PEER INFLUENCE AO1

• Social Learning Theory


  Theory that emphasises the role that social factors can have on behaviour
• Social Learning Theory


  • Extends the behaviourist approach to include indirect as well as direct reinforcement
  • Called 'social' learning because you learn indirectly from the behaviour of other people
• Learning through Social Learning Theory

  1. Observing a role model

  2. Vicarious (indirect) reinforcement
• Role model


  Someone the observer identifies with and admires
• Vicarious reinforcement


  If a role model is reinforced in some way for their behaviour, then the individual anticipates similar outcomes and rewards for themselves and is likely to repeat the behaviour
• Vicarious reinforcement


  Enough to create an addiction, especially in today's society where people are exposed to their peers more than ever through social media
• Individual may imitate the behaviour of their peer role models

  Because they may see them being rewarded for addictive behaviour e.g. smoking or drinking leading to the admiration from others
• The individual does not need to be directly reinforced through operant conditioning or classical conditioning, vicarious reinforcement is enough to create an addiction
• Social norms


  The rules of a social group that the members of that group adhere to
• Social norms differ from group to group, with peer groups having their own individual set of rules
• Descriptive norms


  An individual's perception of how much others engage in behaviours such as drinking or smoking (the norm of 'is')
• Injunctive norms


  What an individual perceives as others' approval of the behaviour (the norm of 'ought')
• Research into the effects of peer pressure on alcohol addiction has distinguished two types of social norms: descriptive norms and injunctive norms
• Students who were interviewed tended to overestimate the descriptive and injunctive norms in their social group
• They believed that their peers drank more alcohol than they did (descriptive norms) and that it was wholly acceptable (injunctive norms)