The social learning It is the process of acquiring new knowledge indirectly, by observing and imitating other people who already have it integrated. Its existence was proposed by Albert Bandura in the middle of the 20th century; and his experiments on the subject were a revolution in the field of psychology.
Social learning theory affirms that the cognitive processes that occur when internalizing a new knowledge or skill have to be understood based on the context in which they occur. Although many learnings follow a stimulus - response - reinforcement scheme, some of them can occur simply through imitation and observation..
Bandura showed that some learning can occur even in the absence of motor activity. He also discovered the process known as "vicarious reinforcement", by which a person can increase or decrease the frequency with which he performs an action by observing the reinforcements and punishments that are applied to another.
The theory of social learning is considered one of the first bridges between the behavioral and cognitive currents in the field of psychology. This is because it incorporates elements such as reinforcement, motivation and attention, which have never been related to each other before..
Today, social learning theory is of great importance in many areas. Among them, education, sociology, advertising, psychology and politics stand out..
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Albert Bandura's goal in creating his theory of social learning was to understand why it is possible for a person to acquire new knowledge, skills or attitudes in such different contexts and situations. Thus, with his experiments on the subject, he discovered that this type of learning has a series of key characteristics that we will see below.
Prior to Bandura's experiments, the predominant current in the field of knowledge acquisition was the behaviorist one. Its advocates believed that any change in a person's behavior, including learning, was due exclusively to a process of reinforcement and punishment..
However, today we know that learning is a cognitive process, which develops in a social context, and in which factors such as the mental states of the person, their levels of motivation and their attention intervene..
One of Albert Bandura's most interesting discoveries was that learning doesn't always have to happen in the same way. On the contrary, there are different mechanisms that can lead a person to change their way of behaving or thinking, or to acquire a new skill or knowledge..
One of them is the aforementioned of suffering reinforcements or punishments by acting in a certain way. However, social learning theory argues that it is also possible to change simply by observing the behavior of others, which is known as "vicarious learning" or "modeling.".
On the other hand, it is also possible to change some aspect of one's behavior by observing the behaviors that it has when it is carried out by another person. This is what is known as "vicarious reinforcement.".
Learning through conditioning occurs at least partially externally, since it is necessary to engage in a behavior that will then be reinforced or punished. On the contrary, social learning can occur completely internally, without an observable change in the behavior of the person..
Thus, sometimes social learning can occur simply through a mixture of observation, analysis and decision-making, all of them cognitive processes that do not produce visible results..
Formerly it was believed that the acquisition of new knowledge, ways of acting or beliefs occurred in a totally passive way by the apprentice. The only thing that counted for the behaviorists was the presence of external reinforcements or punishments, so the subject had no influence on what he was going to learn.
On the contrary, social learning theory exposes the idea that the person has an active role in their own learning process. The environment, the behavior of the individual and their cognitive processes reinforce and influence each other, in a process known as reciprocal determinism..
After conducting a series of experiments, Albert Bandura was able to develop social learning theory in a way very similar to how it is understood today. The most famous of his studies was that of the "Bobo doll", in which children observed how adults showed aggressive behavior towards a rubber doll.
After this observation, the children could access the room where the doll was, apparently without supervision, although the situation was actually being recorded. It was observed that children who had seen aggressive behavior by adults tended to attack the doll more frequently than those who had not..
This and other similar studies allowed Bandura to develop his theory. According to this, social learning is based on modeling; that is, the imitation of certain behaviors, ideas or attitudes when observing them.
In addition, he described three types of observational learning: live, verbal instructions, and symbolic. Later he also spoke of the vicarious reinforcement, which we have already mentioned previously.
Live observational learning is based on the repetition of a behavior, belief or attitude that has been observed first hand. This is the case of what happened in the Bobo doll experiment. On the contrary, in the other two types of modeling it is not necessary to observe something directly to internalize it..
Thus, in the modeling of verbal instructions, the person is able to change their internal or external behavior simply by listening to the details and descriptions of a way of acting, a belief or an attitude; and in symbolic modeling, the source of new knowledge is the observation of it in a real or fictional character, through sources such as movies, television or books.
On the other hand, Bandura identified four steps that have to be taken so that a person can carry out a social learning process. Only if all four are met will a behavioral or attitudinal change occur, which implies that not all the observed behaviors can be learned effectively at all times..
The four steps outlined in social learning theory are: attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation..
The first thing that has to happen for a person to be able to acquire new knowledge in a social way is that they are paying attention to the behavior they want to internalize. The fuller the attention, the more likely learning will occur.
This has some consequences, such as the more interesting the person being observed is, the easier it will be for them to transmit their knowledge.
However, observing the new behavior is not enough to internalize it. The second key step in vicarious learning is retention; that is, the ability to retain it in memory in such a way that it could be reproduced with enough practice.
If after the first observation the behavior has not been retained, it is usually necessary to return to the attention phase until this objective is achieved.
Once the new behavior or knowledge has been memorized, the next step involves being able to reproduce it. To do this, it will generally be necessary to practice until it is mastered, which is usually achieved through repetition.
However, in the case of more internal learning (such as an attitude or a way of thinking), the reproduction could become automatic, with just one exposure. This is what happens, for example, in the Bobo doll experiment.
The last step described by Bandura has to do with the desire of the person to reproduce the behavior they have just acquired. If there is no minimum motivation, it can be considered that the learning has not been completed because the person will not carry out the new action.
At this point, conditioning comes into play, be it direct or vicarious, by influencing reinforcements and punishments in regulating motivation. However, there are also other internal factors just as important..
Social learning is present in a large number of different situations, both in everyday life and in professional settings. In fact, disciplines as diverse as marketing, team management, psychotherapy and education make use of the tools developed from this theory.
For example, within the field of psychological therapy, social learning can be used to teach a person to behave in a more effective way, observing models who have already achieved the objectives that they want to achieve..
Something similar happens in the case of the couple: even if an individual does not initially have the necessary skills to maintain a satisfactory relationship, they can acquire them simply by observing other people who have already developed them on their own.
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