Social Learning Theory Flashcards
What is the social learning theory?
It’s a theory that attempts to explain socialisation and its effects on the development of the self, it looks at the individual learning process and the formation of the self.
What does the social learning theory suggest?
People engage in crimes because of their association with others who engage in crimes, there criminal behaviour is reinforced and they learn beliefs that are favourable to crime, so they essentially have criminal role models they associate with. As a consequence these individuals come to view crime as something that is desirable or justifiable in certain situations.
What did Albert Bandura suggest about social learning?
People learn through observing the behaviour of others.
If a person watches a person be rewarded for behaviour, they are most likely to copy that behaviour- vicarious reinforcement.
What is meant by models in the social learning theory and who usually are they ?
Models are the people whom we learn our behaviour, we model our own behaviours on theirs. However we tend to copy those who we look up to like those of higher status for example
What was Bandura’s bobo doll study?
Experiment involved children seeing two different “models”. An aggressive model who punched, hit and kicked the doll and a non aggressive model. The children who were exposed to the aggressive model imitated the violent behaviour using the same words and actions. Suggesting that violent behaviour can be learned through observation and imitation.
What is a real life case study of the social learning theory?
The case of Jamie Bulger.
Two children kidnapped a toddler and murdered him, the kids watched an aggressive and violent movie before the murder a couple of times. This suggests that the children observed violence and aggressive behaviour so much that they imitated the behaviour just like the social learning theory suggests.
What are some evaluations of the social learning theory?
Strength- it shows the importance of role models in learning deviant and criminal behaviour.
Limitation- it is based on lab studies which are criticised for having artificial stimuli. Decreasing the external validity.
What are individualistic theories of crime?
They are psychological theories of crime, which suggests that criminality has psychological rather than biological causes.
According to learning theories what are the two ways we learn behaviour?
Indirectly observing and imitating
Directly through reward and punishment
