Social Learning Theory
Social learning theory
Social psychological theories of aggression
Social learning theory
Introduction
During your study of psychology, you will have noticed that aspects of human behaviour such as aggression can be explained in more than one way, and that these ways often conflict. These different explanations are what provide psychology with its unique perspective on understanding human behaviour. As you have seen, aggression is a term that is not easy to define, and why the behaviour is shown is difficult to explain. Social psychological explanations of aggression provide one perspective towards explaining the human behaviour of aggression. Social psychological explanation might include: social learning theory; deindividuation; cue-arousal; …show more content…
and relative deprivation.
environmental factors. He argued that the individual and the social environment were linked, something he called reciprocal determinism. Through Bandura’s eyes, social learning theory had, at its heart four basic processes:
Key terms
Reciprocal determinism: one process or entity relies on another. Self-efficacy: knowing your own abilities and being confident with them.
1 Attention: how much do you concentrate on the model showing the behaviour? Learning objectives:
understand social
Retention: storing the behaviour you witnessed. Reproduction: copying the behaviour you witnessed. 4 Motivation: having good reason for showing the witnessed behaviour again, e.g.
a ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’ incentive. The central part of these processes was the presence of a role model from whom behaviour could be copied. According to Bandura, the behaviour is often imitated from a role model, a person who seems similar to the child (e.g. in age or sex) or who is in a position of power (e.g. a pop idol, teachers or parents). While the presence of a model is important, the child sill needs to have a level of self-confidence that lets them imitate the behaviour. Bandura referred to this as self-efficacy. Bandura’s explanation of social learning theory was based on research that has become well known – his Bobo doll studies. Both the original study and variations of the study helped Bandura forward the view that human behaviour was often shaped by the socio-cultural processes of social …show more content…
learning.
Examiner’s tip
If the exam question asks you to outline a social psychological explanation of aggression and you choose social learning theory, that’s fine. But remember that you need to outline the theory and not just Bandura’s Bobo doll study. Candidates often provide too little information about the theory that underpins Bandura’s thinking – the Bobo doll study was simply there to support his reasoning.
psychological theories of aggression
explain the cause of
aggression according to the social learning theory
evaluate social learning theory
Key terms
Imitation: to copy, to show the same behaviour as another. Social learning theorists argue that those you are most likely to imitate are role models such as parents, teachers or idols. Social cognitive perspective: a blending of social and cognitive psychology that attempts to understand behaviour through an interaction of social and cognitive causes.
What is social learning theory?
Social learning theory originated from the work of Gabriel Tarde (1912). Some well-known characteristics of social learning can be seen developing in what he referred to as a series of stages of imitation: the behaviour of role models the copying of the behaviour of those of a higher status the degree of contact with role model the degree of understanding of the behaviour.
According to Tarde, all were characteristic ways in which our social behaviour and responses could shape the actions of others. Tarde unofficially brought together the two largely opposing views of psychoanalysis and behaviourism. Social cognitive perspective: an explanation that extends the basic social perspective to include cognitive reasoning such as perception, recollection and interpretation. Tarde’s original arguments, which combined psychoanalysis and behaviourism in explanations of social forms of learning, were reworked by Julian Rotter (1954). Rotter introduced a view that emphasised the importance of behaviour in an appropriate way although he is not often publicly acknowledged for it. Rotter theorised that through a system of positive and negative responses, an individual’s action and behaviour could be imitated.
T F A
Research study: Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)
In the original study Bandura et al. used 36 boys and 36 girls of varying ages (but mainly between 3 and 6 years old). Twenty-four of these children were shown the aggressive role model. Another 24 children were shown the non-aggressive role model. These groups were then split based on sex, and then divided again so that the group either had a same sex role model or a different sex role model. This means that there was a total of eight experimental conditions, in addition to the standard control condition. Before making observations in the experimental set up, Bandura et al. got the teacher and experimenter (both of whom would have had plenty of contact with the children) to rate them on level of aggressiveness; thus providing Bandura et al. with a good benchmark for comparisons in behaviour as a result of the experimental stimulus. Initially the child entered a playroom with an adult model and an experimenter. The child played in one corner, while the adult model went to another corner of the room. The adult had a toy set, a mallet and a five foot Bobo doll. After the experimenter left, after a few minutes of playing with the toy set the aggressive role model started to hit the Bobo doll. The role model used both physical and verbal violence. Physical actions included hitting the Bobo Doll repeatedly with the mallet. Verbal comments like ‘take that Bobo’ or ‘sockeroo’ were also heard by the child. In the nonaggressive condition the role model simply ignored the Bobo doll and continued to play with the toy set they had.
R D
T F A
Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments
Bandura (1963) combines the logic of both social psychology and cognitive psychology in his social cognitive perspective of human behaviour. While elements of earlier work by Miller and Dollard (1941) and bits of Rotter’s view are apparent, these have largely been reworked and expanded upon. Bandura thought that behaviour may be motivated not only by inherent psychological factors, but also by more socio-
T minutes after the experimenter left, the experimenter then en returned. The role model was asked to leave. The child was then asked to follow the experimenter to another playroom, which contained some
hapter 10 Social psychological theories of aggression C lovely toys. Frustration was created in the children by the fact that they were only left in here for a few minutes before being told that these toys were for other children, and they would be taken to another room with other toys. In this last room there would be some aggressive some and non-aggressive toys. Bandura et al. wanted to find out if the children would play with the aggressive toys (e.g. Bobo doll and mallet, dart guns) or the non-aggressive toys (e.g. paper and crayons, toy trucks and cars), and if they would repeat verbal statements of aggression that the role model had said. Sitting behind a two-way mirror, Bandura and his colleagues were able to observe the behaviour that the children showed. Bandura showed clearly that those children that witnessed the aggressive role model’s behaviour were far more likely to show aggressive behaviour themselves, especially when this was compared to the non-aggressive condition. Furthermore, Bandura supported his assertion that the gender of the role model has a significant influence on whether the behaviour was imitated. Boys, for example, showed more aggressive behaviour when the role model was a male. For females, while the same trend in results were seen this was less significant. This might in part be explained by the generalisation that boys on the whole are more aggressive than girls. are available on the internet and in other published sources, which means that the confidentiality of the participants has been compromised. This raises a second and more important point over whether the children and for that matter the parents were made aware before consenting to take part in the study that the behaviour would be monitored and recorded. Given the children’s age, Bandura would have asked the parents for their consent for the children to take part in the study. But just how much information did Bandura tell them in order gain consent? By not being told all the information about the study, the parents have ultimately been deceived. Of course limited, if any, debriefing opportunities were available to those that took part. Woods (2006) reminds us of the potential distress that the experiment might cause the children, let alone the potential long-term consequences of the study. Finally the experiment seems to go against the general principle of Reason and Rowan (1980) who observed that ‘good research means never having to say sorry’. In variations to his original study, Bandura manipulated the independent variable to tease out other potential initiators of the immative behaviour. Bandura (1963) showed that in comparing the reactions of the children to either witnessing a real-life model, a film of a real-life model or a cartoon of Herman the cat hitting the Bobo doll, there seemed to be equivalent aggressive behaviour exhibited by boys whether the model was real, filmed or a cartoon. Filmed behaviour (real or cartoon) seems to exert a strong influence on children’s behaviour. In other variations also conducted in 1963, Bandura et al. also showed the cumulative effect of rewarding behaviour. Using adult role models who were either rewarded or punished following their exhibition of aggressive behaviour, Bandura showed rewarding behaviour encouraged the imitation of it. This process is known as vicarious reinforcement. The logic of punishment actually weakening the behaviour was not so clear cut, since the actual difference between the number of children in the punished condition and the control condition that did not show aggressive behaviour was not significant.
Social learning theory
Fig. 1 A child ‘playing’ with the Bobo doll
Methodological issues Link
Bandura used a structured observation method. For more information about observational methods look at p106.
R D
By confining the experiment to a number of experimental rooms, Bandura ensured that many confounding variables could be controlled in the confines of the laboratory. Furthermore, Bandura over-emphasised the importance of the role model. It could have been the case that the children imitated the actions because they thought they had to ‘please the experimenter’. If this is the case then you could argue that the results were simply the effect of demand characteristics. It could be argued that little importance is given to the issue of culture on immative behaviour. The relatively few replications of Bobo doll-type studies stands testament to this fact. Furthermore, Bandura had no clear way of distinguishing play fighting from aggressive behaviour. What if the aggressive behaviour noted was simply the result of playing with a new item they had never seen before? This might have been the case since the Bobo doll was originally designed and marketed to be punched. Since Bandura’s study was conducted in a laboratory the experiment has been replicated with success due to the standardised nature of the method. However, the simple fact is that the children showed aggressive behaviour could be imitated, but in the confines of a laboratory. In most cases experimental research conducted in laboratories have a lower level of ecological validity. In this particular case the task and the environment were artificial. The task involved an apparatus the children were unlikely to have at home. Furthermore, the location of the study was in an unfamiliar (and very formal) surrounding which could have confounded the behaviour of the child, and therefore raises important questions over the ‘naturalness’ of the children’s behaviour in the experiment.
Bandura’s theory does help us explain why children could copy.
The theory has face validity through its explanation of how behaviour can be imitated from role models such as television personalities and pop stars. In a Daily Telegraph article (5 March 2008) this issue is highlighted. A UN report: blames the police and courts for making matters worse by treating stars ‘leniently’ and failing to make an example of them. The annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board – a UN agency – has highlighted for the first time the influence of film actors, sports stars and rock musicians on impressionable fans… It does not identify anyone but the singers Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty and Kate Moss, the model, are likely to have been in their sights… Social learning theory has been applied to other anti-social areas, for example, Akers and Burgess (1966) used social learning theory to explain deviancy. Bandura’s research focused society’s attention on the power of
the
Vicarious reinforcement: witnessing another person showing behaviour and getting rewarded for it – has just the same effect as being rewarded for it yourself.
Take it further
Compare and contrast the different social psychological explanations of aggression. How are they different? What is the crux of their explanation? What deficits do they all have in common that other (non-psychological) explanations have been able to account for?
Ethical issues
While ensuring that confidentiality was partially kept, Bandura filmed some of the children’s behaviours. Such films and images
Social psychological theories of aggression
Social learning theory
Introduction
During your study of psychology, you will have noticed that aspects of human behaviour such as aggression can be explained in more than one way, and that these ways often conflict. These different explanations are what provide psychology with its unique perspective on understanding human behaviour. As you have seen, aggression is a term that is not easy to define, and why the behaviour is shown is difficult to explain. Social psychological explanations of aggression provide one perspective towards explaining the human behaviour of aggression. Social psychological explanation might include: social learning theory; deindividuation; cue-arousal; …show more content…
and relative deprivation.
environmental factors. He argued that the individual and the social environment were linked, something he called reciprocal determinism. Through Bandura’s eyes, social learning theory had, at its heart four basic processes:
Key terms
Reciprocal determinism: one process or entity relies on another. Self-efficacy: knowing your own abilities and being confident with them.
1 Attention: how much do you concentrate on the model showing the behaviour? Learning objectives:
understand social
Retention: storing the behaviour you witnessed. Reproduction: copying the behaviour you witnessed. 4 Motivation: having good reason for showing the witnessed behaviour again, e.g.
a ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’ incentive. The central part of these processes was the presence of a role model from whom behaviour could be copied. According to Bandura, the behaviour is often imitated from a role model, a person who seems similar to the child (e.g. in age or sex) or who is in a position of power (e.g. a pop idol, teachers or parents). While the presence of a model is important, the child sill needs to have a level of self-confidence that lets them imitate the behaviour. Bandura referred to this as self-efficacy. Bandura’s explanation of social learning theory was based on research that has become well known – his Bobo doll studies. Both the original study and variations of the study helped Bandura forward the view that human behaviour was often shaped by the socio-cultural processes of social …show more content…
learning.
Examiner’s tip
If the exam question asks you to outline a social psychological explanation of aggression and you choose social learning theory, that’s fine. But remember that you need to outline the theory and not just Bandura’s Bobo doll study. Candidates often provide too little information about the theory that underpins Bandura’s thinking – the Bobo doll study was simply there to support his reasoning.
psychological theories of aggression
explain the cause of
aggression according to the social learning theory
evaluate social learning theory
Key terms
Imitation: to copy, to show the same behaviour as another. Social learning theorists argue that those you are most likely to imitate are role models such as parents, teachers or idols. Social cognitive perspective: a blending of social and cognitive psychology that attempts to understand behaviour through an interaction of social and cognitive causes.
What is social learning theory?
Social learning theory originated from the work of Gabriel Tarde (1912). Some well-known characteristics of social learning can be seen developing in what he referred to as a series of stages of imitation: the behaviour of role models the copying of the behaviour of those of a higher status the degree of contact with role model the degree of understanding of the behaviour.
According to Tarde, all were characteristic ways in which our social behaviour and responses could shape the actions of others. Tarde unofficially brought together the two largely opposing views of psychoanalysis and behaviourism. Social cognitive perspective: an explanation that extends the basic social perspective to include cognitive reasoning such as perception, recollection and interpretation. Tarde’s original arguments, which combined psychoanalysis and behaviourism in explanations of social forms of learning, were reworked by Julian Rotter (1954). Rotter introduced a view that emphasised the importance of behaviour in an appropriate way although he is not often publicly acknowledged for it. Rotter theorised that through a system of positive and negative responses, an individual’s action and behaviour could be imitated.
T F A
Research study: Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)
In the original study Bandura et al. used 36 boys and 36 girls of varying ages (but mainly between 3 and 6 years old). Twenty-four of these children were shown the aggressive role model. Another 24 children were shown the non-aggressive role model. These groups were then split based on sex, and then divided again so that the group either had a same sex role model or a different sex role model. This means that there was a total of eight experimental conditions, in addition to the standard control condition. Before making observations in the experimental set up, Bandura et al. got the teacher and experimenter (both of whom would have had plenty of contact with the children) to rate them on level of aggressiveness; thus providing Bandura et al. with a good benchmark for comparisons in behaviour as a result of the experimental stimulus. Initially the child entered a playroom with an adult model and an experimenter. The child played in one corner, while the adult model went to another corner of the room. The adult had a toy set, a mallet and a five foot Bobo doll. After the experimenter left, after a few minutes of playing with the toy set the aggressive role model started to hit the Bobo doll. The role model used both physical and verbal violence. Physical actions included hitting the Bobo Doll repeatedly with the mallet. Verbal comments like ‘take that Bobo’ or ‘sockeroo’ were also heard by the child. In the nonaggressive condition the role model simply ignored the Bobo doll and continued to play with the toy set they had.
R D
T F A
Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments
Bandura (1963) combines the logic of both social psychology and cognitive psychology in his social cognitive perspective of human behaviour. While elements of earlier work by Miller and Dollard (1941) and bits of Rotter’s view are apparent, these have largely been reworked and expanded upon. Bandura thought that behaviour may be motivated not only by inherent psychological factors, but also by more socio-
T minutes after the experimenter left, the experimenter then en returned. The role model was asked to leave. The child was then asked to follow the experimenter to another playroom, which contained some
hapter 10 Social psychological theories of aggression C lovely toys. Frustration was created in the children by the fact that they were only left in here for a few minutes before being told that these toys were for other children, and they would be taken to another room with other toys. In this last room there would be some aggressive some and non-aggressive toys. Bandura et al. wanted to find out if the children would play with the aggressive toys (e.g. Bobo doll and mallet, dart guns) or the non-aggressive toys (e.g. paper and crayons, toy trucks and cars), and if they would repeat verbal statements of aggression that the role model had said. Sitting behind a two-way mirror, Bandura and his colleagues were able to observe the behaviour that the children showed. Bandura showed clearly that those children that witnessed the aggressive role model’s behaviour were far more likely to show aggressive behaviour themselves, especially when this was compared to the non-aggressive condition. Furthermore, Bandura supported his assertion that the gender of the role model has a significant influence on whether the behaviour was imitated. Boys, for example, showed more aggressive behaviour when the role model was a male. For females, while the same trend in results were seen this was less significant. This might in part be explained by the generalisation that boys on the whole are more aggressive than girls. are available on the internet and in other published sources, which means that the confidentiality of the participants has been compromised. This raises a second and more important point over whether the children and for that matter the parents were made aware before consenting to take part in the study that the behaviour would be monitored and recorded. Given the children’s age, Bandura would have asked the parents for their consent for the children to take part in the study. But just how much information did Bandura tell them in order gain consent? By not being told all the information about the study, the parents have ultimately been deceived. Of course limited, if any, debriefing opportunities were available to those that took part. Woods (2006) reminds us of the potential distress that the experiment might cause the children, let alone the potential long-term consequences of the study. Finally the experiment seems to go against the general principle of Reason and Rowan (1980) who observed that ‘good research means never having to say sorry’. In variations to his original study, Bandura manipulated the independent variable to tease out other potential initiators of the immative behaviour. Bandura (1963) showed that in comparing the reactions of the children to either witnessing a real-life model, a film of a real-life model or a cartoon of Herman the cat hitting the Bobo doll, there seemed to be equivalent aggressive behaviour exhibited by boys whether the model was real, filmed or a cartoon. Filmed behaviour (real or cartoon) seems to exert a strong influence on children’s behaviour. In other variations also conducted in 1963, Bandura et al. also showed the cumulative effect of rewarding behaviour. Using adult role models who were either rewarded or punished following their exhibition of aggressive behaviour, Bandura showed rewarding behaviour encouraged the imitation of it. This process is known as vicarious reinforcement. The logic of punishment actually weakening the behaviour was not so clear cut, since the actual difference between the number of children in the punished condition and the control condition that did not show aggressive behaviour was not significant.
Social learning theory
Fig. 1 A child ‘playing’ with the Bobo doll
Methodological issues Link
Bandura used a structured observation method. For more information about observational methods look at p106.
R D
By confining the experiment to a number of experimental rooms, Bandura ensured that many confounding variables could be controlled in the confines of the laboratory. Furthermore, Bandura over-emphasised the importance of the role model. It could have been the case that the children imitated the actions because they thought they had to ‘please the experimenter’. If this is the case then you could argue that the results were simply the effect of demand characteristics. It could be argued that little importance is given to the issue of culture on immative behaviour. The relatively few replications of Bobo doll-type studies stands testament to this fact. Furthermore, Bandura had no clear way of distinguishing play fighting from aggressive behaviour. What if the aggressive behaviour noted was simply the result of playing with a new item they had never seen before? This might have been the case since the Bobo doll was originally designed and marketed to be punched. Since Bandura’s study was conducted in a laboratory the experiment has been replicated with success due to the standardised nature of the method. However, the simple fact is that the children showed aggressive behaviour could be imitated, but in the confines of a laboratory. In most cases experimental research conducted in laboratories have a lower level of ecological validity. In this particular case the task and the environment were artificial. The task involved an apparatus the children were unlikely to have at home. Furthermore, the location of the study was in an unfamiliar (and very formal) surrounding which could have confounded the behaviour of the child, and therefore raises important questions over the ‘naturalness’ of the children’s behaviour in the experiment.
Bandura’s theory does help us explain why children could copy.
The theory has face validity through its explanation of how behaviour can be imitated from role models such as television personalities and pop stars. In a Daily Telegraph article (5 March 2008) this issue is highlighted. A UN report: blames the police and courts for making matters worse by treating stars ‘leniently’ and failing to make an example of them. The annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board – a UN agency – has highlighted for the first time the influence of film actors, sports stars and rock musicians on impressionable fans… It does not identify anyone but the singers Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty and Kate Moss, the model, are likely to have been in their sights… Social learning theory has been applied to other anti-social areas, for example, Akers and Burgess (1966) used social learning theory to explain deviancy. Bandura’s research focused society’s attention on the power of
the
Vicarious reinforcement: witnessing another person showing behaviour and getting rewarded for it – has just the same effect as being rewarded for it yourself.
Take it further
Compare and contrast the different social psychological explanations of aggression. How are they different? What is the crux of their explanation? What deficits do they all have in common that other (non-psychological) explanations have been able to account for?
Ethical issues
While ensuring that confidentiality was partially kept, Bandura filmed some of the children’s behaviours. Such films and images