The Theories Of Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory

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Maria is a teacher by profession; she is also a mother of three. One day her five year old daughter Samantha was seen playing doll house. Samantha used terms, slangs and expressions that Maria her mom is famously known for. Maria was surprised that her five year old was paying such close attention to her. This story gives truth to the famous saying “children live what they learn” this is so according to the theory Social Learning fathered by the Canadian – American Psychologist Albert Bandura. Unlike other theories that support the belief that behaviours are inherited, Social learning theory believes that individuals learn from their environment and from each other through imitation, observation and modeling. In a quest to prove this Bandura conducted an experiment in1961 known as the Bobo doll experiment. He had four hypotheses 1.Children witnessing an adult role model behaving in an overly aggressive manner would be likely to replicate similar behavior themselves, even if the adult was not present. 2. Subjects who had observed a non-aggressive adult would be the least likely to show violent tendencies, even if the adult was not present. They would be even less likely to exhibit this type of aggression than the control group of children, who had seen no role model at all. 3.Children would be much more likely to copy the …show more content…

Each child is unique and thus his or her thought process may differ from another. Hence the children who attacked the Bobo doll could see it as a normal acceptable way of behaving; especially that object was not harmed or was incapable of feeling pain. In their minds it could just be seen as just a simply doll. In the same breath those who did not respond aggressively could be as a result that they thought about the actions and made the decision not to carry out the

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