Approaches - Social learning theory Flashcards
What is the outline of the social learning theory?
- Behaviour results from learnt experiences
- Mental processing must be present for learning
Where does SLT focus on learning taking place?
-In a social context due to exposure to others
behaviour
What is imitation/vicarious reinforcement?
- Observing others behaviour,
- If the behaviour is rewarded then the person is more likely to copy the behaviour that was viewed
What is vicarious punishment?
-When a person is discouraged from copying another’s behaviour as it caused negative consequences (punishment)
What is modelling?
- When others act as a blueprint for behaviour
- This can be real people or symbolic models (from TV/movies)
What is identification?
- Identifying with models that have characteristics that we relate to (Age, gender, ethnicity etc)
- These models are more likely to be imitated
What are the mediational processes?
-Cognitive processes between stimulus and responses that influence likelihood of behaviour imitation.
-Attention (see), Retention (remember), Motivation
(wants/rewards) and reproduction (can/skill)
What was Bandura’s experiment?
- Bandura used children aged 3-5 years matched on levels of aggression
- The groups watched videos of adults interacting aggressively or non-aggressively with a bobo doll
- Findings: Aggression was imitated in group who watched adult’s model aggression
- Other group were not aggressive
- Effect stronger if the adult was the same gender as the child, this suggests imitation and identification
What is a strength of the social learning theory?
Use of controlled variables/environment
- Banduras research used controlled variables in a controlled environment, this helped him demonstrate that behaviour was imitated
- However a cause and effect relationship due to imitation in real life examples of aggression is difficult to study
What is a weakness of the social learning theory?
Cause and effect
-It is hard to study cause and effect relationships due to imitation, in real life examples
-This is because in real life there are more variables that can affect the likeliness of a child to be
aggressive
What is a strength of the social learning theory?
Internal mental processes
- SLT’s inclusion of the internal metal processes is an improvement on behaviourism as it better explains the complexity of human behaviour
- The experiment also has good face validity as it appears to measure what it claims to measure based on face value (As people have personal experience of having internal mental processes)
What is a weakness of the social learning theory?
Cognitions aren’t observable
-Cognitions are not observable directly, meaning that SLT needs to make inferences about internal mental processes
-This makes SLT less scientific than behaviourists who only studied objectively measurable stimulus response
mechanisms
What is a weakness of the social learning theory?
Fails to explain the development of more complex concepts
-SLT can explain the development of basic learnt behaviours such as aggression, however it fails to explain more abstract concepts like justice
What is a weakness of the social learning theory?
- SLT sees behaviour as environmentally determined (Nurture)
- However some behaviour may be innate (nature) and better explained by biological explanations or an interactionists approach (combining both of the factors)
What are the mediational processes?
- Attention
- Retention
- Motivation
- Reproduction
