SLA: All About Bobo Dolls (Albert Bandura 1961)

Social Learning Theory:
Albert Bandura of Stanford University first suggested the Social Learning Theory as a reaction against the passive conception of humans in behaviorism. (He believed that reducing behavior as "stimulus-response" was much too simplistic... he refers to himself as an adherent of social cognitivism.)

Social Learning Theory refers to the paradigm that suggests that society / culture passes on its norms to individuals within a group. Social Learning Theory assumes that humans learn behavior via observational learning - that people learn by watching models and imitating the model's behavior.

- The model can intentionally try to teach an agent how to behave. Examples: teachers, parents, priests 

- The model might not try to directly affect the agent. Examples: actors, media, television, passersby

The Social Learning Theory involves the following factors for an agent to be successful in imitating a model:

1. Attention: the model performing the act must catch the attention of the agent
2. Retention: the agent must be able to remember how the model was acting
3. Motor reproduction: the agent must be able to emulate what he observed from the model
4. Motivation: the agent must will to perform the observed act 

There are also factors that influence the agent's motivation to emulate the observed model:

1. Likeness: agents will feel more motivation to emulate a model if they feel alike it it
2. Consistency: agents are more likely to copy consistent behavior
3. Rewards / punishments: these will act as incentives / deterrents to copy a model (respectively)
4. Liking the model: the more an agent likes the model, the higher the chances are that the agent will emulate the model

- E X A M P L E -

Albert Bandura et al. 1961 - Bobo Doll Experiment

• Aim: To see whether children would imitate aggression that they observed modelled by at adult (Social Learning theory). Also, to see whether the gender-likeness of the model would influence the aggression in the children.
• Procedure: Children from the ages of 3-6 years old were used for this study. They were divided into groups depending on their level of aggression, classified by their teachers and their parents. One group of children observed a video of an adult repeatedly beating a Bobo doll.
  A second group of children simply saw a video of an adult assembling toys in a room.
  A third group saw no video (control group)
  *In groups 1 and 2, some children saw same-sex models while others saw different gendered models.
  After watching the video, the children were placed in a room with toys and told the toys were for different children. They were then taken to another room with a Bobo doll. 
• Results: Group 1 (that observed the aggressive model) was the most aggressive group. They expressed physical and verbal aggression. Female subjects were more prone to exercise verbal aggression while male subjects exercised physical aggression. They displayed signs of observational learning.
  When the boys saw the female models in the video hitting the Bobo doll, they exclaimed: "Hey! Girls shouldn't act like that!"... thus the agents / subjects were more prone to emulate same-sex models.
• Evaluation:
  

CLA: Further Evaluation of Principles

• Principles in the cognitive level of analysis:

1. Human beings are information processors -- mental processes guide behavior:
   - The mind can be viewed as a complex machine, like an intelligent, information processing computer. The brain is the hardware, while the mental processing that takes place in the brain is the software. Mental processing is performed in order to make sense of the world. There are ways in which people can make mistakes when they process information, such as by the influence of schemata. (Schemata are mental frameworks developed by previous experiences that influence the way future events and situations are perceived.) In addition, the mind is able to fabricate completely false memories, which can often make our mental processes fallible.
   According to the cognitive level of analysis, information input to the mind occurs via bottom-up processing -- from the sensory systems of the organism to the mind.
2. The mind can be studied scientifically, with the use of developing theories and scientific technology / scientific research methods: New theories that are often developed in the cognitive level of analysis can serve as an amendment for old theories, or can disprove old theories as false. This principle of the cognitive level of analysis is debatable because the research of scientific research methods in studying human behavior means that the studies often lack ecological validity. Cognition should be studied both in the laboratory environment as well as in a daily context.
3. Cognitive processes are influenced by both social and cultural factors: Frederic Bartlett (the cognitive psychologist known for coining the term "schema" with his 1932 experiment, War of the Ghosts) was the first to suggest this principle. He observed the effect of cultural cognitive frameworks on memory (aka cultural schemata on memory) and found that the memories were greatly influenced by the subjects' already-possessed frameworks of thinking. He found that people had problems remembering details from stories that are from different cultures. Bartlett demonstrated in his research that memory is not like a tape-recorder, simply recording what is"there", but is a reconstructive process. The reconstructing of memory for recall is why memory has the tendency to be distorted.