Social Learning: Albert Bandura’s Interesting Theory

How do we learn about people? Understanding the mechanisms, gears, and complex subtleties that set a behavior or trait in motion has always been one of the goals of psychology. Albert Bandura introduced the theory of social learning, a theory of the interaction between the mind of the learner and their environment.

Most of us have no idea how children learn things.  Some people still view learning or the acquisition of a specific ability as a result of the classical behavioral approach, which is based on imitation, conditioning, and positive or negative reinforcement.

On the other hand, nothing is as intricate, complex and fascinating as the mind of an apprentice, the brain of a child or adult’s ability to generate a behavior or acquire specific knowledge. None of us are an empty box to fill based on external pressures and limitations. People observe, imitate and develop in a particular social landscape and as a result have certain mental statuses that encourage or hinder learning.

Albert Bandura, a Canadian psychologist and professor at Stanford University, addressed these questions to formulate what we now know as social learning theory. It is an approach where the behavioral and cognitive meet.

What the theory of social learning tells us

Bandura’s theory of social learning is also known as observational learning or modeling. To add some context, it started in the 60’s, a time when behaviorism was dominant and learning was thought of as as simple as giving and receiving information from expert to apprentice. One sent and the other received. In other words, the expert was the active hub and the apprentice the passive hub.

Albert Bandura, on the other hand, looked beyond reductionist behaviorism and towards the social field. Lev Vygotsky with his sociocultural theory was another. Bandura said that children learn some homework quickly and without trial and error. If so, it was for one big reason: observation and social landscape.

Bobo dolls

The Bobo doll is one of the best known experiments in the field of psychology. Throughout 1961 and 1963, Bandura and his group sought to demonstrate the importance of observational learning in children and how imitation of a model – an adult – is for children much more significant than simply giving or taking from a reinforcement.

• The experiment involved children ages 3 to 6 from Stanford University’s daycare. The scene was shocking. In a room full of toys,  an adult hit a large doll with a club in front of a group of children. In another experiment, the adult represented a non-aggressive model. So, for a third group, the aggression was followed up with insults directed at the puppet.
• The results could not have been clearer. Most of the children who were exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act with physical aggression than those who were not exposed to the model.

Bandura demonstrated that there are 3 basic forms of observational learning.

• Through a living model, like a real person performing a behavior.
• Through verbal instruction: tell details and descriptions of behavior.
• Symbolic method: fictional characters from a book or a movie. A real person who has his behavior transmitted through the media also counts here.

Process that mediates social learning

The social learning theory is often described as a “bridge” between traditional learning theory (eg, behaviorism) and the cognitive approach. Bandura, unlike Skinner, always saw mental (cognitive) factors in learning as important. he defined “those who learn” as actively processing information and assessing the relationship between behavior and consequences.

Therefore, we should not fall for the mistake of thinking that people imitate everything they see, and that absolutely all children will perform aggressive behavior just by watching violent scenes at home or on television. There are thoughts before imitation. In addition, there are mediators who will encourage the imitation of an alternative response.

Here are some of the mediators.

Circumstances

Society is not completely homogeneous. Rather, it consists of and produces the most varied environments and scenarios. Some are more favorable, and others are more oppressive.

Let’s look at an example. Carlos is 11 years old and this year he has a new violin teacher. At first he was fascinated by the instrument. He wanted one, and wanted to learn more. But, his father quickly and unconstructively got the idea out of his head. “That’s nonsense!” he yelled. Since then, Carlos has stopped having an interest in the violin.

Attention

In order for behavior to be imitated, it must capture our attention, interests and mirror neurons. Every day we observe many behaviors, but not all are worth our interest.

Motivation

Motivation is the engine, the will to perform a certain behavior that we see in others.

• Well, at this point, we need to talk about alternate learning. According to Bandura, just “observing” what others are doing is not enough. We must also see what rewards and consequences others have for that behavior.
• If the perceived rewards outweigh the perceived costs (if any) then the observer will imitate it. On the other hand, if the proxy reinforcement is not seen as important enough for the observer, then they will not imitate that behavior.

To conclude, the theory of social learning was one of the most interesting qualitative leaps in the psychological field. In fact, we can say that Albert Bandura, now 92 years old, is still one of the most valued and decorated personalities in that field.

Thanks to him, we better understand how we acquire knowledge and generate certain behaviors. We see how the external – the social – is connected to our internal processes – the cognitive – and how  we often without knowing it, serve as a model for other people in our environment.