AO3 SLT

• Social learning theory can be seen as scientific. This is because there's a lot of research in support of SLT, Bandura's Bobo doll study for example. This is scientific because this research isn't just from the start of the 20th century but continues into present day. For example, The contemporary study by Becker et al (2002), which researched the impact of TV on girls' attitudes towards eating and body image. This shows SLT is reliable. However, many studies to support SLT come from lab experiments which have low ecological reliability.
• (1) An issue with the approach is that much of the research into SLT was carried out on children or animals. This is because it's difficult to put adult humans into controlled situations with realistic role models. The reason this is a problem is because there may be issues with generalising findings from children or animals to adults. They may not be representative samples.
• (2) For example: Cook and Mineka, Monkeys watch another monkey react with fear to a snake. When the observer monkeys were presented with a snake they were also scared. This shows that research with animals may not necessarily be applicable to humans. However, monkeys are quite closely related to humans in evolutionary terms so you would expect them to react in similar ways. Human children also have enough similarity to adults in the way they learn to make this research credible.
• (1a) A strength is that there is practical application of this approach to explaining criminal behaviour. This is because it looks at evidence which suggests that criminal behaviour tends to run in families/peer groups. This is good because it will allow psychologists to develop means of reducing crime.
• (2a) For example, Osborne and West found that where the father had a criminal conviction, 40% of sons also acquired one by 18 compared to 13% of sons with non-criminal fathers. However, Mattheus also found that juvenile delinquents were more likely than non-delinquents to report having friends who engage in criminal activity. This shows that because it applies to peer, it's about learning not just genes. However, it's unclear why why some people who were raised in persistent contact to eith 'criminogenic influences don't commit offences. SLT therefore cannot be a complete explanation.
• An issue with the approach is that it involves bringing in cognitions- thought processes which are unobservable. This is because the old Behaviourist school of psychology only studied observable behaviour and focused on CC and OC to making it scientific. The reason this is a problem is that by including cognitions SLT is moving into more subjective territory. However, mediational processes offer a more comprehensive explanation than OC and CC- cognitive factors are important.