Bandura's Social Learning Theory

Bandura's Social Learning Theory

Introduction

This paper will present the discussion on the social learning theory which was proposed by Albert Bandura. Later, the theory will be applied to the violence among the children of African American people and their psychological condition due to the violence. The social learning theory is one of the first theories of Albert Bandura.

The author showed how the learning involved not only in direct contact with the objects, but it happened through indirect experience as well. It is generally developed by having the observation of other people. Bandura used the term modeling to identify a learning process that is activated when the behavior of an individual who observes changes depends on the behavior of another person who is a role model. Exemplary in this regard are the studies on the imitation of aggressive behaviors by children who watched a model, the example of which is given in the discussion part of the paper.

Bandura summarizes a number of properties in a situation of modeling agents that affect the impact of learned information on performance, which is the similarity of performance, the similarity between the observer and the personal characteristics of the model, the multiplicity and variety of models, and finally the competence of the model.

Discussion

The theory of social learning assumes that the child learns new behaviors by observing their peers, by imitating models that are the subject of rewards and not of punishments, which reflects the concept of the observational learning. This theory is used in various field researches among psychology, sociology, criminology and planning theory. Its main current representative is Albert Bandura.

The social learning theory of Bandura identifies three procurement procedures which have their source in the environment of the individual. Vicarious learning is to observe the success or failure of others in a task which may influence self-efficacy of an individual in relation to that task, especially if they share it with a degree of similarity that supports the identification process. Social comparison is most effective if the objective of the task is presented as an opportunity to develop their skills. However, presented as a diagnostic test of skills, it can generate disinterest, especially if the comparison is to the disadvantage of the learner (Achenbach, 1991).

Similarly, the interactionist theory by Vygotsky also emphasizes on the social component of the learning process. Transposed to the educational process, it considers that learning takes place first time in a collective activity supported by the trainer and the social group, and then the second time when an individual activity becomes an internalized property. There is an additional element added to it which is the role of cultural environment of the individual. Learning and the success also depends on the culture of the person to which he or she belongs.

Bandura believed that in order to form a new behavior, there should be no reward and punishment.  He believed that children acquire new behaviors through observation and imitation, that is, imitation of the people behaviors is important for them, and ...