Social Learning Theory of Albert Bandura
If you've taken an introductory course in economics, you're already familiar with the policy planner's dilemma of deciding whether to allocate limited resources for guns or for butter. The problem is usually posed to illustrate the impersonal market forces of supply and demand, profit and loss. Yet planners are people, and most individuals come to the war-or-peace decision points of life having already developed preferred responses. Northwestern psychologist Donald Campbell calls these tendencies "acquired behavioral dispositions," and he suggests six ways that we learn to choose one option over another.
1. Trial-and-error experience is a hands-on exploration that might lead to tasting the butter and squeezing the trigger, or perhaps the other way around.
2. Perception of the object is a firsthand chance to look, admire, but don't touch a pistol and a pound of butter at close range.
3. Observation of another's response to the object is hearing a contented sigh when someone points the gun or spreads the butter on toast. It is also seeing critical frowns on faces of people who bypass the items in a store.
4. Modeling is watching someone fire the gun or melt the butter to put it on popcorn.
5. Exhortation is the National Rifle Association's plea to protect the right to bear arms or Willard Scott's commercial message urging us to use real butter.
6. Instruction about the object is a verbal description of the gun's effective range or of the number of calories in a pat of butter.
Campbell claims that direct trial-and-error experience creates a deep and long-lasting acquired behavioral disposition, while perception has somewhat less effect, observation of response even less, and modeling less still. Exhortation is one of the most used but least effective means to influence attitudes or actions.
Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura agrees that conversation is not an effective way of altering human behavior, but he thinks that classical learning theory's preoccupation with trial-and-error learning is shortsighted. "Coping with the demands of everyday life would be exceedingly trying if one could arrive at solutions to problems only by actually performing possible options and suffering the consequences."1 His social learning theory concentrates on the power of example.
THE SPREAD OF TV VIOLENCE THROUGH MODELING
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... Study of the Development of Aggression, Pergamon, New York, 1977.
Pornography: James Check and Neil Malamuth, "Pornography and Sexual Aggression: A Social Learning Theory Analysis," in Communication Yearbook 9, Margaret McLaughlin (ed.), Sage, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1986, pp. 181-213.
1. Albert Bandura, Social Learning Theory, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1977, p. 27
2. Ibid., p. 39
3. Robert Liebert and Joyce Sprafkin, "The Surgeon General's Report," The Early Window: Effects of Television on Children and Youth, 3d ed., Pergamon, New York, 1988, pp. 79-107.
4.Bandura, p. 59.
5 Ibid., p. 27
6. Ibid., p. 166
7. "Batmania," Newsweek, June 26, 1989, p. 71.
8. Dolf Zillmann, J.L. Hoyt, and K.D. Day, "Strength and Duration of the Effect of Aggressive, Violent, and Erotic Communications on Subsequent Aggressive Behavior," Communication Research, Vol. 1, 1974, pp. 286-306.
9. Liebert and Sprafkin, pp. 75-77.
10. M. Lefkowitz, L. Eron, L. Walder, and L. Huesmann, Growing Up to Be Violent: A longitudinal Study of the Development of Aggression, Pergamon, New York, 1977.
11. See Robert B. Cialdini, Influence, 2d ed., Scott, Foresman, Glenview, Ill., 1988, pp. 135-143.
One example of the “Social Learning Theory” is the Bobo doll experiment conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961. In this experiment children were either exposed to an adult exhibiting aggressive behavior or non-aggressive behavior towards the doll. When it came time for the children to interact with the doll, the children who were exposed to aggressive behavior were more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior (Nolen, n.d.).
In 1977, Psychologist Albert Bandura adopted the Social Learning Theory making it an influential and important theory. Bandura believed that direct reinforcement could not account for all types of learning capabilities. Bandura argued that individuals could learn new information and behavior by watching other individuals and the type of leanings can be explained by a wide variety of behaviors. This theory acknowledges that just because something has been learned, it does not mean that it will result in a change in behavior. However, the influence from others can cause a change in
Hepburn, Mary A. "TV Violence! A Medium’s Effects Under Scrutiny." Social Education. Sept 1997: pp244-249. SIRS Researcher. Available <http://researcher.sirs.com/>
Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S.A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 575-582.
Ward, T., Polaschek, D. L. L. & Busch, A. R. (2006). Theories of sexual offending. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Farrington, D. (2007), ‘Origins of Violent Behavior over the Life Span’, in D. Flannery, A.
Annie, a fifth-grade student in Mr. Keller's class, is being quiet and sullen for the fifth day in a row. "I just can't do this writing stuff," she finally says in an appeal to Mr. Keller. "I'm not a good student. Give me P.E. or art over this stuff any day!" If we apply Albert Bandura's social cognitive theory in her comment "I just can't do this writing stuff" how does Bandura's theory help us to understand Annie? According, the Social Cognitive Theory of Albert Bandura which combines both behavioral and cognitive philosophies to form his theory of modeling, or observational learning states that human personality is an interaction between the environment and a person's psychological processes. With this interaction humans are able to control their behavior through a process known as self-regulation (Woolfolk, 2013, p. 400). He also assures that some factors like environment and personal experiences can encourage behaviors such as Annie, why? Because, in her case, it seems that Annie’s school achievement and personal interest in writing are not interacting; in addition, Annie may lack of motivation and reinforcement in her life that can be the cause of her frustration in writing. Consequently, she prefers school subjects like PE or art that she thinks, she will be successful. Woolfolk (2013) says that humans “may acquire a new skill or behavior through observation, but we may not perform that behavior until there is some motivation or incentive to do so” (p. 402). Therefore, the lack of motivation, feedback, modeling, and effort can be a few reasons why Annie seems to discourage about her writing skills.
Vaillancourt, T., & Hymel, S. (2006). Aggression and social status: The moderating roles of sex and peer-valued characteristics. Aggressive Behavior, 32, 396–408. doi:10.1002/ab.20138.
Many theories have been thought of over the years to attempt to explain why people behave the way they do. Many questions were brought up when thinking about that and the social learning theory is a popular theory in explaining this. Nobody really thought of the social learning theory too much until Albert Bandura wrote his idea of it. He actually wrote a book called “Social Learning Theory.” In this book, he states that behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning(Saul McLeod).
Influence on Children Media - History of Media for Children, General Considerations, Studies of Media Influence, Domains of Influence, Recommendations http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2212/Media-Influence-on-Children.html#ixzz1PoYlQRnG
The frequency of pornography can also influence in the reaction of a sexual offender. There is a difference between the effects of pornography on a sexual offender that is high risk, and an offender that that is low risk. An offender that is high risk is more susceptible to engage in violent sexual acts after being exposed to pornography due to their hostile personality. Also a high risk sexual offender is more prone to recidivism after watching pornographic material. Another factor that contributes to person’s sexual behavior is the influence by their overall emotional state, if they were rejected or most of the time they felt anger. Many individuals may had lived in a disrupted family where there was no support and it was mostly a conflictive environment. It is demonstrated that men with higher attraction to sexual aggression were more likely to get aroused when exposed to sexually violent. Offenders that are exposed to erotica, report that their aggression decreased, while offenders exposed to nonviolent sexual behavior and violent sexual behavior significantly increase aggression. When high risk offenders are exposed to deviant forms of pornography where the male is in power, this helps them shape their fantasies and
Fagan, Patrick F. “Adolescent.” The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community. North Carolina Magazine.2010.
Sherry, John L. "The Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression A Meta Analysis." Human Communication Research (2001): 409-431.
The purpose of Chapter two is to review literature related to the major variables within the study. Two literature reviews were conducted. The first literature review examined the retention rates and low standardized test scores on Students taking Middle School Math. This follows the purpose of the conceptual framework, the Keller’s ARCS model(1987). Here, there will be literature related to inform the study that is related to the research design, intervention design, and measurement instruments. Lastly there will be a section on the Conceptual Framework.
... the self-efficacy and self-esteem of certain individuals, leading to more satisfying and fulfilling life that is built on better personality traits, I feel that Social Learning Theory can be applied to many situations.