Evaluate Social Learning Theory (8 marks)

Question 1

CREDIBILITY - HINT: Cook & Mineka (1990)

Answer 1

• Observational learning has also been noticed in animals like monkeys.
• Cook & Mineka (1990)had monkeys watch a video of another monkey reacting with fear to a snake. When the observer-monkeys had a chance to get food, they would not if it involved approaching a snake or a snake-like object (toy snakes).
• a lot of this research is strictlyscientific, being carried out in lab conditions and using one-way mirrors and multiple observers forinter-rater reliability.

Question 2

OBJECTIONS: HINT: ANIMALS AND CHILDREN

Answer 2

• Much of the research into SLT is carried out on children or animals.
• This is because it is difficult to put adult humans into controlled situations with realistic role models.
• There may be a problem generalising findings from children or animals to adult humans. They may not berepresentativesamples.

Question 3

OBJECTIONS: BANDURA

Answer 3

• A deeper problem with SLT is that is involves bringing incognitions
• thought processes, which are unobservable. The old Behaviourist school of psychology only studied observable behaviour and focused on Classical and Operant Conditioning.
• By including cognitions, Bandura is moving SLT away from behaviourism and into aless scientific, moresubjective territory.

Question 4

DIFFERENCES: HINT: CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Answer 4

• SLT is quite different from operant and classical conditioning.
• it includescognitionsas well as behaviours. SLT explains a child learning to talk by watching and imitating adults, whereas conditioning suggests the child needs to have each word or phrase rewarded with praise or attention
• SLT seems more realistic, because children learn to speak quickly and their parents don’t pay attention to everything they say.

Question 5

DIFFERENCES:

Answer 5

• association and reinforcement may explain why a person continues with a behaviourafter they have imitated it once.
• For example, a girl might imitate her mother’s fear of spiders and upset herself; she then comes to associate the Neutral Stimulus (a spider) with her own distress, so that it becomes a Conditioned Stimulus
• This is how phobias aremaintained, even if you only get exposed to a role model once.

Question 6

APPLICATION: SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION

Answer 6

• SLT is often used alongside other therapies such asSystematic Desensitisationor Token Economies.
• For example, someone with a phobia of spiders might not want to approach a picture of a spider in an early stage of the therapy. If they see someone they trust approach the picture and pick it up without harm, they will see there are no bad consequences.
• If they see this person being praised by the therapist, this is vicarious reinforcement.

Question 7

APPLICATION - TEP

Answer 7

• TEP
• In a TEP, participants will see other learners acquiring tokens and then spending them to get rewards. This is also vicarious reinforcement.
• The organisers of a TEP need to make sure that giving out tokens anACd purchasing rewards with them is a public event, with as many observers as possible.