Social Learning Theory

Question 1

How is SLT different to learning theory?

Answer 1

It says there’s a mediation between stimulus and response

Question 2

Who studied Bobo Dolls?

Answer 2

Albert Bandura

Question 3

What is observational learning?

Answer 3

Learning by watching others

Question 4

What is vicarious reinforcement ?

Answer 4

Learning by observing the consequences of the behaviour of others..

Question 5

List 3 features of role models

Answer 5

Similarly- eg same sex or ethnic background
Higher status - may be age
Can be in our real lives or known through media, eg famous rugby player

Question 6

When are we most likely to imitate behaviour?

Answer 6

When it’s performed by a role model who we see being positively reinforced

Question 7

What is internalisation?

Answer 7

Learning the ways that our role models act and making them our own. Envisaging how they would act in unseen situations and replicating this, eg wearing “jazzy” socks to school coz we think our role model would!

Question 8

What are the cognitive processes involved in social learning?

Answer 8

Attention
Retention
Reproduction
Motivation

Question 9

Matty saw his friend Joey steal a mobile phone from a year 8 boy. He sold it to another boy and made £30, which helped to pay for a trip to see Harry Styles. Matty didn’t imitate him, even though Joey was the coolest boy in school. Matty’s mum had already paid for the trip, and gave him a generous monthly allowance. Why didn’t Matty copy Joey?

Answer 9

Matty had paid attention, retained the information, and was capable of reproducing it. He knew where the Year 8 boys left their phones. However he was not motivated to imitate as the reward was not worth it. He had enough money!

Question 10

What is modelling?

Answer 10

Observing and imitating another person

Question 11

In Bandura’s 1961 study, how many conditions were there?

Answer 11

Three

1. Children observed an adult role model behaving aggressively to a bobo doll
2. Children observed an adult role model playing with other toys and ignoring the bobo doll - playing nicely
3. Children had no exposure to role models

Question 12

Outline the sample for Bandura’s 1961 study

Answer 12

36 girls and 36 boys
Mean age of 52 months
Matched participants design - like matched pairs but over 3 groups

Question 13

Name 3 participant variables that Bandura needed to match in the 1961 study

Answer 13

Age
Gender
Previous aggressive tendencies

Question 14

When the children were able to play in the room that they had observed, how long were they observed for? (1961 study)

Answer 14

20 minutes

Question 15

What did Bandura find from his 1961 study. 3 things?

Answer 15

Those exposed to aggressive role models imitated a lot of their aggressive acts
Those in other conditions showed hardly any aggressive behaviour
Aggressive behaviour was slightly higher in the control group than the non-aggressive group

Question 16

Define control group

Answer 16

The group who do not receive any experimental treatment and so act as a baseline against which to measure the effect of the IV on the DV

Question 17

That is a confounding variable?

Answer 17

An EV that was not controlled!

Question 18

List 3 weaknesses of Bandura’s 1961 study

Answer 18

Ethical issues - socially sensitive research that encouraged aggression
Low ecological validity
Low population validity- children were all from the same school

Question 19

List 3 strengths of SLT

Answer 19

It pays some attention to internal processing - lay the foundations for the cognitive approach
It is scientific and psychology is a science- manipulates variables or conducts controlled observations
It’s application helped us to understand the effects of media violence and led to media age ratings

Question 20

List 3 weaknesses of SLT

Answer 20

It’s reductionist - it says that everything is due to learning and ignores other explanations, eg biological. We know that testosterone is also linked to aggression
Methodology- often studies are conducted in artificial situations which causes low ecological validity and may lead to demand characteristics
Because observational learning happens internally, it’s impossible to be certain that it has taken place - especially as it doesn’t always lead to behaviour change (eg we can learn through observation but not necessarily perform the behaviour immediately if at all)

Question 21

Which is MOST deterministic and why? Learning theory or social learning theory?

Answer 21

Learning theory! Because SLT accepts that not all observed behaviour is reproduced.

Question 22

What is an IV?

Answer 22

Variable that’s manipulated

Question 23

What is a DV

Answer 23

Variable that’s measured

Question 24

What is an EV?

Answer 24

Variable that’s controlled

Question 25

What is mean?

Answer 25

Statistical average. Add all scores together and divide by number of scores

Question 26

What is median?

Answer 26

Middle score when lined up number-wise from lowest to highest

Question 27

What is mode

Answer 27

Most common score. Good to use when data is not numerical. This is called nominal data, eg do you like seabass? Yes or no

Question 28

What is range? Why is it used?

Answer 28

The variation between the highest and lowest score. Gives an idea of the spread of scores, ie the dispersion

Question 29

What is standard deviation and why is it used?

Answer 29

A measure which tells you how much the individual scores differ from the mean score . A low value means they are closer to the mean and so tells you that the mean is representative

Question 30

What is identification?

Answer 30

It is the process through which you perceive similarities between yourself and a role model and so you literally pick up on certain characteristics that you have in common. A hard one to define without using the word identify!