Social Learning Theory

Question 1

What are the assumptions of social learning theory?

Answer 1

Behaviour is learned from experience
Humans can decide whether to react to a stimulus
Behaviour is learned through a process of reinforcement which can affect the likelihood of a behaviour occurring
The mind, behaviour and the environment all play a role in learning

Question 2

What are the four mediating cognitive factors?

Answer 2

Attention - individual notices the role model and behaviour

Retention - individual remembers the behaviour

Motivation - individual seeks to demonstrate the behaviour observed

Reproduction - individual replicates the behaviour

Question 3

What if a model in this approach?

Answer 3

People who influence behaviour

Question 4

What reinforcement is used in this approach?

Answer 4

Vicarious reinforcement - observation of others and the punishment/reward they get for their behaviour (indirect)

Question 5

What is identification?

Answer 5

Choosing a model to imitate

Question 6

What was Bandura’s study (1961)?

Answer 6

Children shown a video of hobo dull being hit. Different conditions: adults commenting positively, commenting negatively and no comment

Question 7

What were the results of bandura’s study?

Answer 7

Boys were more violent but less children hit the doll for punishment, same hit the doll for reward and no consequence
So aggression can be shown regardless of reward and girls decrease aggression more when provided with a punishment

Question 8

What were the evaluations of the study (ethics, validity)?

Answer 8

Lacked ethics as it was promoting violence to children

Lacks ecological validity as it doesn’t happen in real life (adult beating up a Bobo doll)

Question 9

What are the strengths of the approach?

Answer 9

Builds on weaknesses of biological and behavioural and says humans think before they act and think individually so it bring theories together for better explanation

Uses models (people) to explain why humans might have eating disorders by aiming to look like someone who’s physique is unachievable

Laboratory studies used on humans so variables can be controlled and study on humans makes generalisations more valid

Question 10

What are the limitations of the approach?

Answer 10

Not all behaviour is explained by social learning theory as it doesn’t explain behaviours of people it hasn’t seen before

It doesn’t take into account biological factors like genes so some behaviours are innate and not learned by experience

Lab/field experiments used so lacks ecological validity as the method in the experiment rarely relates to a real life situation