Social learning: Albert Bandura's interesting theory

Social learning: Albert Bandura's interesting theory
Fritz Perl's history: an interesting figure in psychology
Why it's difficult to escape from abusive relationships
What factors are behind eating disorders?



How do we get knowledge about people? Understanding the mechanisms and complex subtleties that are based on behaviors and skills has always been a goal in psychology. It was Albert Bandura who introduced the theory of social learning, a theory of interaction between the teacher's thoughts and surroundings.

Most of us have no idea how children learn things. Some still see communication and acquisition of knowledge from a classical behavioral perspective, based on imitation, condition, plus positive or negative encouragement.
"Learning is bi-directional: we learn from our environment and our surroundings learn and change thanks to our actions."

-Albert Bandura-

But nothing is as intricate, complex and fascinating as the thoughts of a learning person, a child's brain, or an adult's ability to bring a behavior or acquire a certain knowledge. None of us is an empty box that can be filled with external pressures and limitations. People observe, imitate and develop in a certain social environment, and in turn have some mental states that favor or inhibit learning.

Albert Bandura, a Canadian psychologist and professor at Stanford University, addressed these questions and formulated what we now call the theory of social learning. It is a model based on behavioral and cognitive aspects.
Does the theory of social learning tell us?
Bandura's social learning theory is also known as observational learning or model learning. To explain the context, it should be said that it dates back to the 1960s, when behaviorism had a great influence and learning was seen as a simple rewarding and receiving of information from teacher to teacher. One sent and the other received. In other words, the teacher was the active center and the teacher the passive center.

Albert Bandura, on the other hand, expanded the reductionist behaviorism to include the social area. Another who did this was Lev Vygotski with his sociocultural theory. Bandura pointed out that children learn some things quickly without having to try out. If this is the case, there is an important explanation and that is observation and social environment.

Bobo doll
The experiment with the bobo doll is one of the most well-known in psychology. Between 1961 and 1963 Bandura and his team tried to demonstrate the importance of observational learning in children. They wanted to show that imitation of an example - an adult - plays a greater role in children's learning than the encouragement given or removed.
The experiment included children between the ages of 3 and 6 years from the pre-school at Stanford University. The scene was shocking. In a room filled with toys, a group of children had to witness how an adult person hit a big doll with a club. In another experimental group, the adult person represented a non-aggressive model. And in a third group, in addition to physical aggression, word words were used in addition to the doll.
The results were very clear. Most of the children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act physically aggressively than those who had not been exposed to that model.
Bandura demonstrated that there are three basic forms of observation:

Through a living model, such as a real person who shows a behavior.
Through verbal instructions: specification and description of behavior.
Symbolic method: fictional characters from a book or a movie. A real person whose behavior is conveyed through the media is also counted.
Processes that affect social learning
The social learning theory has often been described as a "bridge" between traditional learning theory (eg behaviorism) and the cognitive method. Bandura, unlike Skinner, always considered mental (cognitive) factors as significant in learning. In fact, the term "educator" according to him meant to actively process information and evaluate the relationship between behavior and consequences.

"Self-confidence is no guarantee of success, but lack of self-confidence is definitely the gateway to many failures."

-Albert Bandura-
Therefore, we should not be mistaken to believe that people imitate everything they see, and that absolutely all children will show aggressive behavior just because they witnessed violent scenes at home or on television. Thoughts precedes imitation. Furthermore, there are influencing factors that can promote imitation behavior or an alternative response.

Here are some of these influencing factors:

The environment
Our society is not completely homogeneous. On the contrary, we see that it consists of and produces highly varied environments and scenarios. Some are favorable, others oppressive.

Let's look at an example. Kalle is 11 years old and this year he has a new violin teacher. At first he was fascinated by the instrument. He wanted to get one and learn more. But his father quickly made him think of other thoughts with his demoralizing response. "What a trash!" He screamed. Since then, Kalle is no longer interested in violins.
Attention
In order for us to imitate behavior, it must first be our attention, our interest, it must activate our mirror neighbors. We observe a variety of behaviors every day, but not everyone who raises our interest.

motivation
Motivation is the driving force, the will to perform certain behaviors we see in others.

Here we have to address the term "temporary learning". According to Bandura, it is not enough that we only "observe" what somebody does. We also need to see what rewards or consequences the person receives for his behavior.
If the observer assesses that the rewards outweigh the costs (if any), he will imitate the behavior. However, if the vikarial gain is not perceived as significant, the observer will not imitate the behavior.
In conclusion, one can say that the theory of social learning is one of the most interesting advances in psychology. At the age of 91, Albert Bandura is still one of the most appreciated and celebrated experts in his field.

Thanks to him, we have a better idea of ​​how we acquire knowledge and develop certain behaviors. We see how they exterminate - the social processes are linked to the inner-cognitive processes. We also understand how we can serve as role models for other people in our environment, often without being aware of it.

Bibliographic references:

Bandura, Albert, (1987) "Social Learning Theory", Espasa Libros.

Bandura, Albert and Walters, Ruchards, (2004) "Social Learning and Personality Development", Paidós.