Albert Bandura 's Social Learning Theory

The fundamentals of the social learning theory significantly describe offenders and their criminal behavior which is learned based on observation and imitation. A researcher by the name of Albert Bandura along with coworkers tested the social learning theory with several experiments on children and their imitation of aggression based on what they saw and were exposed to. Bandura’s focus was to prove that human behavior such as aggression is learned through social imitations and copying the actions of others. Walters (1966) gives details about the Bobo doll experiment and explains its purpose related to learning a violent behavior based on observation. In the experiment, the tested subjects were children of both sexes, ranging from the ages of three to six years. Some of the children were exposed to a non-aggressive adult, while the other children were placed in a room with an aggressive adult who would both physically and verbally attack the Bobo doll. The control group in the experiment was not exposed to any adult. During the second phase of the experiment, the children were left in a room by themselves with the toys, and watched to see if they would demonstrate the aggressive behavior like that of which they observed adults doing earlier. Walter (1966) describes the results as “children who had been exposed to an aggressive model showed more imitative physical and verbal

Modeling, according to Bandura, was a form of observational learning. Observational learning is learning through watching. According to Bandura, social behavior is passed down from each generation, in all societies. Behavioral patterns are usually observed by the younger age group and help a child develop. If the role model of the younger child is aggressive, it is more than likely the child will grow up with aggressive tendencies. The concept of modeling being a predisposing risk factor for aggression can be seen through Bandura’s BOBO doll study. Bandura and his research team escorted 4-year-olds into a play area with toys. While the experimental group of kids was playing with the toys, an adult entered the room and started acting violent with the BOBO doll, knocking it down, kicking and punching it, and shouting vulgarities at the doll. Later on, when the children were playing alone with the BOBO doll, they started to have aggressive tendencies, yelling at the BOBO doll and punching and kicking it violently, mocking the actions modeled by the adult previously. This experiment clearly showed Bandura’s hypothesis of modeling being a prompting risk factor for aggression. The children who are very impressionable at a young age and therefore imitated the adult, believing that the aggressive action was the correct action. This shows that a model

It is known that crime is caused through imitation, arousal and desensitising. The social Learning theory (2009), looks at how people engage in crime due to their associations. It explains that a person’s behaviour is a product of the people who surround ourselves – people imitate those who people admire. Theorist Bandura (1997) had completed an experiment in which looked at

The concept of differential reinforcement in social learning theory states that people commit crimes because certain delinquent behaviour is reinforced to encourage officers to do bad things (Maskaly 2015:208). For example, in the police subculture, police officers are positively reinforced to act dangerously, risky and aggressively to prove their masculinity (Maskaly 2015:210). This type of behaviour can lead to criminal behaviour among police officers. The concept of imitation in social learning theory states that people are more likely to commit criminal acts if they observe more criminal acts as opposed to model behaviour (Maskaly 2015:208). Social learning theory states that imitation of delinquent police behaviour happens when rookie officers are being trained by seasoned officers. This is because the training officers are evaluating the rookie officers and if the rookie officers do not copy the training officers behaviour, then they might receive a bad evaluation (Maskaly 2015:211). Therefore, these rookie officers learn to imitate a training officers negative or criminal

The main concept is that people learn by observing how others act and what they do. It explains how people learn new behaviors, values, and attitudes. It is fulfilled with four main concepts such as, differential association, differential reinforcement, imitation and definitions. Differential association, explains that criminal and bad behavior is learned and processed through close contact with people who have poor norms and values and who participate in bad behavior. In addition, differential reinforcement is where things are began to be reinforced with an appropriate response or in ways people wish to strive in and applying it to all of their hardships while crushing all negative parts of it.

Albert Bandura is a psychologist who states that behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning. He believes that humans are “active information processors” and connects their behavior and consequences. He didn 't believe that direct reinforcement could lead to any type of learning. Instead, his theory stated that learning occurs simply by observing the actions of others. Children observe any influential models such as parents, teachers, siblings and peers around them. which connects to his theory about how a child is more likely to imitate those people it perceives as similar to itself like those of the same sex.

Albert Bandura’s social learning theory expresses that people learn best by viewing others. Positive reinforcement such as praise or financial reward encourages repeat behavior while negative reinforcement such as punishment or monetary fines discourages it. Because of such, when training new employees, modeling is the best form of demonstration. The training demands are best suited when observing an experienced employee and then model his or her behavior. This cost-effective method takes place right in the workplace environment.

I believe that intrinsic factors play an equal role in the outcome of both the interest profiler and work value assessment results. Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory influenced my idea of this possibility. I learned from him that intrinsic and external factors play an important role in shaping an individual. Bandura identifies that our environment alone does not produce causation, but instead personal factors we experience is what has a significant affect on it (Bandura, 1999). Personal factors are unique to us and are correlated to age, gender, race, and even religious beliefs. The way we act, think, and respond is created by a combination of both intrinsic and external forces. It is these forces that guide our decision-making process that helps create our personality and interest. Bandura refers to the combination of environment, intrinsic, and external factors as multicausality (Bandura, 1999). As I looked more closely at how each individual intrinsic factor affects our personality, I found a study conducted by researchers with Michigan State University that further identified how age specifically influences our personality traits. The researchers found that there is a slight change of personality from emerging adulthood to adulthood. (Hopwood, et al. 2011). Which added to a past study conducted by Erick Erickson. Erickson identified a shift of values through his research on the generativity-versus-stagnation stage. He stated that our career interest will shift

Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory describes the process through which people acquire new info, forms of behavior, or attitudes from others firsthand or vicariously. The likelihood of a behavior presenting itself will rely on the amount of reinforcement it receives and the value that the individual associates to it. While some behavior may be rewarded, others may produce unfavorable responses. An individual will learn from the consequences of these actions and when a similar situation arises, they will alter their behavior according to what was most successful in the past.

Based on Bandura’s social learning theory, human development is continuous. This concludes that people are constantly changing, developing, gathering skills, watching and performing. Using Ben as an example, he gradually learned certain things in the ESL classroom. As I previously mentioned, writing was very difficult for him upon arriving to the U.S. Ben first learned how to hold a pencil properly, overserving from others and pictures that we provided to him, then he learned how to write his ABC’s, next he learned how to spell his name, and lastly proceeded to form words and write out short paragraphs independently. This demonstrates a smooth process, which Ben had to perform before attempting to write short papers in class.

Albert Bandura 's (1986) theory of social learning emphasizes the role of learning by observing and imitating models and allows us to understand aggression. Bandura identified four steps by which this learning occurs: “the first is simply that a particular type of behavior of a model catches our attention. Second, we store a mental image of such behavior in memory. Thirdly, a particular kind of situation leads us to convert that memorized behavior into action; And finally, if the behavior is reinforced, it becomes part of our repertoire”. (Bandura 1986) p.198).

Bandura was a firm believer of social learning. Social learning is learning that takes place in a social context, and can occur just by observation or direct instruction, even in the absence of direct reinforcement and motor reproduction. Bandura, along with fellow colleagues, conducted the bobo doll experiment, in 1961 to 1963 to figure out why children act out aggressively. In this experiment, they noticed that the children will act violently after seeing an adult hitting the bobo doll. This is a direct effect of social learning.

In Theories of Development, William Crain (2005) describes a study Bandura conducted in 1965. Four-year-olds were individually shown a movie with one of three endings. In all three, the model beat up a Bobo doll. In the first, the model was praised and rewarded for doing this. In the second, the model was reprimanded and punished for his actions. And in the third, the model was neither rewarded nor punished. The children were put in a room with a Bobo doll. Those who had seen the first and third versions of the movie imitated the model many more instances that those who had seen the second version. This indicates that while seeing a model punished will make an activity less desirable, and seeing a model rewarded will made it more desirable, seeing the model neither punished nor rewarded will make the activity just as

According to the approach from ‘Albert Bandura 1992’ the learning experiences acquired as an individual when growing up will determine their personality. Looking upon behaviour, if it is reinforced it will be produced more often and behaviour that is punished will occur less often. For example, a child who is punished for behaving unnecessarily is positively reinforced for being polite instead, therefore the aggressive behaviour will gradually stop as the positive behaviour increases. The views of Bandura suggest individuals develop a sense of self by imitating others, as well as direct reinforcement or punishment. Albert Bandura took into consideration that behaviour is learnt through observation. His evidence in his study on children, which was pursued to see if they would copy modelled behaviour. It was believed that if a person copies someone’s actions of who they perceive as a role model and see the outcome as positive or negative, they will imitate that person’s specific behaviour. (Bilingham,

Differential association theory enables the prediction crime and an understand the cause of criminal behaviour. The Thomas Antwi Bosiakoh in Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning defines it as “a process by which individuals come to have differential access to criminal values through interaction with other people” In summary it suggests that delinquent behaviour is learned thought interaction with other pro-criminal people. Initially DAT was presented by Sutherland in 1939, however in 1947 it was revised, consisting of nine outlining principles. These include: criminal behaviour is learned, criminal behaviour is learned in interactions with other people, criminal behaviour occurs in an intimate group, criminal learnings include techniques and motives, motives are learned from definitions of legal codes as favourable or unfavourable, a person is a criminal because of excess of of definitions favourable to the violation of law over definitions unfavourable to the violation of law, differential association varies, the processes of learning criminal behaviour is the same mechanism as learning any other processes and both criminal and noncriminal behaviours are expression of the same needs and value. These outlining principles form the bases of the theory. DAT has remained one of the most influential theories in understanding the impact of group behaviour and the formation of criminal behaviour.