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Samenvatting Describe one study relevant to social cognitive learning theory
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essay for sociology IGCSE
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Chapter 1 - Theory and Methods
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2.2 How do we learn to be human?
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2.1 What is the relationship between the individual and society?
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Describe one study relevant to social cognitive learning theory.The Social cognitive learning theory is a theoretical perspective in which learning by observing others
is the focus of study. The social cognitive theory assumes that people can learn through observing
others. The people learning can obtain new knowledge and behaviors by observing a model. Another
assumption the theory has would be vicarious reinforcement which means our tendency to repeat or
duplicate behaviors for which we would be rewarded for.
One study which is clearly relevant to the social cognitive learning would be Bandura’s experiment in
1961. Bandura’s study contained two aims; one was to see of children would copy the aggression
modeled by an adult and secondly is children were more prone to imitate the same sex models
rather than the opposite. The study was performed as an lab experiment and its independent
variables were the sex of the child, sex of the model and the behavior of the model while the
dependent variable was the actual behavior of the children. While the procedure of the experiment
was too divide a group of children into three groups (conditions) whereby one group were exposed
to adults showing verbal and physical aggression towards the bobo doll and the other group were
shown an adult who showed non-aggressive behaviors towards the bobo doll and a control group
was made whereby they were not exposed to any model. While some children watched specifically
same-sex models and some watched opposite sex-models. Then finally all three groups were left
alone within a room with the bobo doll and the researchers covertly observed the participants from
another room to see the children’s behaviors. The sample consisted of 36 boys and 36 girls all within
the ages of 3-6 years old. The groups were also specifically put into groups in regard to how violent
they were allowing an elimination of exciting levels of aggression.
The results showed that the children exposed to the adults/models showing more aggressive
behaviors also showed verbal and physical aggressive behaviors as predicted. This refers back to the
social cognitive learning theory as this experiment showed the children actually learning through
observing the model. While the results to the second aim Bandura observed that the girl were more
likely to copy the female model and were more likely to act out irrationally through verbal
aggression. While for the boys it was the exact opposite as they were more likely to copy a male and
act out physically towards the bobo doll.
The Bandura study is clearly relevant to the social cognitive learning theory as the children learnt
social behavior such as aggression through the process of observational learning. Therefore this
study has important implications for the effect media’s violence would have on children watching.
However the study did have low ecological validity therefore the situation between the model and
child is unrealistic as they both have no personal connection between each other. The amount of
children participating within this experiment was enough to see if there were any patterns within the
results allowing the study to be more valid however the children all were from the USA where by
these findings of the study may not account for all the different cultures within the world and
therefore may only be recognizable for the children living in the USA. These two limitations could
cause the study to be less valid and relevant too the social learning theory. However it does show a
type of cause and effect as the model did have an influence upon the children and a correlation of
the can be generally seen throughout the study as other extraneous variables have been controlled.
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