Social Learning

• Bandura argued that not all learning happens through classical or operant conditioning and that it can happen just through observation
• Social learning theory is based on the idea that we can learn from observing others, without any direct consequences to us.
• The four key elements of social learning are attention, retention, reproduction and motivation.
• Observational learning occurs when an individual watches another person's behaviour and then replicates it themselves.
• Attention - The learner must be paying attention to what they see happening around them.
• Retention means remembering something long enough to be able to reproduce it later.
• Reproduction - The learner must be able to reproduce the observed behaviour at some point in the future.
• Motivation - There must be some reason why the learner wants to copy the model's behaviour.
• observational learning requires modelling and imitating
• factors affecting if a behaviour is imitated are

  • identification
  • vicarious reinforcement
• identification - when someone feels like they are similar to and have a connection to a certain model in their lives
• people are more likely to identify with people similar to them

  this means that they are more likely to imitate these people
• vicarious reinforcement (indirect)

  • when you see someone else get a reward for their behaviour
  • and so you replicate the behaviour, expecting to get the same response
• social learning theory assumes that mediational processes are involved

  • mental processes like attention and memory are involved in determining whether an observer copies behaviour