Social Cognitive Theory

Social cognitive theory is how people learn when they observe others.

Hey features of the social cognitive theory:

  • Human learning is explained through observational learning or modelling, which involves identification, limitation and reinforcement.

  • Mediating cognitive factors play an important role in observational learning. These include attention, retention, reproduction and motivation.

  • In vicarious reinforcement, reproduction of behaviour can be motivated when learners observe role models receiving reinforcement .

  • Most of the social learning theory research involves laboratory experiments in which quantifiable behaviour is observed.

Individuals that are observed are called models and children are surrounded by many influential models like parents, characters on the TV, friends within peer groups and teachers at school. These models provide examples of behaviour to observe and imitate like masculine and feminine. Children pay attention to these people and encode their behaviour and they may later imitate the behaviour they have observed.

The people around the child will respond to the behaviour it imitates with either reinforcement or punishment. If a child imitates a model’s behaviour and the consequences are rewarding the child is likely to continue performing the behaviour. Reinforcement can be external or internal and can be positive or negative. If a child wants approval from parents or peers, this approval is an external reinforcement but feeling about being approved of is an internal reinforcement.

Positive or negative reinforcement would have little impact if the reinforcement offered externally does not match with an individuals needs. Reinforcement can be positive or negative but the important factor is that it will usually lead to a change in the person’s behaviour.

Vicarious reinforcement is when a person would consider what happens to other people when deciding whether or not to copy someone’s actions, they learn by observing the consequences of another person’s behaviour.

  • Attention: in order to learn a behaviour, the learner must pay attention to these model. There are certain factors that may influence whether attention is paid to the model, including the attractiveness of the model, the authority of the model, or the desirability of the behaviour.

  • Retention: the observer must be able to remember the behaviour that has been observed in order to produce that behaviour immediately or after some time.

  • Motivation: learners moustache want to replicate the behaviour that they have observed. In order to do this, they must understand what the potential outcome is if that repeat the behaviour - what Bandura called outcome expectancies.

  • Potential: in order to reproduce an observed behaviour, observers must physically and/or mentally be able to carry but the behaviour - that is, there needs to be a certain level of self efficacy.

Bandura and Ross (1961)

Aim: transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive model

IV: exposure to aggressive model

DV: aggressive responses

RM: Lab/observation

Method:

  • tested 36 boys and 36 girls ages 3-6 years from Stanford university nursery school. Children had been pretested for how aggressive they were by observing them in nursery and assigning them a rating out of 5 so they could be matched across conditions.

  • 1 - aggressive model shown to 24 children, 2- non-aggressive model shown to 24 children, 3 - no model shown to 24 children (control condition).

  • Stage 1: Modelling - children then played in a room in condition , children watched a role model behaving aggressively towards a “Bobo doll”, using a hammer in some cases or shouting at the doll. In condition 2 children saw a non-aggressive model who played in a quiet and subdued manner ignoring the bobo doll. In condition 3, there was no role model.

  • Stage 2: Aggression arousal - to cause ‘mild aggression arousal’ across all the conditions the children were individually taken to a room to play, but once they started playing the researcher took away the toys saying they were they the very best toys and they would be reserved for other childeren.

  • Stage 3: Test for delayed imitation - all children then individually went into a room with aggressive toys and non-aggressive. Children then played in the room for 20 minutes and their behaviour was observed through a one way mirror and rated by two researchers every 5 seconds.

Results:

Condition 1 were far more imitative aggressive in their play than the other conditions, there was also more partial and non imitative aggression, although the difference for non imitative aggression was small.