Social learning theory

• Main assumptions:

  Agreed with behaviorists that much behavior came from experience

  Approach to conditioning

  Learn observation and imitation of others with a social context
• Vicarious reinforcement is the learning process in psychology.Vicarious reinforcement involves learning through observation of the consequences of actions for other people.

  When a learner observes someone they identify with and the role model receives reinforcement, the learner is motivated to imitate the behavior as if they had been reinforced themselves.
• The role of mediational processes-

  SLT is often described as the bridge between behaviorism and the cognitive approach because it focuses on how mental factors are involved in learning
• Attention- The extent to which we notice certain behaviors
• Retention- How well the behavior is mentioned.
• Reproduction- The ability to the observer to perform the behavior
• Motivation- The will to perform the behavior which is often determined by whether the behavior was rewarded or punished.
• Identification- People are much more likely to imitate the behavior of people whom they identify called role models
• One strength of SLT is that there is research to support this theory. This means that it can easily be argued as the theories have been backed up. As well as this, there is real life application
• One weakness is that there is to may individual differences in people to view this as a theory that affects all humans.
• Another weakness is that there is evidence from lab studies. This means it lacks ecological validity as the results will not apply to real life scenarios which means it cant be said as a theory for behavior.