Albert Bandura & Social Cognitive Theory

Albert Bandura:Albert Bandura:Social Cognitive TheorySocial Cognitive Theory

Presented by Presented by Jim KinneerJim KinneerMay 1, 2010May 1, 2010

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http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/banodds.html

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Early Life•Born in 1925 in a rural community in Alberta, Canada

•Parents were immigrants (Poland and Ukraine)

•Attended school in a eight room school house with modest resources

•Following high school worked a summer in the Alaskan Yukon which he credits for his interest psychopathology

Theorist•Early Life•Academic CareerTheory•Major Premises•Comm Media Application

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Academic Career•Undergraduate studies at University of British Columbia in Vancouver

•Masters (1951) and Phd (1952) at Iowa State University

•Completed Masters and PhD in three years

•Professor at Stanford University since 1953

•Author of over 300 scholarly publications

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Social Learning Theory•Miller and Dollard(1941) wrote a book entitled Social Learning and Imitation

•This was a movement forward because they discussed imitation

•However, they viewed imitation along traditional behavioristic principles

•Bandura intrigued by the idea by the assumptions that learning requires more powerful mode than trial and error.

•In 1960s, conducted research on modeling, vicarious learning and his version of Social Learning Theory resulted


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Social Cognitive Theory•Humans can learn by observing and modeling others, especially those that they identify with.

•Classic “Bobo Doll” studies demonstrated observational learning and impact on violent behavior in children.

•Bandura originally called this theory Observational Learning Theory or Social Learning Theory


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Bobo Doll ExperimentsTheorist•Early Life•Academic CareerTheory•Major Premises•Comm Media Application

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Bobo Study Key Findings

•After viewing adults strike and kick a Bobo doll, children would imitate the behavior in another environment

•Suggests that the violence could be imitated by viewers

•Results showed 88% of the children imitated aggressive behavior following the viewing of the tape of adults acting aggressively toward the doll

•8 months later 40% of the same children reproduced the violent behavior observed in the Bobo doll experiment


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Four Key Processes in Social Learning

•Attention

•Retention

•Reproduction

•Motivation


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Social Cognitive Theory

•In 1986, Bandura published a book entitled Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory

•Expanded Social Learning Theory into a fuller theory of human behavior not just learning

•Presented the triadic responsibility model


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Triadic Responsibility ModelTheorist•Early Life•Academic CareerTheory•Major Premises•Comm Media Application

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Communications Media Application

•Television violence and children

•Advertising

•Applied to violence in video games

•Being applied in developing nations to address social issues

•Applicable to virtual worlds


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References

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 575-582.

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Pajares, F. (2004). Albert Bandura: Biographical sketch. Retrieved April 16, 20010 from http://des.emory.edu/mfp/bandurabio.html

Zimmerman, B.J. and Schunk, D. H. (2003). Albert Bandura: The scholar and his contributions to educational psychology. In B.J. Zimmerman and D.H. Schunk (Eds.) Educational psychology: A century of contributions (pp. 431-450). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publisher.
