Social learning theory

• Social learning theory- Bandura 1960

  This theory focuses on that behaviour can be learned by imitating others. Modelling behaviours takes place when one individual displays a particular social behaviour in the presence of another - whoever demonstrated it is the MODEL. Models are most likely to be imitated if they are the same sex and age as the observer or have a high status such as celebrities.

  Individuals OBSERVE and focus their attention on the modelled behaviour and watch it this is called RETENTION- then being reproduced when appropriate.

  They then have motivation to repeat the behaviour due to vicarious reinforcement which is when the observer witnesses the model being rewarded in a way for the behaviour.
• Supporting evidence for social learning theory

  Banduras studies showed that children would imitate an aggressive model who demonstrated aggression against a doll, this was heightened if the model was the same sex and rewarded for doing so.
• Conflicting evidence for social learning theory

  Evidence from Kendler 2015 shows that identiical twins are similar in their levels of aggression that non identical twins. Which suggests that individual differences in social behavior such as aggression are genetically influenced and not sinply due to experiences of modellying. Therefore SLT is not a complete explanation as it only focuses on the nurture not nature of people
• Applying social learning theory

  It can explain the effect of exposure to media violence and subsequent displays of aggression for example cases such as James Bulger, SLT may have to reduce issues with such exposure of role models helping to prevent violent offences being committed
• Bandura 1961 study- original

  • aimed to find out if children would show more aggressive behaviour if exposed to an aggressive role model and less aggressive behaviour if exposed to non aggressive role model. Also wanted to see if sex would make a difference in aggression
  • 24 children were a control group ( didnt watch any role model) and 48 others were split into experimental groups of 6. Those were either seeing a aggression or non aggressive rm and -Half of those children saw same sex role models and others saw opposite sex role model. Put into observation room for 20 mins
  • Found that- children who observed an aggressive role model showed verbal and physical aggression resembling RM compared to little aggression in control group. Male RM has a bigger influence than female
  • concludes that behaviour can be imitated even if it hasn't been reinforced
• Bandura 1932 study- used film role models

  • wanted to find out if children would become more aggressive if exposed to an aggressive role model in a film or cartoon compared to watching a live model. Also tested the idea that watching filmed aggression might be cathartic
  • The aggressive role model was either real, filmed or cartoon. Same sex or opposite sex to the child and also a control condition- children received no role model. Then recorded number of verbal and physical aggressive actions carried out
  • No significant difference between live models, filmed or cartoon models and control group carried out half as much aggression
  • children imitate filmed aggression same way as live and watching it is not cathartic
• Bandura 1965 study- vicarious reinforcement

  • to find out if children would be more likely to imitate a role model they see being rewarded and less likely to imitate a rm they see being punished. Also if the children when themselves offered rewards more likely to imitate
  • RM 'rocky' acted aggressively towards bobo doll. In the reward condition the experimenter praised rocky giving him sweets and in the punishment condition he was told of being a 'big bully' and was hit with newspaper. Nothing happened in no consequence condition.
  • Children were placed in observation rm for 10 mins and either received an incentive- juice or none
  • Found that there was more imitation if children received incentive but similar results in no consequences condition, in punished less imitation especially for girls mean of 0.5
• Generalisability of Bandura's research:

  The sample across all three studies was large: 72,96 and 66- may mean anomalies might be cancelled out.

  However the sample was taken from the same nursery(Stanford), these children might have unusual home lives with educated parents which makes them unrepresentative of normal children. Also may be problematic to generalise to adults- does not tell us much about how adults learn new behaviours as they could be less influenced by role models
• Reliability of Bandura's research:

  Procedure is very reliable as it can be replicated- as he did himself with the variations. The procedure was standardised using same script and checklist and he also used two observers behind the one way mirror which creates inter-rater reliability because a behaviour had to be noted by both observers otherwise it didnt count
• Application of Bandura's research:

  • His 1961 original study can be applied to parenting and teaching styles, as by imitating adults parents can manage their temper for their children to grow up well behaved- keeping them away from aggressive rm
  • 1963 variation- applied to Tv censorship involving violence on children TV shows such as tom and jerry which may cause children to learn aggressive behaviour
  • 1965 variation- also to media censorship, heros in films and rewarded for using violence such as in spider man and james bond- may lead to imitation. And same in video games were violence is explicitly rewarded by levelling up
• Validity of Bandura's research:

  Lack ecological validity- the children were put in a strange situation and exposed to unusual adult behaviour and given toys to play with which encouraged them to act unnaturally. A bobo doll is designed to be hit and knocked over so children may have assumed that the experimenters wanted them to do this- demand characteristics
• Ethics of Bandura's research:

  The major issues here is harm- the children may have been distressed by the aggressive behaviour they witnesses and the aggressive behaviour they learned from the study may have stayed with them becoming a behavioural problem- and participants are supposed to leave the study how they entered it

  Bandura argues the benefits to society outweighed the risks to any of the children that took part
• sample of Banduras original 1961 study

  72 children- 36 boys and 36 girls ages 3-5 recruited from stanford univeristy nursery school
• findings from Banduras original study 1961

  70% of children in control group showed no aggression

  boys physical aggression when exposed to male role model was 25.8 and girls after female role model was 5.5

  girls verbal aggression increased after female role model 13.7