The Critique Of Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory

1349 Words3 Pages

Albert Bandura was a pioneer in Social Learning Theory. It includes the concepts of traditional learning theory and the operant conditioning of B. F. Skinner. Bandura believed that behavior is learned from the environment through Observational Learning and mediating processes between stimuli & responses. This paper deliberates an article by Joan E. Grusec She offers an evaluation of Social Learning Theory from a historical perspective by concentrating on Bandura’s research and theory in the 1960s and 1970s. This paper takes into account Skinner’s radical behaviorism and Bandura’s concepts of modeling. Grusec emphasizes that Bandura’s focus was not on age-related changes in behavior, but in the processes of behavior acquisition and change. Grusec concentrated on Bandura’s social learning in the aspect of “Observational Learning, Self-Regulation, Self-efficacy and Reciprocal Determination. I will concentrate on the basic concept of Observational Learning and the four mediational processes proposed by Bandura: The social learning tactic takes thought processes into account and accepts the role they play in deciding if a behavior is to be imitated or not. As such, Social Learning Theory provides a more complete explanation of human learning by identifying …show more content…

If a child wants support from parents, this approval is an external reinforcement, but feeling happy about being approved of is an internal reinforcement. A child will behave and continue performing this type of behavior because he believes it will make parents happy and earn their approval. He wants positive approval.. Positive or negative reinforcement has to modify the behavior parents want to see more of and it has to match the desire of the child, because it can have little impact if the reinforcement offered externally does not match with the child’s needs. The important factor is that it will usually lead to a change in an individual

Open Document