Bandura's Social Learning Theory

One of the most influential theories of learning is the Social Learning Theory formulated by Albert Bandura. Covers various concepts from BF Skinner's traditional learning theory and operant conditioning.

Contents

• The Theory of Social Learning, basic concepts
• Learning through observation
• Mediation processes
  • There are four mediation processes proposed by Bandura:
• Final evaluations

The Theory of Social Learning, basic concepts

The theory is based on the fact that there are types of learning where direct reinforcement is not the main teaching mechanism, but the social element can lead to the development of new learning between individuals. Social learning theory is useful in explaining how people can learn new things and develop new behaviors by observing other individuals. Thus, this theory deals with the observational learning process between people.

Albert Bandura's theory of social learning developed in 1977 is based on behavioral learning theories about classical conditioning and operant conditioning. However, add two important ideas:

1. Mediation processes occur between stimuli and responses.
2. Behavior is learned from the environment through the observational learning process.

Learning through observation

Children observe the people around them to see and imitate how they behave. The observed individuals are called models. In society, children are surrounded by many influential role models, such as parents and other family members, television (or YouTube) characters, friends, school teachers, etc..

Children pay attention to all these people or models and code their behavior. Later, they can imitate (that is, copy) the behavior they have observed. But they can do this regardless of whether the behavior is "appropriate" or not, although there are a number of processes that make it more likely that a child will reproduce the behavior that his or her society deems appropriate..

In the first place, the child is more likely to imitate those people whom he perceives as most similar. Consequently, they are more likely to imitate same-sex modeled behavior..

Subsequently, the people around the child will respond to the behavior he mimics, either with reinforcement or punishment. If a child imitates a role model's behavior and the consequences are rewarding, the child is likely to continue the behavior. For example, if a parent sees their daughter comforting her teddy bear and says, "You are a very nice girl," this will be gratifying for her and make her more likely to repeat the behavior. Your behavior will have been reinforced.

The strengthening of a behavior can be external or internal and can be positive or negative. If a child seeks approval from his parents or peers, this approval will be an external reinforcement, feeling happy to have been approved is an internal reinforcement. A child will behave in a way that he thinks will gain more approval, as he innately desires it.

Generally, positive (or negative) reinforcement will have little impact if the externally offered reinforcement does not match the individual's needs. Reinforcement can be positive or negative, but the important thing is that it leads to a change in a person's behavior.

On the other hand, the child will also take into account what happens to another person before deciding whether or not to copy their actions. A person learns by observing the consequences of the behavior of another, for example a younger brother may observe a type of behavior of his older brother that is rewarded, so he will be more likely to repeat that particular behavior. This is known as vicarious reinforcement..

Identification occurs again through a model, and consists of copying or adopting behaviors, values, beliefs and attitudes observed in the person with whom one is identifying.

Identification is different from imitation in that it involves a whole series of attitudes and behaviors, while imitation usually involves the copying of a single behavior..

Mediation processes

Bandura believed that human beings are active processors of information, who value the relationship between their behavior and its consequences. Therefore, observational learning cannot occur unless cognitive processes are involved. These mental factors mediate the learning process to determine whether or not a new response is acquired..

Thus, people do not automatically observe the behavior of a model and imitate it. There is a thought process before imitation and it is called the mediation process. This occurs between the observation of the behavior (stimulus) and the imitation or not of it (response).

There are four mediation processes proposed by Bandura:

1. Attention: It is the extent to which we observe the behavior of others. In order for us to imitate a behavior, it must first get our attention. We observe many behaviors throughout the day, but many of them do not interest us. Therefore, attention is extremely important so that behavior has a sufficient influence on us that we want to imitate it..

2. Retention: Retention of the newly learned behavior is necessary for it to be maintained. Without retention, behavioral learning would not be established, and the new model may have to be re-observed, as we were not able to store the information about the behavior..

3. Reproduction: This is the ability to perform the behavior that the model has just shown. On a daily basis we would like to be able to imitate certain behaviors, but this is not always possible. We are limited by our physical and even mental capacity, and for those reasons or any other, even wanting to reproduce a behavior, sometimes we cannot. This influences our decisions to try to imitate or not. In this phase, the practice of the behavior repeatedly is important for the improvement of our capacities.

4. Motivation: It is about the will to carry out a behavior. The rewards and punishments that follow a behavior will be evaluated by the observer before imitating it. If the perceived rewards exceed the perceived costs (if any), then the behavior is more likely to be imitated by the observer. Conversely, if vicarious reinforcement is not important enough to the observer, then it will not mimic the behavior..

Final evaluations

The social learning approach takes into account thought processes and recognizes the role they play in deciding whether or not to imitate certain behavior. However, although this theory can explain some quite complex behaviors, it cannot adequately explain how we develop a whole range of behaviors including thoughts and feelings. We have a great deal of cognitive control over our behavior, and just because we've had negative experiences doesn't mean we have to reproduce that behavior..

It is for this reason that Bandura modified his theory in 1986 and called his Social Learning Theory, Social Cognitive Theory (TSC), as a better description of the way we learn from our social experiences..

Some of the criticisms of Social Learning Theory are due to the fact that it limits itself to describing behavior solely in terms of nature or experiences, and it underestimates the complexity of human behavior. It is more likely that a person's behavior is due to an interaction between nature (biology) and experience (environment).

Bandura's Social Learning Theory is not a complete explanation of all behaviors. For example, the discovery of mirror neurons has emphasized the importance of the biological component in learning, something that this theory does not raise. Although research is still in its infancy, the recent discovery of this type of neuron and its study in primates may provide an interesting neurological basis for understanding imitation. Basically these are neurons that are activated whether the animal does something by itself or if it observes a behavior in another.