KIN354 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Social Learning Theory, Albert Bandura, Social Cognitive Theory
3 – Social Learning Theories
- Individual has characteristics or features that cause them to act on the environment in certain ways
o They act on the environment
- Social perspective believes that people are a function of social function that infringe upon them
o They don’t have agency; they act on what is told to them
- Social cognitive perspective: Interaction between environmental forces and internal disposition
o Always draws from interactionist perspective
Origins of Social Learning Theories
Theories/Models
- Theories are generally explanatory frameworks that cover many phenomena
o General
o Applies to all types of concepts
- Models serve to explain specific phenomena (i.e. exercise)
o Often a visual representation
o Application of a theory to a specific phenomenon
o Can help us answer specific questions
▪ E.g. why do older adults have difficulty maintaining a regular schedule of exercise?
▪ Why do children of obese parents exercise less than those of non-obese parents?
Social Learning Theories
- Macro level of construction that does not explain a particular behaviour but acts as a model for any presented
behaviour
Major Proponents
Albert Bandura
- Albert Bandura is a famous Canadian social psychologist
o Voted the 3rd most influential psychologist of the century
o Born in a small town in Alberta which influenced his work in personality theory
o Few resources in the town but dedicated teachers
o Bandura’s interest in social learning theory, goal-persuasion came from school
o Teachers were good at fostering a sense of confidence in their students which fields their desire to
pursue their goals
- Primary theoretical contribution was social learning theory
o Later renamed Social Cognitive Theory
Theoretical Orientation
- Known as “anti-Freud”
o Anti-intrapsychic
o Anti-deterministic
o Anti-sexual-symbolic (e.g. phallic symbols)
- In the psychoanalytic period, people were driven to think about Freud’s theories
Why do people do things?
- If it is not dark impulses and drives, why do people do things?
- E.g. why do people exercise?
o Why does an individual perform well during a competition vs. another person doesn’t?
o How do we build confidence in junior athletes?
Drives
- Freud was big on these particular drives
o Sexual drives
o Aggression drives
- Maslow suggested a more complex situation
o Hierarchy of needs
o There may be sexual and aggressive drives but they also have basic needs and when those basic needs
are not being met, it gets replaced with another
o Some basic needs are more important than others (e.g. safety vs. intellectual achievement)
- Despite hierarchy, we have some basic drives to do things (hunger, belonging, rest, reproductive) that
sometimes generate motivation from the inside out
Behavioural Contingencies
- But the environment can also cause behaviour
o Reinforcements
o Punishments
▪ Primary determinants of behaviour suggested by Skinner
- All exist in the environment and can motivate behaviors from the outside in
A Non-Skinnerian Idea
- But what about beliefs? Do we see contingencies that aren’t there, or see them as being stronger than they
actually are?
o Beliefs are internal structures that allow us to see contingencies that may not be there and they
motivate behaviour
- This motivated the social cognitive movement, which saw us as active interpreters of the world
o Not only subject to desires and reinforcements.
o Our internal construction of the world and imagined contingencies
Expectancy
⎯ If I do X, Y will happen
o Estimation of a probability of a set of outcomes, based on the action considered
⎯ Expectancies are not a construct in the prior theories of personality
o Specific to social learning theories
Document Summary
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