Richard Ramirez Social Learning Theory

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Richard Ramirez is without a doubt an individual who plays a role in the social learning theory. Although Ramirez acted alone in his crimes, there is no denying that his cousin’s wisdom and experience was a part of his mental processing. Miguel Ramirez, social learning, and Richard Ramirez are a trio that was inevitable and unavoidable. Richard Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas on February 29, 1960. He was the youngest of seven children born to Mercedes and Julian Ramirez. Ramirez, dubbed the Night Stalker, was an American serial killer. Although his criminal history was merely two years long, he brutally raped, tortured more than twenty women. He also killed more than a dozen women, most of which were killed in their own homes. It is also …show more content…

His father was not the best, and has also been accused of beating Ramirez and the rest of the family. The fact that his Green Beret cousin showed him horrid pictures from his time in Vietnam surly did not help the circumstances either. He learned from both “men” how to be a man, which ultimately ended up making him a psychotic serial killer. He was made into something that he may not have been had he not been seeking approval from these men. The social learning theory states that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. They learn from observing others’ behavior, attitudes, and the outcomes of those behaviors This theory is often referred to as a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation. Richard Ramirez is prime example of the social learning theory. He wanted respect from his cousin, and tried to gain it by modeling his behavior towards the crimes that he saw happening to women from the photos that his cousin showed him after he returned from Vietnam. Shortly after his cousin’s return, he started doing drugs and later turned violent. He heard stories from his cousin about how he brutally attacked women, and fed off his cousin’s body language while he told the stories of what he did to those