Social Learning Theory, Bandura (behaviourism)

• What are the assumptions of SLT?

  -Bandura agreed with the behaviourists that learning can take place directly via conditioning, however the social learning theory proposes it can also take place indirectly through observation and imitation of others in a social context.

  -Most SLT research was and is conducted in labs in scientific and controlled conditions.
• What is pro social behaviour?

  Pro-social behaviour is socially acceptable and encouraged as it fits into societal norms.

  
  

  Bandura claimed that children are more likely to imitate pro social behaviour because this is the behaviour that they are likely to be rewarded for performing.
• What is identification?

  When an observer is influenced by some quality of the person they observe (if they have similar characteristics to the observer they are more likely to become a role model, such as similar age or same sex) to copy their actions.
• What is imitation?

  Copying of observed behaviour of someone - we are more likely to

  imitate someone we identify with.
• What is vicarious reinforcement


  When a behaviour is observed to be rewarded an observer will be more likely to imitate it.
• What is self-efficacy?

  Confidence and belief in one's ability to perform a task and succeed. This influences behaviour, including learning - high self-efficacy improves our ability to learn.
• What is a strength of the SLT? (Study)

  The SLT is supported by the bobo doll study - conducted by Bandura to show how children learned to behave aggressively. Children who saw an aggressive role model (who acted violently towards the doll) reproduced more aggressive acts than children who saw a non-aggressive model. This shows that children learn from their social environment, lending strength to Banduras' ideas about vicarious learning.
• What is a limitation of the SLT? (Unable to verify)

  The cognitive mediational processes need to be inferred and cannot be directly measured. Bandura's description of the cognitive processes is rather vague. This means that we are unable to test or verify the role of mediational processes in social learning theory.
• What is a limitation of the SLT? (biological explanations)

  The SLT does not take biological explanations of aggression into account. Lavine (1996) found increased levels of dopamine activity were associated with increased aggressive behaviour. Additionally, Pillay (2000) found that levels of testosterone were positively correlated with levels of aggression. This suggests that SLT is not a complete theory of human behaviour as there are other explanations that contribute to human behaviour. (Check names)
• A strength of the SLT (aggression)


  SLT can be used to explain aggression in all cultures as it states we learn by observing and imitating the social world around us. An example of this is the !Kung San tribe, where there is very little evidence of violence at all. It is suggested that this is put down to child rearing practices as parents do not punish bad behaviour but seek to distract their child's attention onto something else. This suggests that we learn aggression by imitating role models.
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