Social Learning Theory

Learning through observation, imitation and modelling of another person or role model

  • People can learn through observation
  • Live Model: involves an actual individual demonstrating or acting out a behaviour
  • Verbal Instruction Model: descriptions and explanations of a behaviour
  • Symbolic Model: real/fictional characters displaying behaviours in media
  • Effective Role Models:
  • Same gender
  • Same age
  • Higher status
  • Admired and/or respected
  • Mental states are important to learning
  • Intrinsic Reinforcement: internal reward, such as pride, satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment
  • Learning does not necessarily lead to a change in behaviour
  • People can learn new information without demonstrating new behaviours
  • Cook and Mineka (1988) – found that reared Rhesus monkeys that initially displayed no fear of snakes, yet displayed alarm after watching anxious reactions from wild monkeys to snakes
  • If the model’s behaviour is punished it might not be imitated, if it is rewarded then it is more likely to be imitated
  • Pennington(1986) – three categories of variable that affect imitation:
  • Characteristics of the observer
  • Characteristics of the role model
  • Consequences of the behaviour for the role model

Vicarious Learning

  • Vicarious Reinforcement: learning via observing another person being rewarded for desirable behaviour
  • Vicarious Punishment: tendency not to repeat behaviours that we observe others being punished for performing
  • Vicarious Extinction: when you stop performing an action because you observe another person not being rewarded for it

The Modelling Process

  • Attention to the role model
  • Retention of the observed behaviour (encoding)
  • Reproduction of the target behaviour (imitation)
  • Motivation to imitate the observed behaviour