 Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud): Focuses on the influence of the

unconscious mind on behavior and uses concepts like the id, ego, superego, and
psychosexual stages of development.
 Behaviorism (John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner): Emphasizes the study of observable
behaviors and the role of environmental stimuli in shaping behavior, including
classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
 Cognitive Development Theory (Jean Piaget): Explains how children's thinking
evolves as they grow, identifying four stages of cognitive development
(sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational).
 Humanistic Psychology (Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow): Emphasizes individual
potential, self-actualization, and the importance of personal growth and free will.
This also includes Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Rogers' client-centered therapy.
 Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura): Proposes that people learn behaviors
through observation, imitation, and modeling, rather than solely through direct
reinforcement and uses reciprocal determinism, where behavior, personal factors,
and the environment interact and influence each other

What Is Social Learning Theory?

Social learning theory is the philosophy that people can learn from each
other through observation, imitation, modeling and even emotions. The
concept, proposed by Canadian-American psychologist Albert Bandura in
1977, combines many of the ideas behind the traditional learning theory or
behaviorism and cognitive learning approaches.

SLT is often described as the ‘bridge’ between traditional learning theory

(behaviorism) and the cognitive approach. This is because it focuses on how
mental (cognitive) factors are involved in learning.

Unlike Skinner, Bandura (1977) believes humans are active information

processors and think about the relationship between their behavior and its
consequences.

Albert Bandura’s social learning theory suggests that people learn new
behaviors by observing and imitating others.

The theory emphasizes the importance of observational learning, where

individuals acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs by watching the
 actions of others and the consequences that follow, leading to the modeling
and adoption of observed behaviors

Social learning theory, proposed by Albert Bandura, emphasizes the

importance of observing, modeling, and imitating the behaviors, attitudes,
and emotional reactions of others.

theory?
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By

 Rahul Awati
 Laura Fitzgibbons

Social learning theory is the philosophy that people can learn from each other through
observation, imitation, modeling and even emotions. The concept, proposed by
Canadian-American psychologist Albert Bandura in 1977, combines many of the ideas
behind the traditional learning theory or behaviorism and cognitive learning approaches.
It endeavors to study socialization and how it affects human behavior and ultimately,
enables individuals to acquire knowledge, skills and beliefs through observational
learning.

History of social learning theory

A well-regarded, frequently awarded psychologist, Bandura focused his career on
human behavior. He is most widely known for his 1961 Bobo Doll experiment, a
pioneering study on aggression, in which he had different groups of preschool-age
children watch adults indulge in aggressive and nonaggressive behaviors toward an
inflatable clown-faced toy.

Some children were assigned to the aggressive group, where they were made to watch
the adults violently beating the doll, assaulting it with various objects and even verbally
abusing it. Then, Bandura and his co-researchers gave these children hammers,
mallets, dart guns and other "toys" and asked them to interact with the doll. Some of the
other children were assigned to the nonaggressive group, where they witnessed adults
indulging in positive behaviors toward the doll.

The children in the first group who witnessed the adults' aggressive behavior toward the
doll mimicked these behaviors and acted violently toward it. Similarly, most of the
children in the other group also mimicked the nonaggressive adults' behaviors to display
positive behaviors toward the doll.

Bandura later repeated the experiment, this time exposing the children to adults
behaving violently toward the bobo doll on videotape. He found that many children who
were assigned to the aggressive behavior group in the first experiment continued to
model the adults' behavior even while they were not watching the behaviors in real time
during the second experiment. Ultimately, Bandura concluded that children, and indeed,
all humans, tend to learn social behaviors through interactions with and observations of
other humans -- a conclusion that formed the basis for his social learning theory.

Social learning theory details

Social learning theory is directly tied to social psychology, which deals with the
personality traits and behaviors of members of a civilization or society.

According to Bandura, direct experience with a particular environment, whether through

association, reinforcement, conditioning or punishment, does not fully explain how
humans learn. People are not only influenced by the external environment, but also by
observing other humans' behaviors and actions, analyzing the consequences of those
behaviors and actions, and then internalizing this information to guide their own
behaviors and actions.

Bandura's social learning theory predates his social cognitive theory by a couple
decades. He proposed the latter in his 1986 book Social foundations of thought and
action: A social cognitive theory. It expands on the social aspects of the social learning
theory by accounting for the other factors that affect a person's learning beyond only
one (socialization). It states that a person's learning and behaviors are also influenced
by their environment, cognition and behaviors. In other words, all these factors play a
deterministic role in influencing and enabling learning as opposed to only one factor
playing a dominant role.

What are the 4 stages of social learning theory?

The basis behind social learning theory is that people observe the behavior, attitudes
and consequences of others and then use that information to form their own actions.

The learning process includes four basic stages that are all essential for social learning
success:

1. Attention. For a lesson or experience to have an impact on an observer,

the observer must be actively observing their surroundings. In other words, they
should be paying attention. It helps if the observer identifies well with these
surroundings or feels positively about them, is invested in the observation process
and has strong feelings about the experience they are observing.

2. Retention and memory. For any learned experience to make a lasting impact, the
observer must be able to retain it and remember it later. Once they can recall the
experience, it also helps if they go over the experience, say, by revisiting it
cognitively in their mind. For example, a toddler might learn from an adult not to
throw things, remember it and then "teach" their stuffed animals that throwing things
is not an appropriate response to anger or frustration.

3. Motor reproduction. To carry out the lesson learned, the observer must be able to
physically reenact it. Simple observation might not be enough to build the required
skills if they are unable to physically reproduce the behavior. Examples include
dancing, sports or writing left-handed (for a right-handed person). When a person
effectively pays attention to modeled behavior and repeats or demonstrates it, they
are more likely to be able to build the necessary skills.
4. Motivation. Even if an observer has focused on a lesson, remembered the details
and learned the skills to do it, they still need the motivation to make it happen. The
source of motivation could include external rewards and bribes, observations that
similar behaviors tend to be rewarded, a desire to be like the model who
demonstrated the behavior and even the thought of internal "rewards" like pride or a
sense of accomplishment. Other factors like personal characteristics, past
experiences, promised incentives, positive reinforcement and punishments also
impact the motivation to learn.

Research on children doll: Bandura concluded that children, and indeed, all
humans, tend to learn social behaviors through interactions with and
observations of other humans -- a conclusion that formed the basis for his
social learning theory.

In social learning theory, Albert Bandura (1977) agrees with the

behaviorist learning theories of classical conditioning and operant
conditioning. However, he adds two important ideas:

1. Mediating processes occur between stimuli & resposes.

2. Behavior is learned from the environment through the process

of observational learning.

Mediational Process:

Observational learning could not occur unless cognitive processes

were at work. These mental factors mediate (i.e., intervene) in the
learning process to determine whether a new response is acquired.

Therefore, individuals do not automatically observe the behavior of

a model and imitate it. There is some thought prior to imitation,
and this consideration is called the mediational process.
This occurs between observing the behavior (stimulus) and
imitating it or not (response).

1. Attention

Attentional processes are crucial because mere exposure to a

model doesn’t ensure that observers will pay attention (Bandura,
1972).

The model must capture the observer’s interest, and the observer
must deem the model’s behavior worth imitating. This decides if
the behavior will be modeled.

The individual needs to pay attention to the behavior and its

consequences and form a mental representation of the behavior.

For a behavior to be imitated, it has to grab our attention. We

observe many behaviors on a daily basis, and many of these are not
noteworthy. Attention is, therefore, extremely important in whether
a behavior influences others to imitate it.
2. Retention

Bandura highlighted the retention process in imitation, where

individuals symbolically store a model’s behavior in their minds.

For successful imitation, observers must save these behaviors in

symbolic forms, actively organizing them into easily recalled
templates (Bandura, 1972).

How well the behavior is remembered. The behavior may be

noticed, but it is not always remembered, which obviously prevents
imitation.

It is important, therefore, that a memory of the behavior is formed

to be performed later by the observer.

Much of social learning is not immediate, so this process is

especially vital in those cases. Even if the behavior is reproduced
shortly after seeing it, there needs to be a memory to refer to.

3. Motor Reproduction

This is the ability to perform the behavior that the model has just
demonstrated. We see much behavior daily that we would like to be
able to imitate, but this is not always possible.

Our physical ability limits us, so even if we wish to reproduce the

behavior, we sometimes cannot.

This influences our decisions whether to try and imitate it or not.

Imagine the scenario of a 90-year-old lady who struggles to walk
while watching Dancing on Ice.

She may appreciate that the skill is desirable, but she will not
attempt to imitate it because she physically cannot do it.

Motor reproduction processes use internal symbolic images of

observed behaviors to guide actions (Bandura, 1972). An observer
internally replicates a behavior using these symbols as a reference,
even if it’s not externally shown (Manz & Sims, 1981).
4. Motivation

Lastly, motivational and reinforcement processes refer to the

perceived favorable or unfavorable consequences of mimicking the
model’s actions that are likely to increase or decrease the
likelihood of imitation.

The will to perform the behavior. The observer will consider the
rewards and punishments that follow a behavior.

If the perceived rewards outweigh the perceived costs (if any), the
observer will more likely imitate the behavior.

If the vicarious reinforcement is unimportant to the observer, they

will not imitate the behavior.