Social Learning Theory

Question 1

Describe social learning theory

Define ‘role model’

Answer 1

• States that people learn by observing others and imitating them
• People usually imitate their role models - a person looked up to as someone who they can identify with, usually of same gender or age
  4 main stages:
• Attention = observer pays attention to the role model in order to learn from them
• Retention = behaviour is retained
• Reproduction = behaviour is perfomed at a later time
• Motivation = whether the behaviour is continued depends on motivation
• The observer is more likely to copy behaviour if motivated by vicarious reinforcement

Question 2

Supporting research?

Answer 2

P- Bandura
E- Conducted research into imitation of aggression and found that a child was more likely to show aggressive behaviours after first seeing a similar individual do it
E- Demonstrating how learning occurs through observing and imitating others

Question 3

Criticism of research?

Answer 3

P- Low generalisability
E- Research is carried out on children
E- Findings may not be representative of a wider population, such as adults

Question 4

Application?

Answer 4

P- Therapy
E- Such as token economy programmes, seeing other learners acquire tokens and seeing them get rewards acts as vicarious reinforcement
E- Demonstrated the principles of social learning theory are valid and can be used in real life settings

Question 5

Weakness?

Answer 5

P- Brings in cognitions
E- Thought processes, which are unobervable
E- By including cognitions, Bandura is moving SLT away from behaviourism and into a less scientific, more subjective territory