Albert Bandura Social Learning Theory Essay

Albert Bandura is the finder of the Social learning theory. In 1953 he accepted a teaching position at Stanford, there his research on the theory began. Bandura became famous because of his different way of thinking. Many behavioural learning theories state that behaviour is inherited through genetic factors. Bandura, on the contrary, found that people learn their behaviour through the observation of others. He founded this theory with the Bobo doll experiment. Three group of children watched a video of an adult bullying a doll. Every group watched a video with a different ending. In the first video the adult was rewarded for his behaviour, in the second he was punished and in the last video there were no consequences. After this he studied the difference between the reactions of the boys and the reaction of the girls. He also studied if the children copied the

Reproduction: We practice these rules in our world.

4. Motivation: in order to imitate behaviour, one must have some motivating factor behind it.

But Bandura also says individuals are able to control their behaviour through self-regulation. Self-regulation involves these steps:

1. Self-observation: Individuals study themselves and their own behaviour.

2. Judgement: Individuals compare these observations with the standards.

3. Self-response: If this individual does well compared to the standards, he can reward himself. If he does poorly compared to the standards he punishes himself

Self-regulation has been incorporated into lots of therapies, and has been very successful with for instance dealing with problems such as smoking.

Recent ideas

Even though it might not seem like it, the social learning theory is still very important in the present. It still is one of the most important studies in psychology. There have been even more studies on how seeing violence affects children’s behaviour. And with all this new technology, psychologist wonder how violence on television influences violence in real