AO3 - SLT

• Bandura conducted research to support the Social Learning Theory in psychology. Bandura found that when children observed a model acting aggressively towards a Bobo Doll they were more likely to imitate the aggressive behaviour. Whereas, 70% of the children who observed a non-aggressive model or no model showed zero ratings of aggression. Therefore evidencing how observation of behaviour can lead to imitative learning and the importance of a role model as the Social Learning Theory suggests. 
• A strength of the Social Learning Theory explanation of human behaviour is that it has practical applications. This is because the principles of the theory, that behaviour is caused by observing and imitating a model, which has been used by the government to control how the media portray certain behaviours e.g. restricted the advertisement of cigarettes and alcohol in order to reduce this negative behaviour. Therefore, the Social Learning Theory explanation of human behaviour is an important part of applied psychology as it helps to promote positive behaviours in the real world.
• Moreover, SLT is praised for going beyond the behaviourist approach and considers that humans have an element of free will in their learning. All human behaviour is a result of external causes (learning through observing and imitating a model) yet, as individuals, we also have the ability to make conscious decisions about whether or not to imitate a behaviour and who we choose to model behaviour from. Therefore, the Social Learning Theory explanation of human behaviour could be considered superior to approaches that take a hard determinism stance. 
• An alternative explanation for human behaviour is the biological explanation. This would suggest that human behaviour is due to genes or hormones rather than learning through observation. For example, SLT underestimates the role of hormones in Bandura’s research as one consistent finding was that boys were often more aggressive than girls regardless of the situation they were in. This difference could be explained by hormones (levels of testosterone between girls and boys). Therefore the Social Learning Theory is not the only explanation of human behaviour that should be considered.