negatives

• -=The issue of causality. It is not clear if people learn behaviour from models, or if they seek out models who exhibit behaviour they favour. Siegel and McCormick (2006) argue that young people who hold deviant values and attitudes are more likely to associate with similarly-inclined peers, and thus the reinforcement of ‘deviant’ behaviour is a two-way process and not necessarily the result of SLT. ​
•  

  -=SLT struggles to explain complex behaviours (e.g.: gender development). Children are exposed to a range of influences when growing up, and these different influences interact in a complex way. It is difficult to distinguish behaviours that develop because of SLT from the many other factors that contribute to human behaviour, which poses an issue for the social learning explanation of behaviour.