Health and Well-Being | Social Learning and Health Problems | ERQ

Social learning theory and health problems

Social learning theory can be used to explain the origin of health problems by examining how individuals learn behaviours through observing and interacting with other people;

Observational learning

Observational learning is the process through which individuals learn behaviours by watching other people and observing their actions;

Social learning theory and social media addiction

Social learning theory suggests that individuals develop social media behaviours by observing and interacting with other people;

Learning social media behaviours

Individuals may learn to use social media by watching other people use social networks and by interacting with them;

Invitation to social networks

Individuals may begin using a social network after being invited by a friend or another person in their community;

Influence of other people on social media use

Individuals may hear other people talking about a social network and become interested in joining because they want to follow their example;

Social networks and popularity

The popularity of social networks may be explained by their ability to continually grow by attracting new members;

Continuous growth of social networks

Social networks can attract new members through existing users who introduce the network to friends and people in their community;

Social learning theory and addictive behaviours

Social learning theory has been used not only to explain how addictive behaviours originate but also to identify ways of changing these behaviours;

Self efficacy

Self efficacy is a persons belief that they are capable of performing the behaviour necessary to influence an expected outcome;

The I can do it belief

Self efficacy is sometimes described as the I can do it belief because it involves believing that one is competent enough to carry out the behaviour needed to achieve a desired outcome;

Importance of self efficacy in social learning theory

Social learning theory places strong emphasis on self efficacy because beliefs about personal capability influence the regulation and performance of behaviour;

Information influencing self efficacy

Self efficacy beliefs are influenced by performance accomplishments and vicarious experience as well as verbal persuasion;

Performance accomplishments

Performance accomplishments refer to a persons history of previous successful attempts to perform a behaviour and achieve the desired outcome;

Performance accomplishments and self efficacy

Previous successful attempts can strengthen self efficacy because they provide evidence that the individual is capable of performing the behaviour and achieving the desired result;

Vicarious experience

Vicarious experience refers to information gained by observing other people and seeing whether their efforts lead to successful or unsuccessful outcomes;

Vicarious experience and self efficacy

Individuals can develop beliefs about their own capabilities by observing other people attempting a behaviour and seeing the outcomes of their efforts;

Successful models and vicarious learning

For vicarious experience to strengthen self efficacy the observed person should successfully achieve the desired outcome by investing effort and overcoming difficulties;

Effort and overcoming difficulties in vicarious experience

Observing someone achieve a desired outcome through effort and by overcoming difficulties can increase the observers belief that they can also succeed;

Easy success and vicarious experience

If an observed person achieves the desired outcome with ease this does not contribute to the observers self efficacy;

Lucky success and vicarious experience

If an observed person achieves the desired outcome through a lucky chance rather than effort this does not contribute to the observers self efficacy;

Why effort matters in vicarious experience

The observer needs to see that success resulted from effort and overcoming difficulties because this provides an example of a behaviour that they may also be capable of performing;

Verbal persuasion

Verbal persuasion is a technique used in health education to convince people that they have a high degree of control over their own health behaviours;

Verbal persuasion and self efficacy

Verbal persuasion can influence self efficacy by encouraging individuals to believe that they are capable of controlling and changing their health behaviours;

Health education and verbal persuasion

Health education can use verbal persuasion to convince people that they have substantial control over their own health related actions;

Banduras view of self efficacy

Bandura believed that self efficacy plays a central role in the regulation of behaviour;

Self efficacy and personal agency

Bandura argued that beliefs about personal capabilities are among the most central and widespread mechanisms through which people exercise personal agency and control over events affecting their lives;

Bandura 1989 quotation

Bandura stated that among the mechanisms of personal agency none is more central or pervasive than peoples beliefs about their capabilities to exercise control over events that affect their lives;

Overall importance of self efficacy

Self efficacy is important because believing that one can perform a behaviour and influence its outcome plays a central role in regulating behaviour

Social learning theory health interventions

Health interventions based on social learning theory divide a distant goal such as lifestyle change into a series of smaller and more attainable goals;

Breaking down lifestyle change

Social learning theory interventions make lifestyle change more manageable by dividing a large long term goal into smaller goals that individuals believe they can successfully achieve;

Importance of smaller goals

Smaller attainable goals are important because self efficacy is believed to be the most important factor in behavioural change;

Self efficacy as a factor of change

Self efficacy is believed to be the most important factor influencing whether an individual successfully changes their behaviour;

Personal accomplishments and self efficacy

Personal accomplishments are believed to be the most important resource for developing self efficacy;

Personal accomplishments in health interventions

Individuals need opportunities to experience successful accomplishments because these experiences strengthen their belief that they are capable of changing their behaviour;

Small accomplishments and self efficacy

Individuals need to feel that they can succeed even when the achievement is something small because small successes can strengthen their confidence in their abilities;

Attainable subgoals

Attainable subgoals are smaller goals that individuals believe they can realistically achieve while working towards a larger lifestyle change;

Attainable subgoals and positive rewards

Attainable subgoals provide immediate positive rewards when individuals successfully complete them;

Attainable subgoals and self motivation

Achieving smaller goals encourages self motivation by helping individuals gradually develop the belief that they can succeed;

Believing in themselves

Successful completion of smaller goals can encourage individuals to believe in their own abilities and become more motivated to continue changing their behaviour;

Social learning theory and obesity prevention

An obesity prevention programme based on social learning theory would use smaller attainable goals and opportunities for successful accomplishments to strengthen self efficacy and encourage healthier behaviours;

Health practices and disease labels

People sometimes describe the consequences of poor health practices as diseases that simply happen to them rather than recognizing the possible influence of their own behaviours;

External attribution of health problems

People may believe that a disease happened to them without recognizing that their own health behaviours and choices may have contributed to the problem;

Poor health practices and personal responsibility

Describing health problems as diseases that simply happen to someone may prevent individuals from recognizing their own role in the development of those problems;

Seeking medical help and responsibility

Individuals who view a health problem as something that simply happened to them may seek help from medical practitioners without accepting at least partial responsibility for their own health behaviours;

Blair 1993 health behaviours

Blair argued that the idea of health behaviours shifts responsibility back towards the client by encouraging individuals to consider whether their own actions contributed to their health problems;

Health behaviours and personal responsibility

The concept of health behaviours encourages individuals to examine their own actions and consider whether their behaviours may have allowed a health problem to develop;

Client responsibility in health interventions

Health interventions can encourage clients to recognize that their own behaviours may contribute to health problems and that they may have some control over changing those behaviours;

Social learning theory and health behaviour change

Social learning theory can be investigated by examining whether intervention programmes based on its principles successfully change health related behaviours;

Intervention programmes as research evidence

One way to investigate the role of social learning in health problems is to study the effectiveness of intervention programmes based on social learning theory;

Other approaches to studying social learning

Intervention programmes are only one way of investigating social learning in health problems because other studies have examined different aspects of the theory;

Self efficacy and drug addiction relapse

Many correlational studies have investigated whether levels of self efficacy are associated with the probability of relapse after treatment for drug addiction;

High self efficacy and relapse

Research has investigated whether individuals with high self efficacy have a different probability of relapsing after drug addiction treatment compared with individuals with low self efficacy;

Low self efficacy and relapse

Research has investigated whether individuals with low self efficacy have a different probability of relapsing after drug addiction treatment compared with individuals with high self efficacy;

Correlational studies of self efficacy

Correlational studies examine the relationship between self efficacy and the probability of relapse without necessarily establishing that self efficacy causes the difference in relapse rates;

Eight week social media addiction intervention

An eight week school intervention to reduce social media addiction could be designed using social learning theory as its theoretical foundation;

Social media intervention theoretical principles

A social media addiction intervention based on social learning theory should use observational learning and self efficacy to encourage healthier social media behaviours;

Target variables in social media interventions

Target variables are the specific behaviours that an intervention aims to change and an intervention for social media addiction should identify the social media behaviours it intends to reduce or improve;

Observational learning in social media interventions

Observational learning could be used by allowing students to observe other students successfully managing their social media use and developing healthier habits;

Self efficacy in social media interventions

Self efficacy could be strengthened by helping students experience successful changes in their own social media habits through manageable and attainable goals;

Planning an intervention programme

A detailed intervention programme can begin by describing the health problem in the specific context of the school before outlining the activities and methods that will address it;

Using a problem description to design an intervention

Describing the problem in the specific school context helps establish what behaviours need to change and provides a foundation for planning the intervention;

Creating an intervention outline

After describing the problem the next step is to create an outline of the programme and its proposed activities;

Using generative AI to improve an intervention draft

A draft intervention and its problem description can be provided to generative AI to obtain suggestions for improvements and additional considerations;

AI prompts for social learning theory interventions

When asking generative AI to improve an intervention draft the prompt should emphasize that the programme is being developed on the basis of social learning theory;

ATL skills in intervention planning

The activity involves research and communication as well as self management skills;

Experimental evidence and social learning in health problems

Experimental evidence about social learning in health problems can be obtained by investigating the effectiveness of treatment and prevention programmes;

Aetiology of health problems

Aetiology refers to the study of the causes and origins of health problems;

Researching the aetiology of health problems

Research into the causes of health problems is mostly limited to non experimental evidence because directly manipulating potential causes may be unethical;

Ethical limitations of experimental research

It would be unethical to randomly divide people into groups and deliberately manipulate a variable that is likely to create a health problem;

Random assignment and health problems

Researchers cannot ethically create health problems in participants by randomly assigning them to conditions that expose them to potentially harmful variables;

Non experimental evidence of aetiology

Because researchers cannot ethically manipulate variables that may cause health problems they often rely on non experimental evidence when investigating their origins;

Treatment and prevention programmes as experiments

Researchers can use experimental designs with people by studying the effectiveness of treatment and prevention programmes;

Treatment effectiveness and cause effect inferences

Studying the effectiveness of treatment and prevention programmes allows researchers to use experimental designs and make cause effect inferences;

Experimental research logic

Researchers design a prevention programme based on the principles of a specific theory and then examine whether the programme works;

Theory based prevention programmes

A theory based prevention programme is designed using the concepts and principles of a particular psychological theory;

Successful prevention programme and theory

If a prevention programme based on a specific theory works researchers may conclude that the theory correctly explains the causes of the health problem and that the variables targeted by the theory contributed to the problem;

Cause effect logic of successful interventions

The logic is that if a theory identifies the causes of a health problem and an intervention targeting those causes successfully prevents or reduces the problem this provides experimental support for the theory;

Limitations of experimental evidence

The conclusion that a successful theory based intervention proves the theory correct is not completely reliable because there are several limitations in this reasoning;

Complexity of psychological theories

A theory explaining the causes of a health problem is usually a sophisticated theoretical construct containing multiple parameters;

Multiple parameters in social learning theory interventions

Because psychological theories contain multiple parameters an intervention based on a theory may include several different components that could contribute to its success;

Difficulty identifying effective intervention components

If a treatment based on a complex theory works it may be unclear which specific component or parameter produced the improvement;

Successful treatment and theoretical explanations

A successful treatment based on a theory does not necessarily demonstrate that every part of the theory is correct because it is unclear exactly which elements of the treatment made a difference;

Measuring treatment effectiveness

Another limitation of intervention research is that it is not always clear how to measure whether a treatment has successfully worked;

Obesity intervention effectiveness

When evaluating an obesity intervention researchers must decide which outcome should indicate effectiveness such as whether a reduction in BMI is sufficient;

BMI as an indicator of obesity intervention success

Researchers may use a reduction in BMI as an indicator of whether an obesity intervention has worked but deciding how much BMI must decrease remains a challenge;

Significance of BMI reduction

Researchers must determine how large a reduction in BMI needs to be before they consider the change significant enough to demonstrate that the intervention was effective;

Long term effectiveness

Researchers must consider how long a behavioural or health improvement needs to last before an intervention can be considered successful;

Short term versus long term treatment outcomes

An intervention may produce an improvement in the short term but researchers must determine whether the improvement is maintained over a longer period;

Variation in intervention research findings

Reviews have shown that research studies investigating treatment and prevention programmes for health related behaviours can produce widely varying findings;

Inconsistent findings and intervention effectiveness

Large variation between research findings suggests that the effectiveness of treatment and prevention programmes may depend on many different factors;

Factors influencing intervention effectiveness

The success of health interventions may depend on numerous factors which can help explain why different studies produce different findings;

Need for further research

When studies produce varied findings a large number of additional studies may be needed before researchers can reach a reliable conclusion about intervention effectiveness;

Overall evaluation of social learning theory interventions

Successful interventions can provide experimental support for social learning theory but complex theoretical explanations and difficulties measuring effectiveness mean that success does not automatically prove the theory is correct;

Black et al 2010 aim

Black and colleagues conducted a study to investigate the effectiveness of the Challenge health promotion and obesity prevention mentorship programme among urban Black adolescents;

Challenge programme

Challenge was a health promotion and obesity prevention mentorship programme designed for Black adolescents living in urban communities;

Black et al 2010 participants

The study recruited 235 Black adolescents from low income urban communities;

Participant age range

The 235 participants were between eleven and sixteen years old;

Participant allocation

Participants were randomly divided into an intervention group and a control group;

Intervention group

The intervention group consisted of participants who took part in the Challenge mentorship programme;