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SocialLearning

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 1 month ago
 
 
Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
Albert Bandura was a behaviorist who established the idea of social learning. He was born in Canada in 1925. He received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Iowa in 1952. He spent most of his career at Stanford University. Bandura published his first book, Adolescent Aggression, in 1959. He was the president of the American Psychology Association in 1973 and in 1980; he was awarded the APA’s Award for Distinguished Science Contributions. His idea of learning through observation came from an experiment with kindergartners (Boeree, 1998).
 
 
Bandura began studying the aggression in children and one theory of personality, which believed that one’s environment causes behavior. Bandura began looking at this idea and realizing it was too simple. Therefore, he looked at personality as an interaction of three things, and they are environment, behavior, and psychological process. He then began experiments to realize if this was true. His most famous experiment is the “bobo doll studies (Boeree, 1998).”woman in the film was hitting the doll and saying “Sockeroo”; she also sat on the doll, hit it with hammers and used other various abuses (Boeree, 1998).
 
 
Bandura filmed a young woman beating up a bobo doll. A bobo doll is an inflatable balloon that has a weight at the bottom. The doll resembles a clown and when hit it moves back and forth.  Bandura showed this film to a group of kindergartners, got an enthusiastic response. When the kids were let loose in a room with their own bobo doll, the results were alarming. The children imitated the same behavior as the woman in the video. They were seen screaming “Sockeroo”, while abusing the doll in the same way as the woman. This might not seem like an ideal experiment but what Bandura observed was that children learned through observation. This idea of observational learning became the foundation of his Social Learning Theory (Boeree, 1998).
 
Here is a video of the Bobo studies
 
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There are four steps in the modeling process

1.Attention- It means to learn by paying attention. If someone is tired, cranky, or extremely hyperactive then he or she will not focus entirely because he or she will become distracted easier. In    addition, if the subject they are focusing on is not attractive then someone is least likely to pay attention because it does not appeal to them (Boeree, 1998).

 

2.Retention- A person must be able to retain the information that is given to them. This way a person will be able to bring it up later mentally and then be able to reproduce the behavior with his or her own.

 

3.Motor Reproduction- A person has to have the ability to mimic the behavior. A person who imagines they doing the behavior actually improves their abilities (Boeree, 1998)

 

4.Motivation-People are not going to do something unless they are motivated to do so.

There are three types of motivation.

 

·past reinforcement

 

·promised reinforcement

 

·vicarious reinforcement           

 

There are also negative motivations for not wanting to copy the behavior.

 

·past punishment

 

·promised punishment such as threats

 

·vicarious punishment.

 

Bandura believes that punishment can backfire on people and for the reason reinforcement is better (Boeree, 1998).Therefore, Bandura believes that people need to learn about Self-Regulation. Self-Regulation is the ability to control own behavior.

 

There are three types of self-regulation.

 

1. Self-Observation-People look at themselves and their behavior and monitor it.

 

2. Judgment People compare what they see with a standard. One example is the rules of etiquette (Boeree, 1998).

 

3. Self-Response or Self-Regulation-If a person does well or poor compared to the standard then they reward or punishment themselves. One concept of self-regulation is self-concept or known as self-esteem. If a person continues to fail at something, they will have a poor self-concept.

 

      Bandura identifies three results of self-punishment. 

 

·Compensation- It deals with a superiority complex.

 

·Inactivity- This includes apathy, boredom, and depression.

 

·Escape- It deals wit h the abuse of drugs and alcohol and lead to suicide (Boeree, 1998).

 

 Bandura recommends three ways to improve poor self-concepts.

 

·First, a person needs to know him or herself.

 

·Second, make sure a person’s standards are not set to high and unreachable.

 

·Third, reward yourself; a person should celebrate their successes (Boeree, 1998).

 

 

The effects of modeling behavior are that they teach new behaviors, influence the frequency of previously learned behaviors, and encourage previously forbidden behaviors. People do things because they feel good doing them and if they put a lot of effort towards doing something then they feel like they can succeed at doing it. Students especially model behavior because they want to feel accepted by their peers and if they model those behaviors as their peers they will not be ignored (Abbot, 2001).

In the classroom, the social learning theory is used everyday. Teachers must model behaviors that they want their students to follow. Students should know that there are consequences if they do not follow those appropriate behaviors. Students should have enough confidence in themselves to know they can accomplish what is asked of them. Teachers should help students set realistic goals and know how to achieve them. Students should feel challenged but not overloaded. These simple things are in our classrooms and we should use them to help our students succeed (Abbot, 2001).

 

For more ideas on how to use Bandura's Social Learning Theory in the classroom. Check out these lesson ideas. Social Learning Ideas

For more examples of lesson ideas from other theorists. Lesson Plan Ideas and Activities

To find out about other theorists. Go Here 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                   Reference List

 
Abbot, Lynda (2001). Social Learning Theory. Retrieved January 24, 2008, from
 
Boeree, Dr. George (1998). Albert Bandura. Retrieved January 24, 2008, from

 

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