BANDUR

A’S
SOCIAL
LEARNIN
G
THEORY
Background of the Theorist
• born December 4, 1925 in Mundare, Alberta, Canada,
• Canadian-born American psychologist and originator of
social learning theory
• a former president of the American Psychological Association (1974)
• probably best known for his modeling study on aggresion, referred to
as the “Bobo doll” experiment, which demonstrated that children can
learn behaviors through the observation of adults.
Social Learning Theory
• Continuous interaction between personal characteristics,
behavior, and environment
Personal Characteristics

Environment Behavior
Social Learning Theory
• Learning through observing others
• Learners don’t need direct experience
• People learn behaviors through the observation of others then
impersonate what they observe
• Imitations of ROLE MODEL
• Internal Processing
• Learner is viewed as central
• Considerable learning – taking note of other people’s behavior and
what happens to them
2 CONCEPTS IN SOCIAL LEARNING
THEORY

1.ROLE MODELING

2.VICARIOUS REINFORCEMENT
ROLE MODELING
• Central concept of social learning theory
• e.g. More experienced nurses can serve as mentors/role models to
less experienced colleague
• Role models need to be:
• Enthusiastic
• Professionally organized
• Caring
• Self-confident
• Knowledgable
• Skilled
• Good communicator
VICARIOUS REINFORCEMENT
• Concept of reward and punishment
• Reward is not always necessary
• Rewards to a role model or learner could encourage learners to
imitate the role model
• Reward or punishment have a direct influence on learning

• e.g. Geriatric care(caring for aged people) has lower salary than
compared to other field
4 COGNITIVE PRINCPLES
• Self-regulation and control
controlling one’s behavior, emotions, and/or thoughts
Exerted during the process of acquiring knowledge and changing behavior

MOTIVATIONAL
PHASE
REPRODUCTION
PHASE
RETENTION
PHASE
ATTENTIONAL
PHASE
ATTENTIONAL PHASE
• observing the role model
• People learn from a model when they recognize and pay attention to
its critical features
• Attention getter is needed
Examples of attention getter:
Nurse – an experienced and skilled nurse
Teacher-pupil – placards
• Where vicarious reinforcement is used
• If the role model got a reward or at least performed a good job, then the
learner will then proceed to imitating him/her
RETENTION PHASE
• remembering and storing in mind what the learner saw from the role
model

REPRODUCTION PHASE
• Learner imitates or copy the actions of the model if it was good
otherwise not

MOTIVATIONAL PHASE
• Motivated to exhibit the modeled behavior if positive incentives or
rewards are provided
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
• A social cognition orientation
• Social cognition – how people process, store, and apply information about
other people and social situations
• Bandera focused on socio-cultural influences
• Learners – agent through which learning experiences are filtered
• Human mind is not just reactive but also generative, creative, and
reflective
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
• Bandura stresses that personal selection, intentionality, self
regulation, self-efficacy, and self-evaluation is important in the
learning process
• Personal selection – you personally select what to copy and what to
avoid
• Intentionality – having a goal
• Self-regulation – control one’s behavior, emotion, and thoughts
• Self-efficacy – individual’s belief in his/her capacity to execute
behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
• Responsibility is placed on the educator or leader to act as an
exemplary role model and to choose socially healthy experiences for
individuals to observe and repeat
• Simple exposure to role models correctly performing a behavior that
is rewarded does not ensure learning
• A major difficulty with applying social learning theory in practice is
that this theory is complex and not easily operationalized, measured,
and assessed.