SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

• SLT 


  emphasises the role of cognitive processes (mediational processes)  in learning
• SLT 


  involves indirect (vicarious) reinforcement/punishment rather than just direct reinforcement/punishment (operant conditioning).
• SLT 


   discusses that all behaviour is learnt through experience by observing models and the consequences of behaviour.
• SLT - MEDIATIONAL PROCESSES 


  explains observational learning. These are essentially the mental processes that occur in between the stimulus and the response that influence behaviour.
• MEDIATIONAL PROCESSES 


  • attention
  • retention
  • reproduction
  • motivation
• ATTENTION 


  paying attention to the model
• RETENTION 


   remembering what the model did.
• REPRODUCTION

   being able to imitate the behaviour.
• MOTIVATION 


  people must be motivated to imitate behaviour
• (+) SLT -  role of observing a role model


  POULOS ET AL =

  showed that young children who watched an episode of lassie, where a child rescued a dog were more likely to help puppies in distress than children who watched neutral programmes. This suggests that children learn from emotional scenes which then affect the way they think as this has emotionally influenced them. 
• (+) SLT - Real life application 


  e.g criminal behaviour in Aheris (1998) have been usefully applied to increase the understanding of many areas of human behaviour, including criminal behaviour. This suggests that the probability of someone engaging in criminal behaviour increases when they are exposed to models who commit crimes. 
• (-) SLT - real life application 


  CHARLTON ET AL =

   found that when TV was introduced to the island of St. Helena in 1995, levels of aggression among the children remained low. This shows that exposure to aggression through media does not necessarily lead to a rise in imitative aggression. This suggests that aggression does not always have to be a factor that is influenced by indirect influence which contradicts studies under SLT. 
• (-) SLT 


   ignores the role of nature and the biological approach in controlling behaviour. The evidence on which it is based was gathered through the use of laboratory experiments. Problems include; demand characteristics ,meaning there is a lack of internal validity and also an artificial environment meaning a lack of ecological validity is created. This suggests that SLT does not always have to be based on a natural environment; it could be due to biological reason for example) MAOA gene.