Stanley's Social Learning Theory

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.

aggression of Stanley (who is based on his father). His father- similar to Stanley- was very

Social learning theory, developed by Bandura, discusses how people learn from one another through observation, modeling, and imitation bridging an individual’s attention, memory and motivation. Social learning theory identifies the importance of cognition, observable behavior, individual self-efficacy, and the extent of how the events surrounding an individual affect them; their locus of control. Social learning theory also looks at individual problem behavior being influenced by positive or negative reinforcement (Ashford & LeCroy, 2012).

Stanley in the beginning of the novel was poor, overweight, and bullied. He was also shy and unlucky. When stanley was poor, it was because he was from a poor family so he had never been to camp before (pg.5, Sachar). He also was living in a tiny apartment (pg.9, Sachar). This quote shows that he had never been to camp before because he was poor. Also, living in a tiny apartment ment that he was poor so he couldn't afford a house. Stanley was also bullied and overweight because the kids at middle school would often tease him about his size (pg.7, Sachar). Furthermore,

Social Learning theory is a criminology theory established by Ronald Akers. Akers wrote “Deviant Behavior: A Social Learning Approach” to explain what he believed drove individuals to participate in deviant behavior. Social learning theory describes deviance as a learned behavior. When individuals witness others whom they have a close relationship with, such as friends and family, partake in deviant behavior they are likely to engage in the same activities. They begin to believe this behavior is normal and appropriate. These individuals will develop the same definitions for certain actions and adopt the habits of those within their primary group. When they participate in these actions, they may have more positive reactions than negative,

The first character trait Stanley shows is that he shows is kindness. He shows this by giving something he found in the hole he dug to X-Ray. “I think I might have found something.” said Stanley. “Instead of showing it to Zig-Zag, he gave the tube to X-Ray.” Stanley was being kind and letting X-Ray have the day off for “finding” what Stanley found. This was very kind because digging the holes in Camp Green Lake on very harsh in conditions was not easy at all. It was a very big deal to get the day off and he gave

When X-ray steals the golden lipstick tube, Stanley helps him get out of trouble and finds a way to get him more time off. Stanley most likely would have wanted it back so he could have had a full day off, but instead he gave x ray the idea to have a full day off instead of only half. He also figured out a way to get holes dug and teach Zero how to read, as well as that, he also got him and his friends out of trouble with the Warden. Instead, he got Mr Sir in trouble. That did not help him out at all because Mr Sir did not like him from then and he did not fill up his canteen or anything else. Stanley only learnt how to be different and have multiple qualities from being friends with Zero and going to the

Stanley is an aggressive man and uses force to control others. When he gets drunk, he can't control himself and lashes out against his own wife. He is naturally aggressive and a drunkard, so when those two traits combine it leads to

When Stanley got arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and was sent to camp greenlake. He never really talked to anyone and often got bullied. He never stood up for himself or anyone one else. At times he would see other kids get bullied and would walk past and watch it happen. He was not the best person and didn’t really have many friends.

Thus far in my development, while I have not gravitated to either extreme of Erikson’s stages, I did tend to fall on the negative side of the individual periods, an unfortunate pattern that would continue into adulthood. Using Maslow’s perspective of development, I fared just as poorly. Berger (2014) lists Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

Social Learning Theory was developed by Ronald Akers in 1997 which takes into consideration the operant psychology which relies on the positive and negative consequences that a behavior holds when an action is committed. Akers argues that a behavior will be repeated if a positive reinforcement is applied. In regards to digital piracy, individuals will engage in downloading illegally downloading movies if other individuals will appreciate the action by providing monetary rewards or personal satisfaction. On the contrary, if the behavior has negative consequences then the individual will less likely commit it . For example, if an individual wants to engage in illegally downloading a software program but if he or she knowns that there would be

Social Learning theory is one of the most widely researched theories because it attempts to explain the origins of criminal behavior. Albert Bandura was one of the pioneers of this approach. His main point was that criminals are not ‘born’ criminals; rather individuals learn to be criminals through a process of learning, which occurs as a result of experiences. (Akers, 1990:3). However, this paper’s focus is not on Bandura’s theory rather it is on Ronald Aker’s theory that explores which associations are more significant than others when it comes to deviant behavior. According to this theory, individuals, especially youth, who associates more with those who engage in deviant behavior are much more likely to commit a crime (Verrill, 2005:33). If social learning theory states that criminal behavior is learned then the ‘nothing works’ approach does not make sense because like everyone else, criminals also learn everything through punishment and rewards (Cullen & Gendreau, 2000). Meaning if they learned deviant behavior, then they could also learn lawful behavior with effective rehabilitative programming. Rehabilitative programs, such as Multisystemic therapy, which focuses on violent juvenile offenders and recognizes that individual’s association with others greatly impacts how that person will make deviant and non-deviant choices (Borduin et al., 1995).

Akers and Sellers (2013) has stated that social learning theory is an expanded theory of differential association processes and improves it with differential reinforcement and other principles of the behavior theory. They added classical conditioning (the sharpening of involuntary reflex behavior); discriminative stimuli (internal stimuli that lead to signals for behavior); schedules of reinforcement (rewards and punishment ratio following behavioral feedback); and other theories of behavior (Akers & Sellers, 2013).

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.

A year later, his father remarried a woman from “hell” and she was one of the reasons why Stanley became destructive. She was selfish and only cared for her and her seven children. She physically and emotionally abused Stanley by severely beating him many times and blaming him for senseless things. She also neglected him and his two other siblings while she gave her children the best of everything with Stanley’s father money. For example, his stepmother would save food and feed her own children and let Stanley and his siblings