.
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Strength - less determinist
- Bandura emphasised reciprocal determinism - we are influenced by our environment, but we also exert an influence upon it through the behaviours we choose to perfrom.
- This element of choice suggests that there is some free will in the way we behave.
- This is a more realistic anf flexible position than is suggested by the behaviourist approach as it recognises the role we play in shaping our own environment.
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