Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura
Social Learning
Theory
ATTRACTIVENESS Status
Model Factors
REINFORCEMENT
External Reinforcement
Example:
If a child wants approval from
parents or peers, this approval
is an external reinforcement.
Internal Reinforcement
Example:
feeling happy about being
approved of is an internal
reinforcement. A child will
behave in a way which it believes
will earn approval because it
desires approval.
• Positive or negative reinforcement will have little impact if
the reinforcement offered externally does not match with
an individual's needs. Reinforcement can be positive or
negative, but the important factor is that it will usually lead
to a change in a person's behavior.
• Vicarious reinforcement- an example is when a younger
sister observing an older sister being rewarded for a
particular behavior is more likely to repeat that behavior
herself.
Identification
• Identification occurs with another person and involves taking
on or adopting observed behaviors, values, beliefs and
attitudes of the person with whom you are identifying.
The results of the experiment supported three of the four original predictions.
• Bandura and his colleagues had predicted that children in the non-aggressive
group would behave less aggressively than those in the control group. The
results indicated that while children of both genders in the non-aggressive
group did tend to exhibit less aggression than the control group, boys who
had observed an opposite-sex model behave non-aggressively were more
likely than those in the control group to engage in violence.
• Children exposed to the violent model tended to imitate the
exact behavior they had observed when the adult was no
longer present.
• Researchers were correct in their prediction that boys
would behave more aggressively than girls. Boys engaged in
more than twice as many acts of physical aggression than
the girls.
• There were important gender differences when it came to whether a
same-sex or opposite-sex model was observed. Boys who observed
adult males behaving violently were more influenced than those who
had observed female models behaving aggressively. Interestingly, the
experimenters found in same-sex aggressive groups, boys were more
likely to imitate physical acts of violence while girls were more likely to
imitate verbal aggression.
• According to Bandura, the violent behavior
of the adult models toward the dolls led
children to believe that such actions were
acceptable. He also suggested that as a
result, children may be more inclined to
respond to frustration with aggression in
the future.
In Conclusion
• In a follow-up study conducted in 1965, Bandura
found that while children were more likely to imitate
aggressive behavior if the adult model was rewarded
for his or her actions, they were far less likely to
imitate if they saw the adult model being punished
or reprimanded for their hostile behavior.
Significance of the theory to the Social
Work Context