Outline and Evluate the Social Learning Theory of Aggression

One social-psychological theory of aggression is the social-learning theory. BANDURA suggested that as well as being learnt through direct experience, aggressive behaviour can be learnt indirectly, through observation of others. If a person observes aggressive behaviour in a model, they may imitate their behaviour, especially if they identify with or admire the model.

The observer forms a mental representation of the event, including the consequences (rewards or punishments) of the models behaviour. Vicarious reinforcement is when the model is rewarded, and this will increase the chance of the behaviour being repeated. In this way, children learn appropriate and effective ways to use certain behaviours. When a person imitates the behaviour, they gain direct experience. The outcome of aggressive behaviour will influence the value of aggression for a child. When a child is rewarded for behaviour, this is direct reinforcement, and will make them more likely to repeat the behaviour. A child develops confidence in their ability to use aggressive behaviour successfully. If they are unsuccessful, they will have lower self-efficacy, so will be less confident that they can use aggression successfully, and will turn to other behaviours.

BANDURA claimed that in order for social learning to take place the child must form mental representations of events in their social environment. The child must also represent possible rewards and punishments for their aggressive behaviour in terms of expectancies of future outcomes. When appropriate opportunities arise in the future, the child will display the learned behaviour as long as the expectation of reward is greater than the expectation of punishment.

If a child is rewarded for a behaviour, he or she is likely to repeat the same action in similar situations in the future. A child who has a history of successfully bullying other children will therefore come to attach considerable value to aggression.

SLT is supported by BANDURA ET AL who found that children who observed a model behaving aggressively towards a Bobo doll were more likely to reproduce the same behaviours when they were later allowed to interact with the doll; the children even improvised their own aggressive actions towards the doll. This was particularly the case when they saw the adult rewarded for their aggressive behaviour, thus supporting the claim that the expectation of reward influences the likelihood of a behaviour being performed.

However, this study lacks validity because the children may have been aware of what was expected of them, leading to them displaying demand characteristics when they were allowed to play with the doll. The study also focuses on aggression toward a doll rather than real-life aggression, meaning the same results may not apply to other settings.

A strength of this theory is that it can explain context-dependent aggression. People behave differently in different situations because they are rewarded for aggressive behaviour in some situations but not in others. This means that SLT is able to predict whether aggressive behaviour is likely in a specific situation dependent on previous experiences.

Another strength of SLT over simpler learning theories is that it can also explain aggressive behaviour in the absence of direct reinforcement. For example in the children in the Bobo doll studies were never directly reinforced for their own aggressive behaviour; the concept of vicarious reinforcement is necessary to explain their actions.

SLT’s relevance can be demonstrated by its ability to explain aggression outside the context of the laboratory. PHILIPS found that murder and assaults rates in the US almost always increased in the week following a major televised boxing match, suggesting that viewers were imitating the aggressive behaviour they observed in the boxing.

A final strength of this theory of aggressive behaviour is that it can explain cultural differences in aggressive behaviour. For example, aggression among the Kung San people of Southern Africa is rare. According to SLT, this is because parents neither provide models for aggression (resulting in a lack of opportunities for observational learning), nor do they reward aggressive behaviour in children resulting in a lack of direct reinforcement.  As a result there is no motivation for children in this culture to act aggressively.

Ethical issues can  make SLT difficult to test experimentally, as it is considered unethical to expose children to aggressive behaviour with the knowledge that they may then imitate those acts in their own behaviour. Thus, many of the hypotheses that form a part of this theory of aggression cannot be subjected to experimental validation.

 A further problem with these studies is that they use a doll rather than a real person. However, BANDURA repeated the experiment using a film of a women beating a live clown, and when children were placed in a room with the live clown they imitated the aggressive behaviour. Another criticism is that they only studied short-term behaviour, so may not apply to behaviour weeks or years later.

 An advantage of the social learning theory is that it can be used to explain other types of behaviour in addition to aggression, e.g. eating disorders. Another strength is that it can also explain differences between individuals, e.g. cultural differences, and differences within individuals, e.g. when people behave differently in different situations, due to selective reinforcement and context-dependent learning.

 A limitation of the social learning theory is that doesn’t explain the impulse to be aggressive. Even after viewing aggression in a model, people only imitate it if they are frustrated or aroused. It is also reductionist, because it ignores other explanations for aggression, such as biological explanations, e.g. high testosterone.

Bandura consistently failed to distinguish between real aggression and playfighting, and it is likely that much of the aggressive behaviour observed by Bandura was only playfighting (DURKIN, 1995).

The social learning theory explains inconsistencies in aggressive behaviour. For example, if a person is aggressive at home but submissive at work, then according to the social learning theory, they have learnt that aggressive behaviour is only appropriate in certain situations.

JOHNSTON ET AL (1977) found that children who behaved aggressively after observing an adult model were identified by their peers and teachers as more violent in general, discrediting Bandura’s idea that aggressive behaviours are learnt as a result of observing an adult model.

Another strength of Bandura’s research is that observer bias was prevented as researchers were unaware during the child’s assessment at play which group they were from. Therefore their expectations could not influence their findings, making them more valid. A strength of Bandura’s ‘bobo doll’ study is that it was conducted in a laboratory. Therefore it has high reliability as researchers had complete control over the independent and dependent variable. It can therefore be repeated to achieve similar results.