Social learning, the interesting theory of Albert Bandura

How do people learn? Understanding what mechanisms, gears and complex subtleties set a behavior or skill in motion has always been one of the objectives of psychology. Albert Bandura was the one who introduced the theory of social learning in this field, thus taking a qualitative leap to tell us for the first time about that interaction between the learner’s mind and his environment.

We have to admit, most of us escape how and in what way our children learn certain things. There are those who continue to see the teaching or acquisition of a certain skill as the result of the classic behaviorist approach, something based on imitations, conditioning and positive or negative reinforcements that establish or correct a concept or behavior.

The interaction between medium and person

However, nothing is as intricate, complex and at the same time fascinating than the mind of a learner, the brain of a child or the disposition of an adult when generating a behavior or acquiring a certain learning. Because None of us are simply an empty box to be filled with external pressures and conditioning.

People observe, imitate, and develop in a specific social environment and in turn we have certain mental states that promote or hinder learning. Albert Bandura, Canadian psychologist and professor at Stanford University, addressed all these questions to formulate what we know today as Social Learning Theory.

Thus, and as we will see reflected later, Bandura defined 4 principles for his theory. These are the pillars of any social learning:

Attention: the minimum basis for any learning.Retention: apprehend new information and store it in memory.Reproduction: rescue information from memory when necessary to apply it to reality.Motivation: Interest and desire to learn play a fundamental role in any learning. Reinforcements and punishments are also included here.

What does Social Learning Theory tell us?

Bandura’s social learning theory is also known as observational learning or modeling. To put ourselves in a little more context, it is worth remembering that we are in the 60s, so it is worth keeping 2 points in mind:

At this time, the weight of behaviorism continued to have its special relevance, where learning was rather conceived as a simple sending of packets of information between an expert and an apprentice. One sent and the other received, the expert was the active nucleus and the apprentice the passive nucleus.Albert Bandura, for his part, focused the focus of his interest and his studies beyond this behavioral reductionism. He was one of the first figures to pay attention to the social field, just as Lev Vygotsky himself did with his Sociocultural theory.

Thus, something that the renowned Canadian psychologist was very clear about is that There were children who learned certain things quickly without going through the classic trial-error stage. If this was so, it was because of something very simple and obvious: due to observation and their social environment. In fact, something that he demonstrated in Bandura in studies such as the one published in the Journal of communicationis that aggression and violence itself also have a clear social and even imitative component.

The Bobo doll

The Bobo doll experiment is one of the best known in the field of psychology.. Throughout 1961 and 1963, Bandura and his team sought to demonstrate the importance of observational learning in children. Thus, and within this approach, it was also evident how the imitation of a model (an adult) has much more relevance in children than the simple fact of offering or removing reinforcement to establish a behavior, a learning process.

Children between 3 and 6 years old who attended daycare at Stanford University participated in the experiment. The scene itself could not be more shocking. In a room full of toys, an adult hit a large doll with a mallet while a group of children looked on. In another experimental group, the adult represented a non-aggressive model and for a third group, aggressiveness was also accompanied by insults towards the Bobo doll.

Results

The results could not be clearer: most children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act in a physically aggressive manner than those who were not exposed to said model. It was also evident that children copied adults of the same sex in a greater proportion and that, in general, aggressive and violent behaviors were more common in males.

On the other hand, something that Albert Bandura was also able to demonstrate with this experiment is that There are 3 basic forms of observational learning. They are the following:

Through a live model, as is the case of a real person performing a behavior.Through verbal instruction, which involves telling details and descriptions of a behavior.The third refers to a symbolic way, such as fictional characters from a book, a comic, a movie or even a real person whose behavior transcends through the media.

Processes that mediate Social Learning

Social Learning Theory is often described as a bridge between traditional learning theory (i.e. behaviorism ) and the cognitive approach. Bandura, unlike Skinner, always gave key importance to mental (cognitive) factors in learning, defining learners as active subjects when processing information and assessing the relationship between their behavior and possible consequences.

Therefore, We must not fall into the mistake of thinking that people imitate everything we see, and that absolutely all children are going to carry out aggressive behavior simply by seeing violent scenes at home or on television. There are thoughts before imitation and there are mediators that will promote the imitation itself or a certain alternative response. These below would be some of those mediators.

The environment

Our society is neither similar, nor egalitarian, nor homogeneous, but rather it is constructed and produces, in turn, the most varied environments and scenarios. There are some that are more conducive, more flattering, and there are some that are more oppressive.

Vicarious care or learning

For a behavior to be imitated it must capture our attention, awaken in some way our interest and that of our mirror neurons. In our daily lives we all observe many behaviors, however, not all of them are worthy of our interest.

Likewise, it is worth noting that within social learning, Bandura gave special importance to vicarious learning. This term refers to the ability that people have to obtain lessons from observing what others do.

Motivation and self-efficacy

Motivation is the driving force, it is the will to perform a certain behavior that we see in others. Now, at this point we also have to talk about vicarious learning. Because, according to Bandura, It is not enough to just observe what others do, but also to see what rewards or consequences others obtain. for that particular behavior.

If the perceived rewards outweigh the perceived costs (if any) then the behavior will be imitated by the observer. On the other hand, if the vicarious reinforcement is not seen as important enough to the observer, then they will not imitate that behavior.

Likewise, and within motivation, self-efficacy is also key. As Bandura himself demonstrated in a study, When it comes to executing something, people assess whether we are capable of carrying out that task successfully.. If we have not suffered previous aversive experiences and if we feel competent, motivation will be greater.

The cognitive factor

The cognitive factor, although it is a theory with behavioral overtones, does not go unnoticed by Bandura. In this theory, the learner is not a passive subject who attends their learning, but rather participates in the process.

Criticisms of Bandura’s theory

Due to the criticism Bandura received about his theory, he revised it in 1986 and called it Social Cognitive Theory. And, although this theory can explain some quite complex behaviors, it leaves out other processes, such as thoughts and feelings.

In conclusionSocial Learning Theory was one of the most interesting qualitative leaps in the field of psychology. So much so, that we are not wrong when we say that Albert Bandura was one of the most appreciated, valued and decorated personalities in this field.

Thanks to it, we understand a little more about the way in which we acquire knowledge and generate certain behaviors, where the external, the social, is related to our internal processes, the cognitive, and where, in turn, We also serve as a model for other people around us, often without realizing it.

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