COGNITIVE APPROACH - Social Learning Theory (Bandura)
8 important questions on COGNITIVE APPROACH - Social Learning Theory (Bandura)
What are the cognitive factors in Social Learning Theory?
- Attention: Notice the model's behaviour, influenced by the model's attractiveness & authority.
- Retention: Must remember the behaviour that's been observed.
- Vicarious Reinforcement: Watching someone else imitating someone else and getting rewarded for a behaviour, making it more likely for observers to imitate the behaviour.
- Potential: To reproduce an observed behaviour, observers must be physically and/or mentally able to carry it out.
- Motivation: Learners must want to replicate the observed behaviour, understand potential outcomes.
What was a limitation of the study regarding the measurement of behavior?
What was the aim of Bandura’s Bobo doll study?
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What are the three conditions in the study?
- Aggressive model condition: child watched an adult act aggressively toward the Bobo doll.
- Non-aggressive model condition: child watched an adult play quietly and ignore the Bobo doll.
- No-model control condition: child did not watch any adult model.
Describe the method used in Bandura’s Bobo doll study.
- Laboratory experiment
- Controlled, standardized procedure
- Children were exposed to different model behaviours and then observed for aggression
How were the children grouped in addition to the conditions?
- Children were also split by:
- Same-sex model
- Opposite-sex model
What were the variables in Bandura’s Bobo doll study?
- Independent variable: Type of model behaviour
- aggressive model
- non-aggressive model
- no model
- Dependent variable: Child's aggressive behaviour toward the Bobo doll
What are some strengths of the study?
- High control, so cause and effect could be established.
- Standardized procedure, so the study was replicable.
- Strong support for Social Learning Theory.
- Useful real-world applications, such as understanding the effect of violent role models and media.
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