Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

Question 1

What is Bandura’s social learning theory???

Answer 1

• believes that people learn by watching the behaviours of others
• aggression can be learned through watching others behave in an aggressive manner and get rewarded

Question 2

What did Bandura believe that violence and aggression was produced by??

Answer 2

• an arousal event
• learned aggressive skills
• expected success and rewards
• pro violence values

Question 3

What did Bandura belive that the observational learning takes place primarily within??

Answer 3

• in the family
• through cultural symbols such as TV
• I’m the prevalent subculture

Question 4

What was the research evidence to support??

Answer 4

• Bandura 1961 carried out a series of tests including a bobo doll. They’re was a group of children aged 3-5 and were put into two different conditions once consisting of an aggressive role model and the other with a non aggressive role model.
• the aggressive role model would punch, throw , kick and beat the bobo doll with a mallet.
• after witnessing the behaviour of the adults the children were then placed in the room with the bobo doll and they would be observed on how they way they behaved and if they imitated the behaviour

Question 5

What was the results of the research evidence

Answer 5

Children in aggressive role model condition were more likely to play aggressively with the bobo doll than the other groups of children and this was especially seen in role models who were the same sex as the children.

Question 6

How does Bandura’s social learning theory explain criminal behaviour

Answer 6

• argues that most criminal behaviour is developed through observational learning.
• for example if a child sees an adult commit criminal behaviour and also observes some king of reward then they will learn to internalise that behaviour - positive reinforcement
• due to this theory we can easily apply it to most violent crimes and criminals but also general crimes like theft.

Question 7

What are the strengths of Bandura’s social learning theory??

Answer 7

• supporting evidence
• practical applications - policies and restrictions for children
• quality of experiments - high level control variables

Question 8

What are the weaknesses of Bandura’s social learning theory???

Answer 8

• methodologically flawed - lack of ecological validity
• reductionist - concept of complex behaviour such as criminality can be breaking down criminal behaviour to much resulting in other explanations