slt

• Role Model


  someone who models a behaviour for someone to copy
• Imitation


  Copy the behaviours and ways of someone else
• Modelling


  the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior
• Identification


  People, mainly children are more likely to imitate someone they identify with
• vicarious reinforcement


  behaviours seen to be reinforced so then others replicate the behaviours
• mediational processes

  internal mental processes that take place between the stimulus and the response
• attention


  behaviour must be identified
• retention

  observed behaviour must be remembered
• reproduction


  when someone sees someone do something and then copying their behaviours
• motivation


  a person must want to preform the behaviour
• Bandura's research aim

  to demonstrate that if children witnessed aggressive behaviour by an adult they would then imitate aggressive behaviour when given the opportunities
• Bandura's Research procedure

  children watch adults either being aggressive or not aggressive towards a Bobo Doll
• Bandura's Research Results


  when given they're own doll if they had witnessed the aggressive behaviour, they were more aggressive towards the doll and if they did not witness aggressive behaviour then they did not show aggressive behaviour to the doll
• Bandura's Research Conclusion


  the children imitated the behaviour that they had witnessed
• Evaluation Weakness

  Ignored Biological factors

  - found that boys were more aggressive than girls in the same experimental conditions

  - this can be explained by SLT but the biological approach can explain in the levels of testosterone

  -suggests SLT makes little reference to influence of biological factors on social learning
• Social learning theory is supported by research by Bandura et al. (1961) and Badura and Walters (1963) as imitation is more likely to occur when the model is positively reinforced, demonstrating the importance of vicarious reinforcement.; however, these were laboratory experiments raising demand characteristics = children behaved as expected, and the task did not reflect the way the participants behaved in their normal life telling us little about aggression in everyday life
• Evaluation Strength

  Less determinist than behaviourism

  -more of an emphasis on reciprocal determinism of how we are influenced by our environment and influence upon it through behaviours we perform

  - acknowledges free will and that people choose the behaviours they will perform, much more realistic and flexible
• Evaluation Strength

  Real world application

  - can be used to explain cultural differences

  - shows how much children can learn from their surroundings, especially the media e.g how children understand a range of behaviours such as their gender role by imitating roles in the media

  - shows how cultural norms are spread

  increase value of SLT
• evaluation summary:

  • ignores biological factors
  • less determinist
  • research support