SOCIAL LEARNING/SOCIAL

COGNITIVE THEORY

WEEK 8 (LECTURE 7)
DEVELOPMENTAL & INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES
DR ANDREW DENOVAN
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

BY THE END OF TODAY, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO:

• DISCUSS HOW SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
DIFFERS FROM TRADITIONAL LEARNING THEORY
• EXPLAIN BANDURA’S SOCIAL LEARNING
APPROACH (SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY)
• UNDERSTAND SELF-EFFICACY
OUR QUESTION FROM LAST WEEK
WAS:
DO YOU BEHAVE AS YOU DO BECAUSE OF YOUR INNER
PERSONALITY OR IS IT SIMPLY THAT YOU HAVE LEARNT TO
RESPOND TO SITUATIONS IN A CERTAIN WAY?
 NATURE VS NURTURE: SOCIAL
LEARNING THEORY
• Psychoanalysts would have us believe that internal forces
determine who we are and how we behave
• The learning theorists we encountered last week think of
human beings as being at the mercy of external forces
• Social learning theories challenge these views
HOW DOES SLT DIFFER FROM
BEHAVIOURISM?
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL LEARNING
THEORY
• PRINCIPLE 1: RESPONSE CONSEQUENCES INFLUENCE
REPETITION (OR OTHERWISE) OF BEHAVIOUR
• PRINCIPLE 2: VICARIOUS LEARNING
• PRINCIPLE 3: MODELLING OF BEHAVIOUR

• MANY SOCIAL LEARNING THEORISTS AGREE ON THESE

PRINCIPLES, E.G. BANDURA, ROTTER
ALBERT BANDURA (1925 - )
 SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY

• Why do we behave as we do?

 As a critic of S-R behaviourism Bandura highlights human

agency and environmental influences

 Bandura regards behaviour as driven by reciprocal

determinism:
 i.e. person/behaviour/environment
 INTERACTING FACTORS IN
RECIPROCAL DETERMINISM
 PERSONAL FACTORS
• Include:
 Cognitions
 Traits
 Emotions
 Biological variables

• Personal factors contribute to

individuals’ inner states

• Personal factors impact individuals

behaviours and environment
 BEHAVIOURAL FACTORS

• Bandura also suggests that behavioural factors can impact

cognitions, feelings, and emotions

• E.g. learning to play badminton:

 An initial positive experience can
influence how we feel and think
about repeating the behaviour
 Positive experience > feelings of
confidence and ability > more
likely to repeat behaviour in future
 ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

• Bandura suggests that environmental factors can impact both

personal and behavioural factors

 E.g. Ozone layer and use of sunscreen

 EXAMPLES OF RECIPROCAL
DETERMINISM

IN SUM: Personal Factors, Behavioural Factors, and

Environmental Factors make up the interactive factors in
reciprocal causation.

Bandura’s reciprocal causation model can cope with greater

complexity than the models we examined last week.
WHO IS YOUR ROLE MODEL AND
WHY?
 PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
ACCORDING TO SOCIAL COGNITIVE
THEORY
• A LEARNING PROCESS FROM CHILDHOOD
 CHILDREN LEARN FROM ROLE MODELS HOW TO BEHAVE
 MAINLY THROUGH OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING
 A DYNAMIC, COMPLEX PROCESS – CHILDREN ARE EXPOSED
TO DIFFERENT LEARNING EXPERIENCES, ENVIRONMENTS,
AND CULTURES
 CHILD AT THE CENTRE OF LEARNING EXPERIENCES AND
ACTIVELY SHAPES THESE
 OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING:
BOBO DOLL STUDY (BANDURA & ROSS, 1961)
VIDEO: BOBO DOLL STUDY
(BANDURA & ROSS, 1961)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Pr0OTCVtHbU
 Observational
learning doesn’t
always work.
Bandura found these
factors all affected the
‘imitability’ of models

SIMILARITY OF MODEL AND MODELLER SIMPLICITY

OF MODELLED BEHAVIOUR
SELF-ESTEEM OF MODELLER CONFIDENCE
OF MODELLER
PERCEIVED REWARDS AFTER MODELLING
 AGENCY AND SELF-REGULATION
• Emphasis on observational
learning gives the theory the
‘social’ aspect
• Unlike Skinner, Bandura
believes we have free will
• According to this view we are
not at the mercy of drives and Goal
reinforcement schedules in our achievem
learning environment ent
• Goals are a crucial part of
learning and personality
development
• Goal achievement depends on
self-regulatory processes
 SELF-EFFICACY
• Our estimates of our own capacities have a profound effect on our actual
agency

• We internalise social models as examples of personal agency and use these

social models with our own past experiences to estimate how well we can
perform and what we think is possible in any given set of circumstances

 Self-efficacy can be defined as an individual’s beliefs in their abilities to

obtain desired results from their own conduct (Bandura,1997)

 “Efficacy beliefs are the foundation of human agency” (Bandura, 2001, p.10)

 “Efficacy beliefs play a key role in shaping the course lives take by
influencing the types of activities and environments people choose to get into”
(Ibid)
SELF-EFFICACY (2)
 EVALUATING SOCIAL COGNITIVE
THEORY
• STRENGTHS:
 ACCOUNTS FOR COGNITIVE PROCESSES
 USES THE EXPERIMENTAL METHOD
• WEAKNESSES:
 DOES NOT ADEQUATELY ACCOUNT FOR BIOLOGICAL
FACTORS
 DIFFICULTY ACCOUNTING FOR ALL BEHAVIOUR
 FURTHER READING

• READ CHAPTER 4 IN:

 MALTBY, J., DAY, L., & MACASKILL, A. (2017) PERSONALITY,
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES, & INTELLIGENCE. 4TH ED., HARLOW, UK:
PEARSON

• ALSO:
 BANDURA, A. (2001) ‘SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY: AN AGENTIC
PERSPECTIVE.’ ANNUAL REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY, 52, 1-26.
(AVAILABLE ON MOODLE)