Social Cognitive Learning -week 3 pt1

Mbb1

Cognitive map

• Is a mental representation of the spatial characteristics of a familiar environment

Tolman

• set out to test the idea that rats develop ‘spatial maps’ of their environment, rather than a series of chained responses to external cues

• studied using maze-running experiments

Latent learning

• Tolman again challenged the traditional behaviourist account with another classic experiment in which he demonstrated that learning could occur in the absence of rewards and punishments

• means hidden learning

• Tolman’s research showed rewards affect whether the learned behaviour will be demonstrated, not whether learning has occurred

• learning can occur in the absence of directly experienced rewards and punishments

Social cognitive learning theory

• learning takes place “socially” and “vicariously” through observing others (“models”)

• Albert Bandura is the psychologist most associated with the study of observational learning

• Observational learning takes place through active judgement and constructive processes that is, it involves cognitive processes of mental representation

Observational Learning

provides another example of how learning can occur indirectly, without direct reinforcement or punishment

Bandura’s study demonstrated

• vicarious reinforcement and vicarious punishment

  • that learning can occur socially through observation, in the absence of directly experienced consequences

  • performance of aggressive acts is influenced by mental representations of observed consequences

  • knowledge remained latent in the model-punished group until a reward was introduced