bandura and social learning theory

What are the assumptions of social learning theory?

-behaviour is learned from experience

-behaviour is not only acquired through direct experience, but also by observing the behaviour of others

-reinforcement is not only to strengthen a response by providing immediate consequences, reinforcement can also serve an informative function serving as guides for future behaviour

-social learning differs from traditional learning theory in its emphasis on mental states, in order to imitate behaviour there must be an intervening cognitive state

What is the bandura Ross and Ross bobo doll experiment?

-wanted to examine the effect of the continual influence of the model and if the sex of the model influenced same sex and opposite sex participants to a different degree

-36 male and 36 female participants around 4 years old, two adults male and female

-Half observed an aggressive role model and other half saw a non aggressive role model. children were divided by gender, and also the gender of the model they observed.

-participants were put into a room one at a time, observed the adult role model’s behaviour (aggressive or non aggressive). In the room there was a bobo doll. The agressive model had to hit the bobo doll with the hammer and shout abuse at it at the same time.

-after witnessing the behaviour for around 10 mins, participants were taken down the category after 2 min delay to play with toys.

-room had a bobo doll, agressive toys and non agressive toys. Participants observed for 20 mins, rated imitation

-found that children observing agressive behaviour acted more aggressively and boys were more agressive than girls. If the role model was the same gender as the child imitation was greater.

-there is a behavioural effect from observing agressive behaviour even after delay

What are the positives of banduras research?

-bandura adopted the scientfic method, studies are well controlled, procedures standardised

-ANDSAGER supports key concepts

-BANDURA and WALTERS shows how children are effected by vicarious reinforcement

What are the negatives of banduras research?

-limitations

-other influences are disregarded

What is modelling?

for social learning to take place, someone has to carry out or ‘model’ the attitude or behaviour to be learned. Individuals that perform this role are models, they provide examples of behaviour that can be observed then replicated.

Live model- parent, teacher, friend

Symbolic model- someone in media, characters

What is imitation?

Children learn mostly through imitation of attitudes and behaviour modelled by parents and significant others. Imitation is quick, unlike conditioning.

What is identification?

The extent to which an individual relates to a model and feels that they are similar. In order to identify with a model, they must think they are similar enough to experience the same outcomes. children identify most with same sex models, more likely to learn from.

What is vicarious reinforcement?

Individuals learn about the likely consequences of an action then adjust their behaviour accordingly. Concept of vicarious reinforcement means that they do not need to experience reward or punishments directly to learn and instead can observe the consequences experienced by a model then make judgement about receiving the same outcome.

Bandura and Walter’s noted that when the model was rewarded for aggressive behaviour children were much more likely to imitate than when they were punished.

What are meditational processes?

We do not automatically observe then imitate a behaviour, there is a thought process prior to imitation called mediational processes. Occurs between observing behaviour (stimulus) then imitating or not (response).

What are the four meditational processes recorded by bandura?

Attention- to imitate a behaviour it has to grab our attention, observe many behaviours daily and ignore many so attention is crucial

Retention- behaviour may be noticed but it is not always remembered which prevents imitation. Observer has to remember to imitate as much of social learning is not immediate, but even if it is it has to be remembered

Reproduction- we are limited by our physical abilities, there is a lot of behaviour we want to imitate but cannot

Motivation- rewards and punishments following a behaviour are considered by the observer. If the perceived rewards outweigh the perceived costs then the behaviour is more likely to be imitated by the observer. If the vicarious reinforcement is not desired by the observer they will not imitate the behaviour as they lack motivation

What are the positives of social learning theory?

-it is richer and more realistic than behaviourism. Classical and operant conditioning don’t fully explain learning from others, we store information from observing behaviour of others. Takes thought processes into account.

-ANDSAGER found that similarity to a model in an anti alcohol ad increased effectiveness. If the observer cannot identify it is less effective

-BANDURA and WALTERS showed that children are affected by vicarious reinforcement. When children saw aggressive behaviour being rewarded there were more likely to imitate the aggression than when it was punished or there was no concequence

-banduras studies were well controlled and standardised, objective, cause and effect

What are the negatives of social learning theory?

-banduras studies were limited as imitation took place for a very short period after exposure to aggression, not known if there were any long term effects. Aggression was also play fighting, not toward real person.

-other influences are disregarded. Don’t consider that there are many different influences, such as in gender specific modelling it doesn’t consider locus of control, genetic predispositions. imitation also has a biological component in mirror neurons- neurons that fire if they do something themselves or if they observe the action being done by another