Social Learning Theory Flashcards
What does SLT suggest?
Social learning theory (SLT) suggests that we learn aggression through observation and watching the behaviour of role models and then imitating their behaviour if we identify with them.
Explain the concept of vicarious learning.
Children will observe and learn about the consequences of aggressive behaviour by watching others being rewarded or punished for it – this is called vicarious reinforcement. By observing the consequences of aggressive behaviour, a child may gradually come to learn whether such behaviour is worth repeating.
What did Bandura suggest?
He claimed that for social learning to take place, the child must be able to form a mental representation of the events in their social environment. The child must also imagine possible rewards and punishments for their aggressive behaviour in terms of expectancies of future outcomes. When appropriate opportunities arise in the future, the child will display the learned behaviour as long as the expectation of reward outweighs any possible expectations of punishment. Children who are rewarded in some way for aggression by getting what they want for example, will come to attach value to aggression and thus repeat the behaviour. Children who have little success with aggression will be less confident in its use and thus use other means.
Outline Bandura’s study.
‘The bobo doll’ study. The study involved children observing aggressive and non-aggressive adult models and then being tested to see whether they would imitate the behaviour. Half of the children were exposed to aggressive adult models behaving aggressively towards a life-size bobo doll and the other half were exposed to non-aggressive models. Following exposure to the model, children were ‘frustrated’ by being shown toys that they were not allowed to play with. Children in the ‘aggressive’ condition reproduced a lot of the aggressive behaviour, whereas children in the non-aggressive group exhibited virtually no aggression towards the doll.
Outline the study by Bandura and Walters.
They conducted a separate study to try and identify why a child would be motivated to perform the same aggressive behaviours in the absence of a model. Children were divided into three groups with each seeing a different ending to a film of an adult model behaving aggressively towards a bobo doll: group one saw the model rewarded, group two saw the model punished and group three observed no consequences for the behaviour. They found that the children’s subsequent behaviour was affected depending on which ending they had watched. Children in group 1 showed a higher level of aggression in their own play. Children in group 2 showed a low level of aggression in their play, while those in group 3 were somewhere in the between.
Criticism of Bandura&Walters’ study?
A question regarding this study is whether punishment prevented learning or simply performance of the behaviour.
More criticisms of Bandura’s studies?
- Bandura’s studies involved solely children and therefore his theory may have little generalisation to the adult world population and might be better at explaining how children learn aggressive behaviour rather than adults.
- It is also possible that in Bandura’s study children were displaying behaviour they believed was expected of them and showing demand characteristics, which would make the study lack realism and validity.
- Moreover, frustrating children and encouraging acts of aggression through exposure like Bandura did, is ethically wrong.
- Also, the study was measuring aggressive behaviour towards a ‘bobo doll’ and not a real person, hence the behaviour demonstrated may have lacked generalisation to real acts of aggression.
What did Philips et al. find?
He found that homicide rates in the US almost always increased in the following week after a major televised boxing match, suggesting SLT may apply to adults as well.
A criticism of Philips’ study?
A criticism of this study is that we cannot be sure of cause and effect and whether it was the exposure to aggression on television that caused this or whether other confounding variables contributed. We also cannot be sure that those committing the acts of aggression were even exposed to the boxing matches.
Bandura’s third study?
Bandura did demonstrate how children would imitate aggression towards a real clown after being exposed to such modelled aggression towards a filmed clown, which supports the theory.
What is the strength of SLT?
A strength of SLT is that it can explain context dependant aggression e.g. why some people are aggressive at home but not at work.
Weaknesses of SLT?
- A weakness of SLT is that it is reductionist. It portrays humans as simple creatures and stimulus, ignoring the role of cognitive or biological factors.
- The theory also assumes that people are always likely to be aggressive when exposed to such behaviour meaning that it is deterministic, however in reality this is not the case as people have a free will and the ability to make their own conscious choices.
Outline Mead’s study.
He investigated aggression in two tribes in New Guinea and found that in the tribe where there was no aggressive behaviour for individuals to model, a lot less acts were performed compare to the tribe where aggression was used to determine a status.
