Topic Summaries

The learning approach – social learning theory

A-Level > Psychology > AQA > A-Level Psychology Topic Summaries > Approaches in psychology > The learning approach – social learning theory
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Addiction

  • 👥 Albert Bandura (1977) proposed the social learning theory as a development of the behaviourist approach.He generally agreed with the key principles of the behaviourist approach (that all behaviour is learned through experience) but he argued that conditioning could not explain all human learning. He claimed that there were important cognitive or mental processes that mediate between the stimulus and response and added that whilst people do learn directly through conditioning they also learn indirectly by observing and imitating others.
  • Vicarious reinforcement: people learn indirectly through vicarious reinforcement. This is when people can learn behaviour through observation and imitation of others as they see the consequences of this behaviour.
  • The meditational processes:
    • Attention: you have to pay attention to the model’s behaviour to learn it through observing
    • Retention: you have to remember the behaviour
    • Reproduction: you need to be physically able to reproduce the modelled behaviour
    • Motivation: this is the final step where an individual decides to replicate the behaviour they have observed in order to get a reward or punishment.
  • We usually choose to replicate behaviour from someone we look up to, such as a role model. Role models are someone we identify with, relate to, and want to be like. Identification is when we relate to someone, and recognise a similarity or something better in them, so we learn from their behaviour and emulate it.
  • 👥 Bandura’s (1961) Bobo doll experiment:
    • Bandura recorded the behaviour of young children who had watched an adult behave in an aggressive manner towards a Bobo doll. The adults were filmed punching, hitting, kicking the Bobo doll. Then, the child had to watch the video of the adult hurting the doll. Later, Bandura placed the children individually into a room with a Bobo doll. Those who had seen the punching video acted more aggressively towards the doll than those who hadn’t seen the video.
    • He repeated his experiment with three conditions: in one condition, the adult was seen being rewarded for their aggressive behaviour, in another the adult was seen being punished for their behaviour, and in the final condition the adult was seen being aggressive with no consequence.He discovered that the children in the first condition acted the most aggressively towards the doll afterwards, then the third group, and finally the second group acted the least aggressively.
      • Less deterministic than the learning approach: the learning approach argues that all behaviour is learnt through a type of conditioning that is forced onto us. However, Bandura argues the case of reciprocal determinism where we are influenced by our environment, but we also have an impact on others in our environment too. He also argues that although we are heavily influenced by our environment as a child, when we grow older we are able to choose how to behave more freely.
      • Low external validity: doesn’t mention any biological factors that could have affected his experiment. For instance, in the experiment, boys were seen to be significantly more aggressive than girls. This can be explained by differences in hormone levels as boys have a naturally higher level of testosterone than girls, which has been associated with aggressive behaviour. Bandura doesn’t mention this factor at all which makes it a possible extraneous variable.
      • Demand characteristics: despite his research being highly controlled, this research has been criticised for promoting his participants to respond in the way he wanted to, meaning the children may have only responded in this way as they wanted to please Bandura or do what the experiment expected of them.

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