Social Learning Theory

• Social Learning Theory assumes that people learn through observation and imitation
• According to SLT the individual is not a passive reciever of information; cognition, behaviour & environment influence each other to make a decision on whether to imitate behaviour (mediational processes)
• SLT highlights the importance of cognitive factors as all behaviour can be broken down into the fundamental process of conditioning
• Social Learning Theory is reductionist as not all behaviour can be explained solely by classical and operant conditioning
• SLT has biological support as the discovery of mirror neurons in primates constitutes a neurological basis for imitation
• Mirror Neurons fire both when an animal does something, or observes the same action being done by another animal.
• SLT has real-life applications e.g improving success of health campaigns
• Andsager et al (2006) concluded that similarity to a model improved the success of anti-alcohol campaigns
• The 4 stages of social learning theory are: attention, retention, reproduction, motivation
• Motivation comes from witnessing rewards as a result of someone carrying out that behaviour
• Vicarious Reinforcement is where a person observes a role model being rewarded for a behaviour and is then motivated to imitate the behaviour
• Attention is observing the relevant aspects of the behaviour
• Retention is the ability to remember the behaviour for later use
• Reproduction is the ability to imitate the behaviour