Changing the way you learn

Question	Answer
What did Bandura and Walters (1963) believe?	Aggression could not be explained using the traditional learning theory where only direct experience was seen as responsible for the acquisition of new behaviours.
What does the Social learning theory (SLT) suggest?	We also learn by observing others. We learn the specifics of aggressive behaviour (e.g. the form it takes, how often it is enacted, the situations that produce it and the targets towards which it is directed).
What is this not to suggest?	That biological factors are ignored.
What does a person's biological make-up create?	The potential for aggression and it is the actual expression of aggression that is learned.
How do children primarily learn their aggressive behaviour?	Through observation - watching the behaviour of role models and then imitating the behaviour.
What does Skinner's operant conditioning theory claim?	Learning takes place through direct reinforcement.
Whereas what does Bandura suggest?	Children can learn JUST by observing role models with whom they identify.
What do children also observe and learn about?	The consequences of aggressive behaviour by watching others either being reinforced of punished.
What is this called?	Indirect or vicarious reinforcement
Where do children witness examples of aggressive behaviour?	At home, at school, on the tv and in films.
What does a child learn by observing the consequences of aggressive behaviour for those who use it?	What is considered appropriate (and effective) conduct in the world around them.
Thus what do they learn?	The behaviours (through observation) and they also learn whether and when such behaviours are worth repeating (through vicarious reinforcement).
What did Bandura (1986) claim?	In order for social learning to take place, the child must form mental representations of events in their social environment.
What must the child also do?	Represent possible rewards and punishments for their aggressive behaviour in terms of expectancies of future outcomes.
What will the child do when appropriate opportunities arise in the future?	Display the learned behaviour as long as the expectation of reward is greater than the expectation of punishment.
Production of behaviour comes from maintenance through direct experience. What will happen if a child is rewarded (gets what he wants or praised by others)?	They are more likely to repeat the same action in similar situations in the future.
What will a child who has a history of successfully bullying other children come to do?	Attach considerable value to aggression.
In addition to forming expectancies of the likely outcomes of their aggression, what have children also developed?	Confidence in their ability to carry out necessary aggressive actions.
What do children who have not been very good at carrying out aggressive actions in the past have?	Have less confidence (lower sense of self-efficacy) in their ability to use aggression successfully resolve conflicts, and therefore may turn to other means.
Where did research support for the predictions of the SLT come from?	A series of studies by Bandura et al.
What did the first experiment (1961) involve?	Children observing aggressive and non-aggressive adult models and then being tested for imitative learning in the absence of the model.
Who were the participants?	Male and female children ages 3-5.
What was the first step in the experiment?	Half were exposed to adult models acting aggressively with a life-sized inflatable Bobo doll and half were exposed to models that were non-aggressive towards the doll.
What did the aggressive model display?	Distinctive physically aggressive acts towards to the doll e.g. striking it on the head with the mallet and kicking it about the room, accompanied by verbal aggression such as 'POW'.
What happened following the exposure to the model?	Children were frustrated by being shown attractive toys which they were not allowed to play with.
Where were they then taken?	To a room where among toys there was a Bobo doll.
What did the children in the aggressive condition do?	Reproduced a great deal of physically and verbally aggressive behaviour resembling that of the model.
What did children in the non-aggressive condition do?	They displayed virtually no aggression towards the doll.
What did approximately one third of the children in the aggressive condition do?	Repeat the model's verbal responses whilst none of the non-aggressive group made such remarks.
Was there a gender difference in the imitation of aggressive behaviour?	Boys reproduced more imitative physical aggression than girls but they did not differ in their imitation of verbal aggression.
Although this study tells us that children do acquire aggressive responses as a result of watching others, what does it not tell us?	Why children would be motivated to perform the same behaviours in the absence of the model.
What did Bandura and Walters' find in a later study (1963)?	Children who saw the model being rewarded for aggressive behaviour showed a high level of aggression in their own play. Those who saw the model punished showed low level of aggression while those in the no reward/punishment control group were somewhere in between these levels.
What did Bandura call this type of learning?	Vicarious learning as the children were learning about the likely consequences of actions and then adjusting their subsequent behaviour accordingly.
Is there a validity issue with Bandura's studies?	Demand characteristics - it is possible that the children know what is expected of them.
What does Noble (1975) report that supports this validity issue?	One child arriving at the lab said 'Look mummy, there's the doll we have to hit.'
Is there ecological validity?	The studies focus on aggression towards a doll (that can't hit back) as opposed to humans (who tend to hit back).
What did Bandura do in response to this criticism?	A film of a young women beating up a live clown. When the children went into the other room, there was a live clown. They proceeded to punch, kick and hit him with hammers and so on.
What is research support for the role of punishment? Did the children in group 2 of Bandura's study show low levels of aggression because the punishment prevented learning or did the punishment prevent performance of behaviour?	Bandura (1965) repeated the study but now after exposure to the model, offered rewards to all the children performing the model's aggressive behaviours.
In this case, what happened?	All three groups performed a similar number of imitative acts.
What does this show?	Learning takes place regardless of reinforcements but that production of behaviours is related to selective reinforcements.
The studies have applied to children but does SLT explain adult behaviour as well?	Phillips (1986) found that faily homicide rates in the US almost always increased in the week following a major boxing match.
What does this suggest?	Viewers were imitating behaviour they watched and that social learning is evident in adults as well as children.
What is a major strength of the SLT?	Unlike the operant conditioning theory, it can explain aggressive behaviour in the absence of direct reinforcement. Although Bandura's participants were behaved more aggressively after observing an aggressive model, at no point were they directly rewarded for any action. Consequently the concept of vicarious learning is necessary to explain these findings.
What is a second strength of this theory?	It can explain differences in aggressive and non-aggressive behaviour both between and within individuals.
What does the 'culture of violence' theory (Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1967) propose?	In large societies, some subcultures develop norms that sanction violence to a greater degree than the dominant culture.
What may some cultures emphasise and model?	Non-aggressive behaviour, producing individuals that show low levels of aggression.
Among the !Kung San of the Kalahari Desert, aggression is rare, why is this the case?	Child rearing practices. When two children argue or fight, parents neither reward nor punish them, but physically separate them and try to distract their attention onto other things. Secondly parents don't use physical punishment and aggressive postures are no used by adults and devalued by society as a whole. The absence of direct reinforcement and aggressive models means there is little opportunity or motivation for !Kung San children to acquire aggressive behaviours.
What can differences within individuals be related to?	Selective reinforcement and context-dependent learning. People respond differently in different situations because they have observed that aggression is rewarded in some situations and not others i.e. they learn behaviours that are appropriate to particular contexts.
Are there ethical issues?	Exposing children to aggressive behaviour with the knowledge that they may reproduce it in their own behaviour raises ethical issues concerning the need to protect participants from physical and psychological harm.
What does that mean as a result of these ethical issues?	Experiments such as the Bobo doll study are no longer allowed to be carried out. Meaning that it is different to test experimental hypotheses about the social learning of aggressive behaviour and consequently difficult to establish the scientific credibility of the theory by this means.

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	Created by chloe.brandon almost 9 years ago