Social Learning Say What?
Psychology, that’s one scary complex beast to look at, but the great thing about it is there is so many types of theories so that you can use to give you a different understanding when interpreting an issue. The theory that drew me the most in was Social Learning Theory also known as Social Cognitive Theory. The reason I choose this was I liked that fact it doesn’t consider individual personalities and puts a lot of emphasis on social context. Some people may view those things as a negative to me they are strengths since it is analyzing that’s that can be measured. What I find so great is it avoids blaming someone else for what’s wrong with me. So we are first going to take a look at who came up with this theory and his educational background. We will then move onto what experiments were done and how they went to help support the theory in order to be validated. Then we will finally look at it in the aspect of how it is used in criminology.
The Social Learning Theory was developed by Julian B. Rotter. Julian was born in October, in 1916 and died this month at the age of 97. Rotter attended Brooklyn College and attended seminars and meetings taught by Adler on the topic of Society of Individual Psychology. He furthered his education at the University of Iowa and minored in speech pathology. After finishing his degree he took an internship on clinical psychology at Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts. In 1939 Rotter began working on his Ph.D. in clinical psychology after finishing a predoctoral internship. He later severed the military in WWII and took a position at Ohio State University. This is where he developed his Social Learning Theory and published his book called Social Learning and Clini...
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...re only for adults. During the aggressive model scenario the adult would beat the Bobo doll. The non-aggressive model would then ignore the Bobo doll. The child was then denied the ability to play with the toys so that it got all mad. In the final stage the child was allowed to play with all the toys for 20 minutes.
Works Cited
• The Social Learning Theory of Julian B. Rotter. (n.d.). The Social Learning Theory of Julian B. Rotter. Retrieved January 28, 2014, from http://psych.fullerton.edu/jmearns/rotter.htm
• Bobo doll experiment (psychology). (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Retrieved January 29th, 2014, from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1567717/Bobo-doll-experiment
• Bandura, R. A. (n.d.). Transmission of aggression through the imitation of aggressive models. In Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology (Vol. 63, pp. 575-582).
A Comparison of Psychodynamic and Social Learning in Regards to the Development of Personality "No Works Cited"
Albert Henry Desalvo was born on September 3, 1931 in Chelsea, Massachusetts, to Frank Desalvo and Charlotte. Desalvo was the third of six children. Desalvo father was an aggressive, violent, alcoholic fisherman from Newfoundland, Canada. Desalvo father would brutally beat up his wife and children with fists, belts, and pipes. When Charlotte was out of the house, Desalvo father brought prostitutes home and had sexual intercourse with them in front of the children. He was arrested repeatedly for refusing to support his wife and children. At a young age, Desalvo father taught Albert how to shoplift and encouraged him to steal.
Children who were exposed to aggressive model later showed a substantial amount of the model’s physical and verbal aggression. The responses were almost identical to the original behavior. Children who were exposed to non-aggressive models or who had no exposure to any models, rarely produced such responses. The ways that children expressed their aggression in ways which clearly resembled the model’s novel behavior showed strong evidence of learning by imitation.
- - -. “Social-learning Theory:Observing and Imitating Models.” Human Development. 5th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 1992. 213-14. Print.
The idea of the social learning theory has been a recent finding, defying traditional and widely accepted beliefs among society. Social learning explores the idea that humans do not simply mimic what they see, despite the popular belief that humans act upon subconscious or conscious desire. It is understood that humans do not simply act on whim, but act in certain ways to gain attention, recognition, or praise for their actions, showing the resolve and ambitious nature of humans. This theory, having been proposed in the 1970’s by a Stanford professor Alfred Bandura, challenged the traditional thought and introduced a concept that...
Social learning theory was first developed by Robert L. Burgess and Ronald L Akers in 1966 (Social Learning theory, 2016). In 1973, Akers wrote a book entitled Deviant Behaviour: A Social Learning Approach, which discussed Aker’s conception of the social learning theory. He developed social learning theory by extending Sutherland’s theory of differential association (Cochran & Sellers, 2017). Social learning theory is based on the principles of Pavlov’s operant and classical conditioning. Akers believes that crime is like any other social behavior because it is learned through social interaction (Social Learning theory, 2016). Social learning theory states that the probability of an individual committing a crime or engaging in criminal behaviour is increased when they differentially associate with others who commit criminal behavior (Cochran & Sellers, 2017). Social learning theory is classified as a general theory of crime, and has been used to explain many types of criminal behaviour (Social Learning theory, 2016). Furthermore, social learning theory is one of the most tested contemporary theories of crime. There are four fundamental components of social learning theory; differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement and imitation (Social Learning theory,
Hollway, W. (2007) 'Social Psychology: Past and Present', in Hollway, W., Lucey, H. and Phoenix, A. (ed.) Social Psychology Matters, Milton Keynes: The Open University.
Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S.A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 575-582.
Two psychological theories used for explaining behavior are behaviorism and social learning theory. Although the two both deal with behavior, they focus on slightly unalike components in their efforts to explain why people act the way they do. Behaviorism and social learning theory have convincing sources of support so there is no well-defined response to which one does a superior job at explaining behavior.
The definition of the social learning theory is People learn through observing others’ behavior, attitudes, and outcomes of those behaviors. “Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” (Learning Theories Knowledgebase ). Most people learn through watching other. As a child, we learn by mocking what we have observed repeatedly. This is how we learn to walk, talk, speak, and to feed ourselves. We also learn social skills from the people around us. We learn right from wrong, we learn what is acceptable in our everyday lives. We also learn societal norms. Most children learn social norms from the family structure. If the family structure is broken or not complete it may cause problems for the children. If the family has only one parent then the family unit suffers. If the child is part of a family that has deviant problems then the child learns that these problems are the norm. This could lead to the child to think that drinking or drugs are normal. It is also a factor if the child observes crime in the family unit. The child learns that crime is normal until they run up against society who states otherwise.
To understand Aker’s social learning theory; one must understand that Aker’s theory is one of two theory’s that were created under the generic name. First of the theories were created and used in general application in psychology and developed by C. Ray Jeffery. The Jeffery theory was focused on operant based learning theories and relies heavily upon behavior psychology which integrates behavioral and cognitive learning experiences. According to our text, these behavioral theories in psychology reached their peak of popularity in the 1960s (Williams, et al, 2010, pp178).
There are many different definitions of aggression. Albert Bandura and his associated Dorothea and Sheila Ross researched the theory of whether children are more susceptible to acting aggressively if they see important people like parents or teachers act aggressively. There are three theories to explain why people are aggressive; biologically pre programmed to be aggressive because it is an evolutionary survival mechanism, repeated frustration or specific types of provocation, and that aggression is learned. Bandura in his “Bobo Doll Study” focused on the last theory by researching how children act when presented with an older aggressive person.
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).
Myers, D.G. (2010). Social Development . In D. Kasowitz ( Ed.) , Psychology (p. 200-201).
Shaffer, D. R. (2009). The Social Origins of early Competencies. In D. R. Shaffer, Social and Personality Development (p. 91). Wadsworth, Ca.: Cengage Learning.