Social Learning Theory

Question 1

What does the social learning theory believe?

Answer 1

Behaviours are most likely to be learned
Believes that we learn most of our behaviours from observing and imitating others
We do not imitate out role models, we imitate our role models.

Question 2

What is the process of identification?

Answer 2

Where we decide we want to be like certain people-we watch what we do and copy them
-process of observation and identification

Question 3

What is vicarious reinforcement?

Answer 3

We are motivated to imitate behaviours that we see being rewarded.
-we see others being rewarded which motivates us to imitate that behaviour

Question 4

What is internalisation?

Answer 4

Behaviour becomes apart of who we are and our normal behaviours

Question 5

What is direct reinforcement?

Answer 5

A behaviour is rewarded.

Question 6

What 3 variables that affected imitation did Pennington find?

Answer 6

Characteristics of the role, such as gender age and status.
Characteristics of the observer, self esteem, self efficacy.
The consequences of the behaviour for the model-rewarded or punished.

Question 7

What is vicarious learning?

Answer 7

Learning through the experience of others
You learn indirectly rather than personally experiencing something

Question 8

What is vicarious reinforcement?

Answer 8

Occurs when you imitate the behaviour of someone who has been reinforced for that behaviour

Question 9

What is vicarious punishment?

Answer 9

Occurs when the tendency to engage in a behaviour is weakened after having observed the negative consequences for another engaging in that behaviour.

Question 10

What is vicarious extinction?

Answer 10

Occurs when it id noticed that the person who has been observed engaging n the behaviour is no longer rewarded and so the behaviour that was once imitated stops.

Question 11

Wha are the 4 stages of the social learning process?

Answer 11

Attention
Retention
Reproduction
Motivation

Question 12

What is the attention stage?

Answer 12

Learning starts off with paying attwntuon and observing the model in order to learn from them
Role model likely to be someone that person looks up to like peers, family or celebrities

Question 13

What is the retention stage?
What assists this process and why?

Answer 13

The behaviour being modelled needs to be retained by the observer, as the behaviourist is usually required to be imitated at a later time.
Imagery and language assist the process as we tend to store things as mental images or verbal descriptions

Question 14

What is the reproduction stage?
What does this involve?

Answer 14

Behaviour is them performed.
This involved reproducing the actions that have been observed and retained, these actions can be further refined by practice.

Question 15

What is the motivation stage?

Answer 15

Whether the behaviour is continued depends on motivation.
Such motivation may come from external reinforcements, vicarious reinforcement and self reinforcement.
An individual is more likely to copy if motivated to learn by vicarious or internal reinforcement

Question 16

What are external/extrinsic outcomes?

Answer 16

If behaviour is rewarding it will be will be repeated
This kind of motivation revolves around some kind of physical outcome such as treats or money

Question 17

What are internal/intrinsic outcomes?

Answer 17

Behaviour is more motivating if some internal need is satisfied such as excitement.
Such as feeling proud, included, successful.

Question 18

Evidence of social learning theory

Answer 18

SLT suggests that people learn behaviours through observation and imitation of others, especially when these behaviours are reinforced.

Body doll experiment: watched adult model act aggressively towards an inflatable doll.
Children who observed the aggressive behaviour were more likely to imitate it.

Supports SLT because it demonstrates that children can learn aggressive behaviour simply by watching something else

Question 19

How does social learning theory apply to real life?

Answer 19

SLT has been applied to real world issues such as the regulation of media content specifically in the creation of weather shed rules to protect children from harmful TV programmes.

Research shown that children who watch violent or inappropriate content are more likely to imitate the behaviour, especially when the behaviour is rewarded or goes unpunished. This has influenced the development of watershed policies, which restrict the airing of violent or adult shows.

Watershed (9pm in the UK) aims to prevent young viewers from observing and imitating harmful behaviour they might see in TV shows or movies, improving the lies of the individual.

Question 20

Comparisons and credibility of social learning theory

Answer 20

An alternative explanation for human behaviour is operant conditioning.

Skinners work on operant conditioning demonstrated that behaviour can be shaped by the consequences it provides.

This contrasts with SLT which emphasises the role of observation and imitation in learning.

Question 21

One criticism of SLT

Answer 21

It may oversimplify the complexities of human behavour by neglecting the influence of biological factors.

Some criticism argue that bandura may not fully account for individual differences such as generic predispositions or personality traits, which might also influence whether a child chooses to imitate aggression.

This criticism suggests that SLT places too much emphasis on environmental factors (such as observation and reinforcements) and overlooks the potential role on internal biological factors like genetics of hormones