What is social learning theory ? (SLT) Flashcards
(31 cards)
What is social learning theory?
individuals learn by observing and imitating the behaviours of others
And observing the consequences of those behaviours
What do Social learning theorists like Albert Bandura say ?
Understanding human behaviour requires recognising learning as a cognitive process.
This happens in a social context.
What is observing others do ?
It is a template for our actions.
Can be learnt through,
Vicarious reinforcement
Vicarious punishment
What is Vicarious reinforcement ?
If we see someone being rewarded for their behaviour we are more likely to mimic it.
What is Vicarious punishment ?
If we see someone being punished for their behaviour we are less likely to mimic it.
What is modelling?
Individuals we observe and mimic are referred to as models.
What types of models do we have?
Live Models
Symbolic models
What are live models ?
Parents, family, friends.
People in our day-day life.
What are Symbolic models?
Characters from movies or books
Not actually real and don’t see them on a daily.
What is identification ?
Some models are more likely to be imitated than others.
More likely to imitate models that have similar characteristics to us.
Gender - Age - Status - Ethnicity
What are mediational factors?
Human behaviour cannot be fully understood without the role of cognitive processes that happen between stimuli and responses.
What are the mediational processes ?
Attention
Retention
Reproduction
Motivation
These must happen between observing the model perform a behaviour (stimuli) and imitating the behaviour (response).
Explain Attention
To learn from the model you must pay attention to the model by focusing on specific behaviours.
Explain Retention
The ability to remember the observed behaviours.
Encoding the observed behaviour into memory to be retrieved later.
Explain Reproduction
Belief in their ability to replicate the behaviour.
Physical capabilities
Remembering details of that behaviour.
Explain motivation
Willingness to perform the behaviour
Influenced by outcomes like rewards/punishments.
This is based on observing the consequences.
What do mediational processes explain ?
Why individuals don’t automatically mimic every behaviour they observe.
If one of these processes are missing the behaviour wont be imitated.
What is a difference between Behaviourists and Social learning theorists ?
Behaviourists see learning and performance to be the same.
Social learning distinguishes between the two.
How do behaviourists explain learning and performance?
Say an immediate response to stimulus indicates learning.
(Equate learning and performance).
How do social learning theorists explain learning and performance ?
Immediate responses to stimulus are internalised so they are stored in the memory and used when needed.
Can be a while after the observation.
(Separation between learning and performance).
What was Bandura’s research
Bobo doll study
Purpose - To test the concepts of modelling and imitation.
Experiment - Wanted to see if children would copy aggressive behaviour demonstrated by an adult toward the toy.
What was the procedure ?
Participants = Age 3 -6
Divided into 2 groups
Group 1 = Observed adult demonstrating physical/verbal aggression towards the doll in a room full of toys.
Group 2 = Observed adult demonstrating non-aggressive behaviour with other toys.
An experimenter observed and recorded the children’s physical/verbal aggression from behind a one-way mirror.
What were the findings?
Children exposed to aggressive model were more aggressive themselves.
Back up idea of Identification - Boys were more likely to mimic aggression if they had observed a male-model over a female model.
Why are different variations done in studies ?
To test other hypotheses/theories
