FURAHA ARON

BANDURA THEORY

Meaning of the theory

: Bandura’s Social Learning Theory posits that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. The theory has often been called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation

   People learn through observing others’ behavior, attitudes, and outcomes of those behaviors “Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” (Bandura). Social learning theory explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences.

Originator of the theory

The originator of the theory which is social learning theory was Albert Bandura. Albert Bandura is known as the father of cognitive theory. He was born December 4, 1925 in a small town in northern Alberta, Canada, located approximately 50 miles from Edmonton. Bandura’s early education consisted of one small school with only two teachers.(Stokes, 1986). Albert Bandura soon became fascinated by psychology after enrolling at the University of British Columbia. He had started out at biological sciences major, his interest in psychology formed quite by accident. He was working nights and commuting to school with a group of students who arrived much earlier than his other courses started. ( Pajares, 2004).

  In 1949 he graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in Psychology. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Iowa in 1952. After he finished his PhD because of his famous studies and searches Bandura was elected as the president of the American Psychological Association in 1974. He was also elected as the outstanding lifetime contribution to Psychology, American Psychological Association in 2004. Among all scholars Bandura was known as the father of the Cognitive Theory. (Bandura, 2006a).

: Bandura’s Social Learning Theory posits that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. The theory has often been called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation

   People learn through observing others’ behavior, attitudes, and outcomes of those behaviors “Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” (Bandura). Social learning theory explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences.

Originator of the theory

The originator of the theory which is social learning theory was Albert Bandura. Albert Bandura is known as the father of cognitive theory. He was born December 4, 1925 in a small town in northern Alberta, Canada, located approximately 50 miles from Edmonton. Bandura’s early education consisted of one small school with only two teachers.(Stokes, 1986). Albert Bandura soon became fascinated by psychology after enrolling at the University of British Columbia. He had started out at biological sciences major, his interest in psychology formed quite by accident. He was working nights and commuting to school with a group of students who arrived much earlier than his other courses started. ( Pajares, 2004).

  In 1949 he graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in Psychology. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Iowa in 1952. After he finished his PhD because of his famous studies and searches Bandura was elected as the president of the American Psychological Association in 1974. He was also elected as the outstanding lifetime contribution to Psychology, American Psychological Association in 2004. Among all scholars Bandura was known as the father of the Cognitive Theory. (Bandura, 2006a).

Key Terms:

 Modeling, reciprocal determinism

Education implication of the theory

Social learning theory has numerous implications for classroom use.

1.   Students often learn a great deal simply by observing other people. When the student observing some people’s action example when then they watch people who are aggressive even in the film the student learn much faster

2. Describing the consequences of behavior is can effectively increase the appropriate behaviors and decrease inappropriate ones. Social respect can be much increase through social learning

This can involve discussing with learners about the reward and consequences of various behaviors.

3. Modeling provides an alternative to shaping for teaching new behaviors. Instead of using shaping, which is operant conditioning; modeling can provide a faster, more efficient means for teaching new behavior. To promote effective modeling a teacher must make

Sure that the four essential conditions exist; attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation.

4. Teachers and parents must model appropriate behaviors and take care that they do not model inappropriate behaviors.

5. Teachers should expose students to a variety of other models. This technique is especially important to break down traditional stereotypes.

6. Students must believe that they are capable of accomplishing school tasks. Thus it is very important to develop a sense of self efficacy for students. Teachers can promote such self-efficacy by having students receive confidence-building messages watch others be successful, and experience success on their own. .

7. Teachers should help students set realistic expectations for their academic accomplishments. In general in a class that means making sure those expectations are not set too low. If they want to realistically challenge their students. However, sometimes the task is beyond a student's ability, example would be the cancer group.

8. Self-regulation techniques provide an effective method for improving student behavior.

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING

 Of the hundreds of studies Bandura was responsible for, one group stands out above the others the bobo doll studies. He made of film of one of his students, a young woman, essentially beating up a bobo doll. In case you don’t know, a bobo doll is an inflatable, egg-shape balloon creature with a weight in the bottom that makes it bob back up when you knock him down. Nowadays, it might have Darth Vader painted on it, but back then it was simply "Bobo" the clown.

The woman punched the clown, shouting "sockeroo!" She kicked it, sat on it, hit with a little hammer, and so on, shouting various aggressive phrases. Bandura showed his film to groups of kindergartners who, as you might predict, liked it a lot. They then were let out to play. In the play room, of course, were several observers with pens and clipboards in hand, a brand new bobo doll, and a few little hammers. And you might predict as well what the observers recorded: A lot of little kids beating the daylights out of the bobo doll. They punched it and shouted "sockeroo" kicked it, sat on it, hit it with the little hammers, and so on. In other words, they imitated the young lady in the film, and quite precisely at that. This might seem like a real nothing of an experiment at first, but consider: These children changed their behavior without first being rewarded for approximations to that behavior! And while that may not seem extraordinary to the average parent, teacher, or casual observer of children, it didn’t fit so well with standard behavioristic learning theory. He called the phenomenon observational learning or modeling, and his theory is usually called social learning theory.

  Bandura did a large number of variations on the study: The model was rewarded or punished in a variety of ways, the kids were rewarded for their imitations, the model was changed to be less attractive or less prestigious, and so on. Responding to criticism that bobo dolls were supposed to be hit, he even did a film of the young woman beating up a live clown. When the children went into the other room, what should they find there but – the live clown! They proceeded to punch him, kick him, hit him with little hammers, and so on.

 All these variations allowed Bandura to establish that there were certain steps involved in the modeling process:

1. Attention. If you are going to learn anything, you have to be paying attention. Likewise, anything that puts a damper on attention is going to decrease learning, including observational learning. If, for example, you are sleepy, groggy, drugged, sick, nervous, or "hyper," you will learn less well. Likewise, if you are being distracted by competing stimuli. Some of the things that influence attention involve characteristics of the model. If the model is colorful and dramatic, for example, we pay more attention. If the model is attractive, or prestigious, or  appears to be particularly competent, you will pay more attention. And if the model seems more like yourself, you pay more attention. These kinds of variables directed Bandura towards an examination of television and its effects on kids!

2. Retention. Second, you must be able to retain – remember – what you have paid attention to. This is where imagery and language come in: we store what we have seen the model doing in the form of mental images or verbal descriptions. When so stored, you can later "bring up" the image or description, so that you can reproduce it with your own behavior.

3. Reproduction. At this point, you’re just sitting there daydreaming. You have to translate the images or descriptions into actual behavior. So you have to have the ability to reproduce the behavior in the first place. I can watch Olympic ice skaters all day long, yet not be able to reproduce their jumps, because I can’t ice

skate at all! On the other hand, if I could skate, my performance would in fact improve if I watch skaters who

are better than I am.

Another important tidbit about reproduction is that our ability to imitate improves with practice at the

behaviors involved. And one more tidbit: Our abilities improve even when we just imagine ourselves

performing! Many athletes, for example, imagine their performance in their mind’s eye prior to actually

performing.

4. Motivation. And yet, with all this, you’re still not going to do anything unless you are motivated to

imitate, i.e. until you have some reason for doing it. Bandura mentions a number of motives:

a. past reinforcement, ala traditional behaviorism.

b. promised reinforcements (incentives) that we can imagine.

c. vicarious reinforcement – seeing and recalling the model being reinforced.

Notice that these are, traditionally, considered to be the things that "cause" learning. Bandura is saying that

they don’t so much cause learning as cause us to demonstrate what we have learned. That is, he sees them as

motives.

Of course, the negative motivations are there as well, giving you reasons not to imitate someone:

d. past punishment.

e. promised punishment (threats).

d. vicarious punishment.

Like most traditional behaviorists, Bandura says that punishment in whatever form does not work as well as

reinforcement and, in fact, has a tendency to "backfire" on us.

: Bandura’s Social Learning Theory posits that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. The theory has often been called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation

Social learning theory has numerous implications for classroom use.

1.   Students often learn a great deal simply by observing other people. When the student observing some people’s action example when then they watch people who are aggressive even in the film the student learn much faster

2. Describing the consequences of behavior is can effectively increase the appropriate behaviors and decrease inappropriate ones. Social respect can be much increase through social learning

This can involve discussing with learners about the reward and consequences of various behaviors.

3. Modeling provides an alternative to shaping for teaching new behaviors. Instead of using shaping, which is operant conditioning; modeling can provide a faster, more efficient means for teaching new behavior. To promote effective modeling a teacher must make

Sure that the four essential conditions exist; attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation.

4. Teachers and parents must model appropriate behaviors and take care that they do not model inappropriate behaviors.

5. Teachers should expose students to a variety of other models. This technique is especially important to break down traditional stereotypes.