Social Learning Theory (AP P2)

Question 1

What is modelling?

Answer 1

• From an observer’s perspective, modelling is imitating the behaviour of a role more
• From the role model’s perspective, it’s the precise demonstration of a specific behaviour that may then be imitated by an observer

Question 2

What is imitation?

Answer 2

Copying the behaviour of others

Question 3

What is identification?

Answer 3

A desire to be associated with a particular person or group, often because they possess certain desirable characteristics

Question 4

What is vicarious reinforcement?

Answer 4

• Reinforcement which is not directly experienced but occurs through observing someone else being reinforced for a behaviour
• Key factor in imitation

Question 5

What are the 4 Mediational Processes?

Answer 5

• Proposed by Bandura
• Attention: whether we notice the behaviour
• Retention: whether we remember the behaviour long term
• Reproduction: whether we are able to physically perform the behaviour
• Motivation: whether the perceived rewards outweigh the perceived costs

Question 6

When was the Bandura et al Bono Doll Study?

Answer 6

1961

Question 7

What was Study A Bandura?

Answer 7

• 1961
• Recorded behaviour of young children who watched an adult behave in an aggressive way towards a Bobo doll
• The adult hit the doll with a hammer and shouted abuse at it
• When the children were later observed playing with various toys, including a Bobo doll, they behaved much more aggressively towards the Bobo doll and other toys than those who had observed a non-aggressive adult

Question 8

What was study B Bandura?

Answer 8

• 1963
• Showed videos to children where an adult behaved aggressively towards the Bobo doll
• One group saw the adult being praised for their behaviour (well done)
• The second group saw the adult punished for their aggression by being told off
• The third group (control group) saw the aggression without any consequence
• When given their own Bobo doll, the first group showed much more aggression, followed by the third group, then the second

Question 9

Real life applications (evaluation of SLT)

Answer 9

• Social Learning principles account for how children learn from other people around them, as well as through the media’s
• Can explain how cultures norms are transmitted
• Has proved useful in understanding a range of behaviours, such as how children come to understand their gender role by imitating role models in the media
• Increases value of SLT

Question 10

Research is laboratory based (evaluation of SLT)

Answer 10

• Many ideas developed through observations of children’s behaviours in a lab setting? and raises the problem of demand characteristics
• e.g the main purpose of a Bobo doll is to be hit
• Therefore the research may tell us little about how children actually learn aggression on every day life

Question 11

Determinism (evaluation of SLT)

Answer 11

• The Behaviourist Approach sees all behaviour as environmental, determined by external influences that we are unable to control
• Bandura put forward notion of reciprocal determinism: the idea that as well as being influenced by our environment we also exert some influence upon it through the behaviours we choose to perform

Question 12

Nature vs nurture (evaluation of SLT)

Answer 12

• Behaviourism falls clearly on the nurture side of the debate
• Behaviourists categorise. ankles as ‘blank slates’ at birth and suggest that all behaviour comes about through learned associations, reinforcement contingencies, or in the case of SLT, observation and imitations