Child and Adolescent Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
Development – • Another key contribution of Bandura’s
Bandura’s Social
Learning Theory
Dr Sau Yin LAU
The Open University of Hong Kong
EDU E253F
Spring Term 2020
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Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
• Albert Bandura (1925-) is a
Canadian-American
psychologist and is regarded
as one of the most influential
living psychologists.
• Although Bandura's theory
adopts many elements of
behaviourists’ learning theory (e.g.
operant principles), Bandura regards the
learner as an active agent and is much
concerned with the status of cognition
(e.g. attention and memory). His theory is
also named as social cognitive theory.
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Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
• Bandura and other social cognitive
psychologists (such as Julian B. Rotter)
contend that behaviour is goal-directed
and such directional aspect of behavior is
inferred from the effect of reinforcing
conditions.
• They believe that a person does not
respond passively whenever a stimulus is
given. Instead, the person cognitively
processes the situation and reacts with
the environment so that his/her goals can
be achieved.
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social learning theory is that it highlights
the importance of observational
learning.
• He believes that behaviour is acquired
and modified through observations in
the environment.
Reciprocal Determinism Model
• Bandura believes that human behaviour is
the outcome of the interaction among the
person (with his values and attitudes), the
environment, and the person’s behaviour
itself.
• In the Reciprocal Determinism Model
developed by Bandura, the three
components interact with each other.
Reciprocal Determinism Model
• Bandura contends that since people learn
to predict events and to anticipate
reactions to the events, the importance of
cognition is acknowledged. By processes
of cognition and social regulation,
behaviour may change.
• He believes that the learner actively acts
upon the environment and even creates
the environment to some extent.
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 Reciprocal Determinism Model
• The three components in determining
behaviour:
• Person (Cognition)
• Personal factors include values, attitudes,
goals, expectations, intelligence,
temperament, etc.
• Environment
• Environmental factors include
reinforcement, instruction feedback, etc.
• Behaviour
• Behavioural factors include actions,
choices, etc.
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Reciprocal Determinism Model
Person
(Cognition)
Environment Behaviour
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Suggest an example in each of the
case.
• Person (cognition) influences behaviour
• Environment influences behaviour
• Person (cognition) influences
environment
• Behaviour influences environment
• Environment influences person
(cognition)
• Behaviour influences person (cognition)
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“Children do not do what adults 
tell them to do, but 
rather what they see other 
adults do.”
(Bandura & Walters, 1963, p. 49)
Observational Learning
• Observational learning is not identical to
imitation.
• Imitation usually involves mimicking
another person’s actions and is treated as
a form of instrumental conditioning.
• Bandura argues that many of the
behaviour patterns that children learn are
never taught in the tedious, step-by-step
manner involved in the shaping of
behaviour by reinforcement or
punishment.
• He believes that observational learning is
much more complex.
Observational Learning
• Bandura argues that children observe the
people around them behaving in various
ways. Those being observed by the
children are their models.
• Bandura contends that children can learn
through a cognitive process by observing
the models’ behaviour and then repeating
the behaviour, no matter their models
intend the children to do that.
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 Observational Learning
• Bandura suggests four mediational
processes in observational learning:
• Attentional Process
• The observer attends to and recognize the
distinctive features of the model’s
behaviour.
• Retention Process
• The observer encode the model’s
behaviour (change the observational inputs
in symbolic form) and then store the
information in short-term and long-term
memory.
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Observational Learning
• Bandura suggests four mediational
processes in observational learning:
• Motor Reproduction Process
• The observer uses the symbolic
representations of modeled patterns to
guide their overt performances.
• Motivation and reinforcement process
• When positive incentives are introduced,
observational learning is promptly
translated into action. Otherwise, the
learning of the behavior is just acquired but
not really performed.
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Vicarious Reinforcement
• Bandura suggests reinforcement can be
direct or vicarious (indirect).
• Direct Reinforcement
• It occurs when a person performs a certain
behaviour and then is reinforced.
• Vicarious Reinforcement
• It occurs when a person observes someone
else performs a certain behaviour and then
the performer is reinforced.
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Vicarious Reinforcement
• Bandura defined vicarious reinforcement
as a change in the behavior of observers
as a function of witnessing the
consequences accompanying the
performances of others.
• By means of vicarious reinforcement,
observation of others receiving a
favourable outcome of a certain behaviour
will enhance similar performance of the
observer, and observation of others
receiving an aversive outcome of a certain
behaviour will reduce the likelihood of
similar performance of the observer.
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Vicarious Reinforcement
• Bandura argues that human beings have
practiced and benefited from
observational learning and vicarious
reinforcement. If human behavior
depended solely on personally
experienced consequences, most people
could not survive the hazards of early
development.
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The Bobo Doll Experiment
• Bandura and two other researchers
conducted an experiment to investigate if
aggression (as a form of social behaviour)
can be acquired by observational learning.
• A toy called Bobo doll was used to be the
target of aggressive behaviour in the
experiment.
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 The Bobo Doll Experiment
• In the experiment, children were assigned
to one of the following three conditions:
• Aggressive model: The child watched a
model behaving aggressively towards the
doll.
• Non-aggressive model: The child watched
a model playing quietly and ignoring the
doll.
• No model: The child was not shown any
model at all.
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The Bobo Doll Experiment
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The Bobo Doll Experiment
• Research results showed that behaviour
of children who had exposed to
aggressive model was found to be far
more aggressive than those who had no
such observation experience.
• After observing an aggressive model, 88%
of the children performed aggressive
behaviour toward the doll; Eight months
later, 40% of that group of children
reproduced the aggressive behaviour.
• It was concluded that children learn to do
aggression when they see aggression.
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The Bobo Doll Experiment
• For the non-aggressive model group,
children exhibited less aggressive
behaviour than those in the control group.
• The experiment also investigated gender
differences in observational learning of
aggression. Research results showed that
boys displayed much more aggressive
behaviour than the girls. Moreover, boys
who observed adult males behaving
aggressively were more influenced than
those who had observed female models
behaving aggressively.
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The Bobo Doll Experiment
• Bandura and his colleagues conducted
another Bobo doll experiment 2 years
later to investigate how observed
consequences would affect children’s
observational learning of aggression.
• The children watched a video showing an
adult acting aggressively towards a Bobo
doll. The children were assigned to watch
three different endings to the video:
• The model was praised
• The model was warned
• No reward nor warning was involved
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The Bobo Doll Experiment
• Results showed that children displayed
less aggressive behaviour towards the
doll when they had watched the video that
ended with the model being warned as
compared to the other conditions.
• The results implied that the children’s
behaviour was affected by vicarious
consequences.
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 What are the implications to
education?

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