Social Learning Theory Flashcards
What is the Social Learning Theory?
The belief that new patterns of behaviour could be acquired by observing the behaviour of others as well
What is referred to as modelling?
Individuals that carry out the attitude or behaviour to be learned.
What is a live model?
A parent, a teacher at school it a member of a peer group.
What is a symbolic model?
Somebody portrayed in the media
What is imitation?
The imitation of attitudes and behaviours that are modelled by parents. The child can rapidly acquire patterns of behaviour.
What is identification?
Refers to the extent to which an individual relates to a model and feels that they are similar.
What is vicarious reinforcement?
A suggestion that individuals do not need to experience rewards or punishments directly in order to learn. They can just observe the consequences experienced by a model and then make judgements as to the likelihood of experiencing these outcomes themselves.
What are the four mediational processes?
- Attention: The individual notices someone in their environment.
- Retention: The individual remembers what they have observed.
- Motor reproduction: The individual replicated the behaviour shown by the model.
- Motivation: The individual seeks to demonstrate the behaviour that they have seen.
What are evidence that supports the Social Learning Theory?
Bandura carried out an experiment involving children who observer aggressive or non aggressive adult models.
About one-third of the children who observed the aggressive model repeated the models verbal response while none of the children who observed the non-aggressive model exhibited virtually no aggressive remarks.
What are the strengths of the Social Learning Theory?
- Increases understanding in violent and criminal behaviour
(Ullrich [2003] supports this claim in a review of the literature, finds that the strongest cause of violent behaviour in adolescence was association with delinquent peer groups.)
What are the limitations of the Social Learning Theory?
Disregards other potential influences on behaviour such as gender role expectations.
