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BANDURA’S SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Albert Bandura - Canadian-born American psychologist best known for his Social
Learning Theory and his Bobo doll experiments. His experiments
aimed to investigate if social behaviors can be acquired by
observation and imitation.

Main Idea of Social Learning Theory

 Observational learning is the first step in the social learning process.
 People can learn something new by observing the behavior of other people and
applying rational mental behavior

Results of the observational learning experiment (Bobo doll experiment)

 kids mimicked the behavior of the adults they observed
 children were more likely to learn the behavior where they saw the adults were
rewarded for aggressive or non-aggressive actions than those that were
punished for their aggression

People desire approval in life, and therefore they function in ways to receive
approval. During the experiment, it was noted that the children preferred repeating
actions of the models who gained approval by being rewarded. They are also more
likely to continue the behavior that results in positive consequences than negative
consequences.

When kids imitate a model, it may be one type of behavior they reproduce. Kids may
also identify with multiple models in their environment. Models could be parents,
teachers, siblings, friends, peers, cartoon characters, or celebrities. They identify
with these people because they have talents, abilities, or qualities the child wants to
possess. When they identified with a model, they were more motivated to adopt
various behaviors of that model than just mimicking one behavior.

Bandura’s theory was based on three main ideas.

 People learned through observing role models. He identified the three types of
models in his experiment: a live model physically demonstrating an action, a
live model using language to display a behavior verbally, and a symbolic model
showing behaviors in online media, movies, television programs, and books.
 Internal psychology influences the learning process. Intrinsic reinforcements
satisfy the psychological needs like a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, a
form of success, or pride.
 Learning a behavior doesn’t automatically mean the person will execute it.
Changing or applying a new behavior must be of value to the person to want to
apply what they’ve learned.
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Four Steps in Social Learning Theory

1. Attention
The behavior of the model must grab the learner’s attention for them to notice the
behavior and to implement observational learning. People are exposed to lots of
behaviors in their immediate environment daily, and they don’t learn everything that
is happening around them.

2: Retention
Retention is how well the behavior is remembered. If there is no memory of the
behavior observed, there is nothing to be retained for reproducing the behavior.
Retention is an internal memory event that is essential for learning a new behavior.

Imitation of the behavior immediately after being seen is not enough to establish a
behavior. People may soon forget it as needless information, and there won’t be any
memory to refer to in the future. No change will occur if they don’t remember how to
imitate the action.

3: Reproduction
Reproduction is the ability to execute the model’s behavior. You may want to
reproduce the behaviors of a person you admire. Still, if you don’t have the ability,
you won’t be able to irrespective of how often you observe the model’s behavior, how
much reinforcement occurs, and how well you retain it as a memory.

If you don’t have the ability, it doesn’t matter how many times you try to enact what
you observed, e.g., a Kindergarten student may reproduce their teacher’s friendly
attitude. Still, they don’t have the ability or skill to jump as high as an Olympian
athlete

4. Motivation.
Even though a person may have the ability to reproduce the behavior, they must have
the desire or will to do it. People are more motivated to mimic the behavior if the
behavior is rewarded with something that has more value than the effort to reproduce
the behavior. If the behavior is followed by punishment, people are less likely to
imitate the behavior.

During the Bobo Dolls experiment, the kids were more inclined to repeat the
aggressive modeling when the adults were rewarded for their behavior than when
punished. Receiving a reward may motivate them to copy what they had observed,
but punishment had the opposite effect.
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Bandura’s research also showed kids were motivated to imitate the physical and
verbal actions of others. They also saw that kids were more inclined to imitate people
similar to them as the same gender.

The retention and reproduction steps of Albert Bandura’s social learning theory
resembles cognitive concepts. Paying attention to the model’s behavior is typical of a
behavioral learning theory social role, the first step of observing before they imitate.

Two Types of Social Learning

Behaviorist Model
Behaviorism is the traditional theory social learning models use to explain the way
people learn. It was assumed behavior is learned when a person observes the behavior
of someone, the model, and then replicate it. The theory is based on external
stimulus-response to the environment but does not consider internal human behavior.

Bandura’s social theory of learning overlapped, including some of the behaviorist

learning theories, he also included principles from the cognitive understanding of the
learning processes.

Cognitive Theory
Thought, understanding, and perception are cognitive functions that influence the
intrinsic reinforcement of learning. The cognitive theory attempts to understand the
relationship between mental activities and physical actions of behavior. Theorists
believed that existing knowledge in memory might guide and help students to make
new knowledge meaningful.

The model includes a mediational process where a mental event occurs based on the
input received. The result is a behavior seen outwardly. Responding to the stimulus
requires a step of thinking occurring related to what was observed. Motivation to
respond is decided internally, whether it is worthwhile to practice the new behavior
or not.

Social Learning Theory Applied in the Classroom

Teachers may present themselves as good role models teaching kids with good
behavioristic characteristics through their reactions to class incidents. If a teacher is
neat and tidy, doesn’t get angry, and is always friendly, the children may follow the
teacher’s lead and imitate the behavior.

Working in groups may cause new behaviors. A student who tends to procrastinate
may observe another hardworking student. They may conclude that the student has
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better test results and receives approval and rewards they desire. It may motivate the
child to imitate that student.