Approaches: Social learning theory Flashcards
What is social learning theory?
A way of explaining behaviour that includes both direct and indirect reinforcement, combining learning theory with the role of cognitive factors.
Outline the three assumptions of the social learning theory approach.
- Much of behaviour is learned through experience.
- People learn through imitation of others in a social context.
- Learning occurs directly, through classical and operant conditioning, plus indirectly.
What are the 4 meditational processes?
- Attention: The extent to which a person pays attention to someone else’s behaviour.
- Retention: Remembering the behaviour they have observed.
- Motivation: Giving a reason for doing it.
- Reproduction: The ability to carry out the behaviour.
What are meditational processes?
Refers to the internal mental processes that exist between environmental stimuli and the response made by an individual to those stimuli.
What is vicarious reinforcement?
Learning is not a result of direct reinforcement of behaviour, but through observing someone else being reinforced for that behaviour.
Vicarious reinforcement is demonstrated in Bandura and Walters (1963), which was another variation of the Bobo doll where the model was either praised or punished for acting aggressively towards the doll. Children who saw the model praised for their aggression toward the doll were more likely to imitate this aggressive behaviour.
What is imitation?
The action of using someone or something as a model and copying theirs especially. For example, it’s been found that children are more likely to imitate behaviour that are similar to them. e.g same-sex model
What is identification?
Is a form of influence where an individual adopts an attitude or behaviour because they want to be associated with a particular person or group.
What is modelling?
- A form of learning where individuals learn a particular behaviour by observing another individual performing that behaviour.
- The model can either be live (e.g. parent, teacher) or symbolic (e.g. TV character). We then pay attention to the model and reproduce the behaviour through imitation
What makes us more likely to imitate a model?
- If they are similar to us e.g. same sex.
- If they are likeable and attractive.
- If they have high status and are famous.
How is the social learning theory different from the behaviourist approach?
The behaviourist approach says we learn through direct experience whereas the SLT allows for observation and cognitive processes.
What is the APFC for Banduras Bobo doll?
Bandura wanted to observe whether social behaviours (in this case aggression) can be learned through observation and imitation. 72 children aged 3 to 5 boys and girls from Stanford university nursery were split in half 36 in each group; interacting with toys ( including the bobo doll ) half the children were exposed to the aggressive model and half were exposed to the non-aggressive model. The aggressive model displayed distinctive physically aggressive acts towards the doll, striking it with a mallet and using verbal aggression such as the words POW. After observing the role models the children were put in the room with the same toys individually. While boys generally responded more violently than girls, the children who had witnessed the role model interacting with the toys negatively were likelier to imitate and reproduce these behaviours. This was the opposite for the children who observed the non-aggressive role model playing with the toys. Children learn social behaviour such as aggression through the process of observable learning.
A03: Social learning theroy
+ Explains cultural differences
+ Has practical application
- Questions of ecological/external validity
- Underestimates the influence of biological factors.
A03: Explains cultural differences
Social learning principles can account for how children learn from other individuals around them, plus through the media, and this can explain how cultural norms are transmitted through particular societies. This has proved useful and understanding a range of behaviours, such as how children come to understand their gender role. This means that the social learning theory approach has great explanatory power, especially when concerning cultural differences in behaviour.
A03: Has practical application
This is because social learning theory principles have been used to develop successful treatments for phobias. Modelling allows the client to watch another person who is similar to the client in some way, but who is not phobic, interacting with the phobic object. This provides the patient with vicarious reinforcement as the model is interacting with the phobic object with positive consequences. Through repeated exposure to modelling the client will learn how to interact with the phobic object in a non-anxious way. This means that the ideas of observation, imitation, modelling and vicarious reinforcement can be used to improve people in the real world.
A03: Questions of ecological/external validity
The Bobo the doll experiments were conducted in an unfamiliar (laboratory) setting. Because of this new situation, the children might simply have been behaving in the way they thought they were expected to in this situation (copying the model). Further, the children would have known the doll was just a doll and so it is unclear whether the children would model aggressive behaviour towards, for example, other children in a real-life scenario. so may have just acted how they thought they were meant to.
