Albert Bandur The Father Of Social Learning Theory

Albert Bandura was born on December 4 1925. He has been responsible for contribution to many fields of psychology including social cognitive theory, therapy and personality psychology. He was also influential in the transition between behaviourism and cognitive psychology. Bandura is known as the father of social learning theory and self efficacy. He is also responsible for the 1961 Bobo Doll experiment.
According to Bandura, social learning theory approaches the explanation of human behaviour in terms of a continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioural and environmental determinants. Aronson in his Book, Social Psychology stated that “Social learning theory holds that we can learn social behaviour by observing others and imitating them. In Life Span Development, Santrock states “ that in Bandura’s early research he focused on observational learning better known as imitation or modeling which is learning that occurs through observing what others do.” An example of learning theory is a young child observing his father shaving in the morning and then after observing him a few times, he also imitates his father’s action.
Do we partake in social learning? From young we engage in social learning theory by observing what our parents and friends do sometimes for the good or bad. Children imitate everything they observe. This is one way children learn before they are actually placed in a formal learning setting. As we get older we still partake in social learning