By Tanisha Sabhaney
Behaviouristic theories of learning are essentially theories of conditioning and emphasize the role of reinforcement in learning. One of the mot predominant theories is Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, which assumes that. People learn through observing others’ behavior, attitudes, and outcomes of those behaviors which is called observational learning, that is an indirect form of learning known as vicarious learning and indirect forms of reinforcement which is called vicarious reinforcement .Bandura renamed SLT as social cognitive theory to accommodate the ever increasing importance in his thinking of cognitive factors .SLT has also been enriched by Bandura with his views about the effects of a person’s belief in their own effectiveness in specific situations also known as self –efficacy. According to Bandura, social learning involves a few factors such as, attention where the individual must pay attention to the model and must be able to remember the behavior they have observed so basically retention per se . The observer must be able to replicate the action and must have the motivation to demonstrate what they have learnt .Although motivation to imitate behavior of a model is quite complex. As certain factors have to be taken into consideration, the observer or learner must like the model and identify with the model, as humans tend to imitate people who are like themselves. An observer is more likely to imitate a model that is consistent across situations than someone who behaves in different ways depending on the situation. Also it has been argued by Bandura that people can learn from observing others, not necessarily experiencing the consequences of these actions, themselves. Throughout this essay a detailed account with appropriate reasoning and causes of SLT will be given.
People learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. it