social learning theory

• Social learning theory - a way of explaining behaviour that includes both direct and indirect reinforcement, combining learning theory with the role of cognitive factors
• Bandura agreed with behaviourists that much of our behaviour is learned from experience but his SLT proposed that people learnt indirectly through observation and imitation of others within a social context, as well as directly through conditioning
• Vicarious reinforcement - reinforcement which is not directly experienced but occurs through observing someone else being reinforced for a behaviour
• vicarious reinforcement is a key factor in imitation
• Imitation - copying behaviour of others
• Identification - when an observer associates themselves with a role model and wants to be like the role model
• People are more likely to imitate the behaviour of people with whom they identify (relate to), called role models
• Modelling - role models demonstrate a specific behaviour and observers imitate the behaviour of the role model
• There are four mediational processes identified by Bandura:

  • attention
  • retention
  • motor reproduction
  • motivation
• Attention - the extent to which we notice certain behaviours, where the learner must pay attention to what the model does
• Retention - how well the behaviour is remembered
• Motor reproduction - the ability of the observer to perform the behaviour
• Motivation - the will to perform the behaviour, depends on whether the behaviour is rewarded or punished
• social learning theory is less deterministic than the behaviourist approach. This is because Bandura emphasised mediational processes in learning and these allow us to store, plan and make judgements about when to produce particular behaviours that we have observed
• Many of Bandura’s ideas were developed through observation of children’s behaviour in lab settings and this raises the problem of demand characteristics
• a limitation is that social learning theory underestimates the influence of biological factors
• a strength of social learning theory is that it recognises the importance of cognitive factors in learning