Social Learning Theory

Question 1

What is imitation?

Answer 1

The action of using someone or something as a model to copy their behaviour

Question 2

What is an example of an imitation?

Answer 2

Role model e.g BTS

or

Child imitiating adult on phone using their toy phone

Question 3

What is identification?

Answer 3

When an individual adopts an attitude/behaviour because they want to associate with a particular person or group

Question 4

An example of identification

Answer 4

Goth group in school

Question 5

What is modelling?

Answer 5

It is a form of learning when an individual learns a particular behaviour by observing another individual performing that behaviour

Question 6

What is vicarious reinforcement?

Answer 6

Learning that is not the result of direct reinforcement but through observing someone being reinforced for that behaviour

Question 7

What is an example of vicarious reinforcement?

Answer 7

Another student that’s reinforced (positive) as getting an answer correct Another student knowing answer -undirect reinforcement

Question 8

What is the role of medication processes?

Answer 8

The ability to think and have a choice The element of free will

Question 9

An example of the role of meditation processes

Answer 9

Ideal image of women Why do we all look like that - choice Doesn’t mean we will model

Question 10

Is Bandura a key study?

Answer 10

Yes

Question 11

Date Of Bandura study

Answer 11

1961

Question 12

What is the aim of Banduras study?

Answer 12

Bandura conducted a study to investigate if social behaviour (e.g aggression) can be acquired through imitation

Question 13

Method of Banduras study

Answer 13

Experiment

This involved observing children observed aggressive or non-aggressive adult models.

Tested for imitative learning in absence of the model

Half of children were exposed to aggressive and other non-aggressive

The agressive model displayed distinctive physically agressive acts towrds doll e,g Mallet accompanied by verbal aggression ‘POW’

Question 14

How did the procedure play out?

Answer 14

The agressive model displayed distinctive physically agressive acts towrds doll e,g Mallet accompanied by verbal aggression ‘POW’

Following exposure to the model, children were frustrated by being shown attractive toys which they were not allowed to play with

Taken to a room where among toys, there was a Bobo doll

Question 15

Results of Bandura study

Answer 15

Children with aggressive model - reproduced same physical and verb aggression resembling the model

Children observed non-aggressive model exhibited no aggression towards doll

About one-third of the children who observed aggressive model repeated verbal responses as those with non-aggressive model had no verbal remarks

Question 16

Conclusion of Bandura doll

Answer 16

Children learnt behaviour by observation and imitation

Question 17

What does social learning approach states?

Answer 17

Behaviour is learnt by watching others and copy (modelling) their behaviour. (learny by envirnoment)

Bandura’s bobo doll experiment shows how children copied/modelled the aggressive behaviour after watching an adult displaying aggressive behaviour towards the toy

• Imitation
• Identification
• Vicarous reinforcement
• Role of meditational processes

Question 18

Evaluation

Strength: SLT is less deterministic than the behavioural approach

Answer 18

• Bandura emphaised reciporal determinism - we are influenced by our envirnoment, but we also exert an influence upon it through the behaviours we choose to perform
• This element of choice suggests that there is some free will in the way we behave
• This is more realistic and flexibile position than supposed in behaviourst approach as it recongnises the role we play in shaping our own envirnoment
  *

Question 19

Evaluation

Limitation Relies too heavily on evidence from controlled lab studies

Answer 19

• Many of Bandura’s ideas were developed through observation of children’s behaviour in a lab settings and this raises the problem of demand characteristics
• Main purpose of the Bobo doll is to hit it. So the children in those studies been behaving as they thought was expected
• Thus research may tell us little about how children actually learn aggression in everday life

Question 20

Evaluation

Limitation: Underestimates the influence of biological factors

Answer 20

• A consistent finding in the Bobo doll experiemnts was that boys showed more aggression than girls regardless of the specifics of the experimental situation
• This may be explained by the differences in the levels of testosterone , which present in greater quantities in boys and linked to aggression
• This means Bandura may have underplayed the importance influence of biological factors on social learning

Question 21

Evaluation

Strength Gives emphasis of the importance of cognitive factors in learning

Answer 21

• Neither classical conditioning nor operant conditioning can offer a comprehensive account of human learning on their own because cognitive factors are omitted
• Humans and animals store informarion about the behaviour of others and use this to make judgements about when it is appropriate to perform certain factors
• SLT provides a more complete explanation of human learning than the behaviourist approach by recognising the role of mediational processes.