Social Learning Theory

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Social Learning Theory
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Three Key Concepts

• Observational learning can be more than just
  mimicking
• Children are self-regulatory
• Triadic reciprocal causation provides a model for
  behavior change

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Self-Regulation

• By observing the consequences of behaviors,
  children regulate themselves
• By reward and punishment, also.

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Observational Learning

• Children learn to play games with complex rules
  by watching others play. They infer the rules
  and strategies

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Triadic reciprocal causation

• Person (P)
• Behavior (B)
• Environment (E)
• A person who behaves well may elicit positive
  responses
• Peer pressure, parental pressure
• Physical appearance

P
B
E
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Five Skills (as a child matures, she/he gets
better at these)

• Symbolization
• Vicarious learning
• Self-regulation
• Self-efficacy
• See the future consequences of present behaviors

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Self-efficacy

• How effective a child feels about her/him self
  determines the childs behavior
• If you think you are not good a something you
  might choose not to attempt something that
  requires it.
• A slight over estimation of ones effectiveness
  seems to be helpful.
• This one area that clearly speaks to teachers

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Vicarious Learning

• By observing what happens to someone else,
  children learn new behaviors.
• Someone is punished for doing something, so child
  learns, maybe, not to do that.
• Someone is rewarded for a certain behavior so

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Symbolization

• The ability to abstract from observations The
  model does such and such and the following occurs
  to if anyone does such and such the following is
  likely to occur.
• The ability to apply learning to new situations

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Four Components of Observational Learning

• Attention
• Retention
• Production
• Motivation

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Notes

• Children react negatively to hypocrisy
• Children do best if they slightly overestimate
  their efficacy
• Children are greatly influenced by models
• Girls model themselves after female role models
• Children of color need role models that look like
  them.

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Notes Continued

• Children learn to generalize from a model to be
  able to apply it or its behavior to other
  situations.

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Models and Symbols

• Models must capture a childs attention
• Child must be able to generalize the models
  behavior. (Convert it to symbols) (e.g.
  aggressive behavior)
• Children can deduce an abstract rule from a
  series of experiences. (past tense use ed at
  end) (Most kids learn the rules of a game by
  playing the game and experiencing the rules

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More on Models And Observation

• Demonstrate the appropriate behavior.
• Ask learner to mimic behavior
• Repeat the above two steps a few times
• Observe and praise or correct performance