Albert Bandura's Observational Learning Theory

Behaviorists argue that people are not born with a violent disposition; rather they learn to think and act violently as a result of their everyday experiences (Bandura, 1977). Albert Bandura (1977) states behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning. This popular behavioral notion is known as the social learning theory. Bandura believes that humans are active information processors and think about the relationship between their behavior and its consequences. Studies of family life, for example, show that aggressive children often model the violent behaviors of their parents. In 1961, Bandura conducted the famous bobo doll experiment in which children observed the people around them behaving in various ways. The experiment involved exposing children to two different adult models; an aggressive model and a non-aggressive one. After observing the adults and their aggressive or non-aggressive behavior, the children were later allowed to play in a room with the Bobo doll by themselves. When they played with the doll by themselves, alone in a room, they began to imitate the actions they had previously observed by the adults. The children who had observed the adults aggressively playing with the doll imitated a similar aggressive behavior while playing with the doll alone. Those who observed the

Throughout this course, we have explored a vast amount of theories, however, Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) has been the one that intrigued me the most. Bandura’s SLT “strongly emphasized the importance of observational learning and cognitive variables in explaining human behavior (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk 2017).” According to our readings Bandura agrees with the behaviorist learning theories of classical and operant conditioning, he proposes that the SLT is a result of both person and situation, which does not have the same effect from either component on their own (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk 2017). One of his most well-known studies involves a bobo doll. In which Bandura demonstrates that when someone observes violent behavior it increases the chances of violence of the spectator, and

Albert Bandura’s theory of observational learning states that an individual learns certain behaviors by observing and imitating other people. Matthew did this when he was playing with my 6 year old sister, Katie, my 6 year old cousin, Aifa, and his 5 year old neighbor, Jaiden. They were all in the toy room. When the three older kids wanted to play pretend kitchen, Matthew dropped the action figure he was playing with to try to join them. He was at first confused on what to do, but when he noticed Jaiden putting fake food on pans, he then

Albert Bandura’s Bobo the Doll Experiment was performed to solidify and add credence to his belief that all human behavior is learned through social imitation, rather than inherited through genetic influences. During the 1960s, many psychologists debated whether genetics or environmental factors, such as social learning, effected a child’s development. Bandura designed the Bobo Doll experiment to prove that children imitate behaviors set by role model’s. Bandura’s research hastened the evolution of the 20th century experimental psychology from pure behaviorism into what is now known as social cognitive learning (Artino, 2017).

In this experiment, children were first shown a video of an adult hitting, assaulting, punching and kicking the Bobo doll. Then they were brought into a room and left alone with nothing, no toys but a Bobo doll. Later, the children were seen to imitate the actions of the adult in the video, inflicting violence onto the doll. For observational learning to happen, there must be a motivation for people to perform the action. In this case, the children were left with no toys but the Bobo doll. Additionally, they must also observe the actions, retain the memory to be able to reproduce, imitate and repeat the actions carried out by the adult in the video.

There have always been people saying that violent movies and video games harm children and make them more susceptible to display violent behavior. According to Albert Bandura’s Study called the “Bobo Doll Experiment” this is true. Through this experiment and a few other’s Bandura came up with the Social Learning Theory. The Social Learning Theory is the theory that Bandura used to describe a way of learning through observation or direct instructions.

Before the children were left alone with the toy, one group of children ( Group A) watched an adult perform violent actions towards the doll. The other group of children (Group B) watched the adult perform nonviolent acts by ignoring the doll completely and playing with other toys.When the kids were left alone the ones that were in Group A were known to be aggressive towards the toy. The ones in Group B were seen to ignore the Bobo doll and instead play with the tinkertoys left in the lab setting. Bandura applied his steps of the observational learning process to this experiment. This is known because the children must have had to pay attention to act in the way they did towards the doll. Then they had to retain the information so they could recall it back to act on the Bobo doll. The kids had to imitate the violent or nonviolent actions and finally reinforcement was used because there was question of a consequence after the behavior occurred. Throughout life people of all ages engage in this observational

Albert Bandura Born 1925 social learning theorist accepts the principle of conditioning but believe there are other ways of learning such as learning by watching. Social learning theorists think that people also learn by observing others. This is called ‘observational learning’. Early years workers have seen children copy other children or adults. This is spontaneous children will naturally learn by copying rather than someone showing or teaching them. Research shows that children and young people can only copy something but not others. Cognition seems to play an important part in this as children need to be able to notice the activity and also be able to remember it fully. Bandura calls this ‘social cognitive theory’

The boy first saw the other boy whom we can assume was his brother or friend doing this behavior and then initiated the same behavior. Besides this, the young boy also showed characteristics of this theory in the beginning when he pointed at the carousel and said “horsee,” shortly after it was said after the other boy. Bandura’s theory stressed that one can acquire a wide range of behaviors and thoughts through observing others behaviors. In this case, one boy observed the other boy point at the carousel, say “horsee,” and repeated the same behavior. Similarly, while riding the carousel, the boy observed the other boy making clicking noises with his tongue and saying “neigh, neigh,” and repeated the same behavior. This can be classified as cognitive, observational learning. Bandura’s most recent model of learning and development, highlights three elements; behavior, the person/cognition, and the environment. An individual’s confidence, the fact that he can control his success is an example of the person factor. The strategies he uses are examples of cognitive factors. Behavior, cognitive and environmental factors are interactive. Behavior can influence cognitive and environmental factors and vice versa. In this observation, there is a link between person and cognitive

This observation was done in home setting were Maya was doing her daily morning activities. She dumped the clothes from the hamper on the floor and began to separate the clothes into light and dark colors. She picked up three or four articles of light clothing at a time and put them in the washer. She then moved all the dark clothes with her foot into the corner of the laundry room. She walked at a fast pace out of the laundry room to a storage closet and took out a vacuum. She took the vacuum to the master bedroom, set it by the door and went to make the bed. She first pulled off all of the pillows and blankets off on to the floor. She then fixed the fitted sheet and then the one on top of that. She went back and forth from one side to another

The teacher uses Bandura’s observational learning and modeling when she asks Lucy to be a helper in assisting the new student, Carlos. Lucy is responsible for teaching Carlos the rules and expectations in the classroom. Lucy mentions to Calos that when the class is working on an assignment, Mrs. Sims will walk around the classroom to ensure the students are working diligently (retention); if not, there will be a consequence (motivation). At one point, Carlos becomes distracted by a conversation the teacher is having with another student. When the conversation is over, Mrs. Sims begins walking around the room. As he looks around, he notices Lucy working hard (attention) which encourages Carlos to continue working (production). This is an example

So he was born on December 4, 1925 , and graduated with a degree in psychology from British Columbia in the year of 1949. He then received his PhD in clinical psychology from the Iowa University. In 1974, he served as a president of the American Psychological Association, and have also received the award of lifetime achievement in the field of psychology, and that happened in 2004.

Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory is a theory that includes development theories in order to understand how children learn. Bandura’s theory is based on how people can learn by observing others, how internal mental states influence people, and how learning something does not change one’s behavior every time. Bandura was able to find out that people learn by three observational models. The first model is the live model which includes observing how someone demonstrates the behavior, the verbal instruction model which learning occurs through auditory directions, and the symbolic model where modeling occurs through media sources such as internet, movies, and books.

Conducting research on social learning is all well and good, but Albert Bandura saw a way to put all he had learned to work. He recognized that not putting his new-found knowledge to use would result in nothing more than wasted time and research. So, Bandura began a crusade. However, his cause would not be the only favorable affect Social Learning Theory would inspire.

First, observational learning is where learners observe behaviors by others in order to start the learning process. Bandura’s second and third stages of social learning; imitation and behavior modeling, will occur if a person observes positive, desired outcomes in the first stage. If, for example, an instructor attends and observes a course in-world and is entertained, informed, and approves of the way students act, they are more likely to want to teach a course in-world themselves. They can then use the behavior they experienced to imitate and model other instructors’