Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

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Albert Bandura is the author of one of the most popular learning theories. Albert Bandura believed that reward and punishment were not enough to teach new behavior. Children acquire new behavior by imitating the model. One of the manifestations of imitation is identification — a process in which a person borrows thoughts, feelings.

Albert Bandura’s theory proposes to explain the ways in which people acquire a variety of complex behaviors in a social environment.

The main idea of ​​the theory has found expression in the concept of observational learning or learning through observation.

Basic Concepts

Bandura speaks of the presence of a reciprocal (from Latin reciprocus — returning, reverse, mutual) connection between behavior, subjective and environmental variables. We are not set in motion only by internal forces, we are also not pawns in a game dictated by the prevailing set of circumstances. We are influenced, but we also influence our environment.

Learning in humans is largely determined by the processes of modeling, observation, and imitation.

Much human learning occurs without the traditional reinforcement required by the principles of operant and classical conditioning. People can learn in the absence of both reward and punishment. This does not mean, however, that reinforcement is irrelevant. In fact, once a behavior is learned, reinforcement begins to play an important role in determining whether a given behavior will occur. Learning by observation is neither permanent nor automatic. Whether such learning occurs in a given situation is influenced by numerous factors. These factors include the model’s age and competence. A person’s level of motivation can also improve or degrade modeling, imitation, and observation. People observe and subsequently master a wide variety of social reactions, such as aggression, sexual behavior, ways of emotional response, and much more.

cognitive accent

In his interpretation of the phenomena of observational learning, Bandura proceeds from the widespread use by people of symbolic representations of events in the environment. Without recognition of such symbolic activity, it is extremely difficult to explain the incredible flexibility of human behavior. He formulates the thesis that changes in behavior caused by classical and instrumental conditioning, as well as extinction and punishment, are actively mediated by cognitions. Self-regulatory processes also play an important role in human behavior: people regulate their behavior by visualizing its consequences. The formation of links between stimulus and response is influenced by these self-control processes.

Walter Mischel continued the line of emphasis on cognitive factors in his analysis of a number of cognitive variables of social learning in humans. He argues that people differ with respect to several subjective variables, and it is these differences that give rise to the wide variety of individual characteristics that can be observed in others.

These include:

• Various types of competence. They are sets of abilities that influence our thoughts and actions.
• People differ in their coding strategies, in the sense that they represent or symbolize environmental stimulation in different ways.
• Expectations or subjective probabilities, reflecting the degree of likelihood that certain behaviors or events lead to certain outcomes.
• Subjective Values: People differ in the price they place on different outcomes.
• There are systems and plans for self-regulation: behavior is regulated based on individually set standards.

Behavior change

Bandura’s work has played an extremely important role in the development of new approaches to therapeutic intervention. The most notable here was the use of modeling procedures in order to form new cognitive and behavioral competence.

The roots of learning by observation can be traced back to George Herbert Mead’s work on imitation and vocal gestures. The subsequent analysis of imitation by Neil Miller and John Dollard served as an important starting point for A. Bandura. O. Hobart Maurer’s work on sign learning and reward learning has also been a strong influence.