Social learning theory

• In social learning theory (SLT), Albert Bandura acknowledged that aggression can be learned directly, through mechanisms of operant conditioning involving positive and negative reinforcement and punishment. So a child who angrily snatches a toy off another child will learn that aggressive behaviour is rewarding. This direct reinforcement makes it more likely that the child will behave aggressively again in a similar situation.
• However, Bandura also realised that aggressive behaviour often cannot be explained by such direct forms of learning, especially in humans. So he argued that an indirect mechanism he came to the idea of observational learning which accounts for social learning of most aggressive behaviours.
• Children and adults to some extent acquire specific aggressive behaviours through observing aggressive models, such as siblings, parents, peers, and characters in the media. In this way, the child has learned about aggressive behaviour, but this does not mean that they will behave aggressively themselves. As well as observing the behaviour of models, children also observe the consequences of their behaviour.
• If the model's aggressive behaviour is rewarded or at least not punished, then the child learns that aggression can be effective in getting what they want. This is known as vicarious reinforcement, and it makes it more likely that the observing child will imitate the model's aggressive behaviour. There is a parallel form of indirect learning called vicarious punishment. If a model's use of aggression to achieve a goal is punished, an observing child is less likely to imitate that specific behaviour.
• Bandura identified four cognitive conditions needed for social learning the first cognitive condition was attention this is a basic cognitive requirement is that the observer must pay attention to the model's aggressive actions. The second cognitive condition is retention the observer also needs to be able to remember the model's aggressive actions, to form a symbolic mental representation of how the behaviour is performed.
• The third cognitive condition is reproduction the observer must be able to transform the mental representation of the aggressive behaviour into actual physical action. This involves the individual mentally appraising their ability to do this. The fourth cognitive condition is motivation the observer needs a reason to imitate behaviour, which will depend on their expectations that behaving aggressively in a specific situation will be rewarding.
• Self-efficacy is the extent to which we believe our actions will achieve a desired goal. A child's confidence in their ability to be aggressive grows as they learn that aggression can bring rewards. For example, consider a child who regularly hits other children to get hold of a toy. They learn that they have the motor skills necessary to force another child to hand over the toy, and that this ability comes easily to them.
• The child's sense of self-efficacy develops with each successful outcome. He or she is confident that, because their aggression has been effective in the past, it will continue to be so in the future. In others words, they learn that aggression works and they are good at it.
• Bandura et al's (1961) Bobo doll study illustrates many of the features of social learning theory. The procedure of the study was that young children individually observed an adult model assaulting an inflatable plastic toy called a Bobo doll. The aggressive behaviours included throwing, kicking and hitting with a mallet, and were accompanied by verbal outbursts. There followed a short period during which the children were not allowed to play with some attractive toys, which created a degree of frustration.
• They were then taken to another room where there was a Bobo doll, plus some other toys including ones the adult model had used. Bandura found that without being instructed to do so, many of these children imitated the behaviour they had seen performed by the model, physically and verbally.
• The closeness of the imitation was remarkable in some cases, virtually a direct copy of what the children had observed, including the use of specific objects and verbal phrases. Boys imitated physical aggression more than girls, but there was no difference in imitating verbal aggression. Boys were also more likely than girls to imitate a same-sex model. There was also another group of children who had observed an adult interacting non-aggressively with the doll. Aggressive behaviour towards the Bobo doll by these children was almost non-existent.
• One strength of SLT is research supporting its explanation of aggression. François Poulin and Michel Boivin (2000) found that aggressive boys aged between 9 and 12 years formed friendships with other aggressive boys. These friendships mutually reinforced each boy's aggressive behaviour through modelling. For example, the boys would observe each other successfully using proactive aggression to get what they wanted from peers, which provided reinforcement.
• This means they were exposed frequently to models of physical aggression and to its positive consequences. The boys also gained reinforcement from the rewarding approval of the rest of their friends These social learning processes made imitation of aggressive behaviour by the boys much more likely, as predicted by SLT.
• Counterpoint However, the above study did not find similarity between friends for reactive aggression. Reactive aggression is angry retaliation in the heat of the moment. The researchers found that the boys were much less likely to influence each other's reactive aggressive outbursts. They observed them but generally did not imitate them.
• This was perhaps because the consequences of reactive aggression are unpredictable and not often as positive as they are for planned, proactive aggression so less reinforcing. Therefore SLT is limited because it is a relatively weak explanation of reactive aggression.