Social Learning Theory

• What is modelling?

  Social learning theory relies on someone carrying out a behaviour or attitude, so it can be observed and learned. The person who performed this behaviour is known as a model.
• What is imitation?

  Much of what a child learns is through imitating the behaviour of parents and other significant influences in their life. SLT proposes this is where they form their behaviours.
• What is identification?

  To the extent of which the observer can relate to the model, and feels similar to that person. The more they identify with the model, the more likely they are to imitate their behaviour.
• What is vicarious reinforcement?

  When we observe a model being rewarded for performing an action, we are more likely to imitate that behaviour than seeing a model being punished for this same action.
• What are the four mediational processes?

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  1. Attention
  2. Retention
  3. Reproduction (Motor)
  4. Motivation
• Who identified the four mediational processes and SLT?

  Albert Bandura
• Who was Albert Bandura?

  Expanded the behavioural concept of learning from direct experience (conditioning) and proposed that we could also gain new behaviours through observing others. This is known as Social Learning Theory.
• What experiment did Bandura Et Al (1961) conduct?

  A classic experiment involving children observing aggressive or non-aggressive behaviour towards a Bobo Doll. This involved striking it with a mallet and also using verbal aggression such as 'POW'. The other half of the children observed non-aggressive play by the adults with the Bobo doll.
• What was found from Bandura's Bobo Doll experiment (1961)?

  A large proportion of the children who had initially watched the aggressive role model reproduced physically aggressive behaviour that had been demonstrated by the role model, and a third of the children repeated the verbal responses. Those who had observed the non-aggressive behaviour model showed virtually no aggression towards the Bobo doll, and none of the children made verbally aggressive remarks.
• Conclusion of Bandura's Bobo Doll experiment (1961)?


  Those who observed the aggressive play were more likely to then show aggression in their own play.