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Social Learning Theory

Decent Essays

Social learning theory is also important when looking at Ruth and how she shaped who she was. Social learning theory is learning that occurs when someone observes, retains and replicates the behaviors that they observed someone else doing. Albert Bandura is the individual who is most typically associated with this theory and implemented studies in the area. There are two important ideas of this theory which are first, that “mediating processes occur between stimuli and responses” (Bandura, 1961). The second important aspect of his theory is that “behavior is learned from the environment through process of observational learning” (Bandura, 1961). The overall meaning of this theory is that people pick up behaviors from others and make them into their own. …show more content…

Due to this style of living she was able to identify with the hardships of her black neighbors. She is able to resist her fathers prejudices and sympathize with the black people of her town. She also recognized the Ku Klux Klan and the white population had a tense, aggressive and violence attitude towards the black people in the community. She was very aware of the racism that was happening in the South and she was able to empathize and relate to the black people of her community which shaped her personality. She states “You know death was always around Suffolk, always around. It was always so hot, and everyone was so polite, and everything was all surface but underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off” (McBride, p. 60). This made her have a distaste for the South because of how they hid the tension behind smiles which is why she moved away from the South and only visited for brief amount of time when she had

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