Bandura's Social Learning
Bandura's Social Learning
Albert Bandura showed that children learn a great deal simply by watching others, without any reinforcement of their own. In the Bobo doll experiment, children who saw an adult hit a doll copied the aggression when left alone. This is observational learning, and it makes the teacher a permanent model.
The four processes
- Attention — the learner must notice the model. Warm, powerful, similar and rewarded models attract attention.
- Retention — the behaviour must be stored as an image or in words.
- Reproduction — the learner must be physically able to perform it.
- Motivation or reinforcement — the learner must have a reason to perform it, often from seeing the model rewarded.
If any of the four is missing, imitation does not occur. A Class 3 child may attend and remember a skipping trick but be unable to reproduce it yet.
The Bobo doll experiment
Nursery children watched an adult punch and shout at an inflatable doll, then were left alone with the same doll. Those who had seen the aggression copied it closely, including the exact words. A second group that saw the adult punished for the aggression imitated far less, which proved that the consequences to the model, not to the child, changed the child's behaviour.
Vicarious reinforcement
Bandura's key addition is vicarious reinforcement — learning from consequences that happen to somebody else. When one child is praised for a well-kept notebook, thirty other notebooks improve. When a rule-breaker is never corrected, the rest learn that the rule is optional. The teacher reinforces the whole class every time she responds to one child.
Why the theory is called cognitive too
Bandura's is called social cognitive theory because the learner is not passive. Between the model and the imitation sits thinking: the child judges whether the behaviour is worth copying and whether he can do it. Bandura also gave self-efficacy — a person's belief in his own capacity to succeed at a task — which decides how long a child persists after the first failure.
- A teacher who reads for pleasure in front of the class produces readers.
- A teacher who is always punctual gets punctual monitors.
- A teacher who shouts at children produces children who shout at each other.
✗ Children learn only what is directly reinforced in them. | ✓ Children also learn by watching a model and seeing that model's consequences.
संकेत: प्रेक्षणात्मक अधिगम (observational learning) = देखकर सीखना; चार चरण — ध्यान, धारण, पुनरुत्पादन, अभिप्रेरणा।
Bandura is worth 1-2 questions. The commonest asks for the four steps in order, or names the Bobo doll experiment. The trap places 'reinforcement' as the first step; attention is first and motivation last. Another item tests vicarious reinforcement — recognise it as reinforcement received by watching someone else be rewarded. Note the labels carefully: social learning theory and social cognitive theory both belong to Bandura, while social constructivism belongs to Vygotsky.
Frequently asked questions
What are the four steps of observational learning?
Attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. The learner must notice the model, store the behaviour, be able to perform it, and have a reason to perform it. Missing any one step prevents imitation.
What is vicarious reinforcement?
Learning from the consequences that another person receives. A child who sees a classmate praised for helping is more likely to help, without ever having been rewarded for it himself.
What is self-efficacy and why does it matter in class?
Self-efficacy is a child's belief that he can succeed at a particular task. High self-efficacy makes a child attempt hard problems and persist after failure; low self-efficacy makes him give up before trying.
60-second recap
- Bandura: children learn by observing models, not only through direct reinforcement.
- Four processes: attention, retention, reproduction, motivation.
- Vicarious reinforcement — seeing another child rewarded changes your behaviour.
- Bobo doll experiment demonstrated imitation of observed aggression.
- Self-efficacy is belief in one's own capacity and decides persistence.