Theorist -Albert Bandura

The Social Learning Theory

Margaret Delores Isom

November 30, 1998

Abstract

The social learning theory is the behavior theory most relevant to criminology. Albert
Bandura believed that aggression is learned through a process called behavior
modeling. He believed that individuals do not actually inherit violent tendencies, but
they modeled them after three principles (Bandura, 1976: p.204). Albert Bandura
argued that individuals, especially children learn aggressive reponses from observing
others, either personally or through the media and environment. He stated that many
individuals believed that aggression will produce reinforcements. These reinforcements
can formulate into reduction of tension, gaining financial rewards, or gaining the praise
of others, or building self-esteem (Siegel, 1992: p.171). In the Bobo doll experiment,
the children imitated the aggression of the adults because of the rewarded gained.
Albert Bandura was interested in child development. If aggression was diagnosed early
in children, Bandura believe that children would reframe from being adult criminals.
"Albert Bandura argued that aggression in children is influenced by the reinforcement
of family members, the media, and the environment"(Bandura, 1976: pp. 206-208).

Biographical Information

Albert Bandura was born in Mundare, Canada in 1925. He was raised in a small farming
community in Canada. Bandura received his B.A. degree from the University of the
British Columbia in 1949. In 1952, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.
During his studying at the University Iowa, he developed the social learning theory.
While studying at the University of Iowa, Bandura believed that psychologists should
"conceptualize clinical phenomena in ways that would make them amenable to
experimental tests"(Evans, 1976: p.243). Bandura believed that psychological research
should be conducted in a laboratory to control factors that determined behavior. In
1953, Albert Bandura accepted a position as a psychology professor at the University of
Stanford and he is currently employed there today.

Albert Bandura has achieved many honors and awards from fellow psychologists. In
1972, he received a distinguished achievement award from the American Psychological
Association and a Scientist Award from the California State Psychological Association. In
1974, Bandura was elected the president of the American Psychological Association. In
1977, he was known as the Father of the Cognitive Theory. In 1980, he was also elected
the president of the Western Psychological Association. In 1989, he was also employed
to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (Hilgard, 1989: pp.11).

During his lifetime, he has written several books and articles that have been widely
used in psychological research. In 1959, Bandura wrote his first book in collaboration
with Richard Walters called "Adolescent Aggression." In 1973, he wrote Aggression: A
Social Learning Analysis. Four years later, he published one his most prominent books
called the "Social Learning Theory." These books and articles are the most relevant
psychological research in determining aggression and deviance. In 1941, Dollard and
Miller published the book "Social Learning and Imitation. Albert Bandura stated that this
book was one of the contributions to development of his modeling theory (Evans, 1989:
p4). " I was attracted to Miller and Dollards work on the assumption that human
development requires a much more powerful mode of transmitting competencies than
does trail and error (Evans, 1989: p4). The Social Learning and Imitation theory
suggested that people obtain competencies and new modes of behavior through
response consequences. (Miller & Dollard, 1941: pp.26-42)

Albert Bandura believed aggression reinforced by family members was the most
prominent source of behavior modeling. He reports that children use the same
aggressive tactics that their parents illustrate when dealing with others (Bandura,
1976: p.206). While studying at Iowa, Bandura became strongly interested in
aggression in children (Bandura, 1977). In order to control aggression, Bandura stated
that the problem should be diagnosed and treated during ones childhood. "We should
not be subjecting people to treatments and then, some years later, trying to figure out
what effects they have. We should test treatments before we embark on widespread
applications (Evans,1989: p3.)." Children learn to act aggressive when they model their
behavior after violent acts of adults, especially family members. For example, the boy
who witness his father repeatedly strike his mother will more than likely become an
abusive parent and husband (Siegel, 1992: p. 170)

Albert Bandura is most famous for the Bobo doll experiment. Albert Bandura believed
that aggression must explain three aspects: First, how aggressive patterns of behavior
are developed; second, what provokes people to behave aggressively, and third, what
determines whether they are going to continue to resort to an aggressive behavior
pattern on future occasions (Evans, 1989: p.22). In this experiment, he had children
witness a model aggressively attacking a plastic clown called the Bobo doll. There
children would watch a video where a model would aggressively hit a doll and " ...the
model pummels it on the head with a mallet, hurls it down, sits on it and punches it on
the nose repeatedly, kick it across the room, flings it in the air, and bombards it with
balls...(Bandura, 1973: p.72). After the video, the children were placed in a room with
attractive toys, but they could not touch them. The process of retention had occurred.
Therefore, the children became angry and frustrated. Then the children were led to
another room where there were identical toys used in the Bobo video. The motivation
phase was in occurrence. Bandura and many other researchers founded that 88% of
the children imitated the aggressive behavior. Eight months later, 40% of the same
children reproduce the violent behavior observed in the Bobo doll experiment.

Observational learning is also known as imitation or modeling. In this process, learning

occurs when individuals observes and imitate others behavior. There are four
component processes influenced by the observers behavior following exposure to
models. These components include: attention; retention; motor reproduction; and
motivation (Bandura, 1977: pp.24-28).

Attention is the first component of observational learning. Individuals cannot learn

much by observation unless they perceive and attend to the significant features of the
modeled behavior. For example, children must attend to what the aggressor is doing
and saying in order to reproduce the models behavior (Allen & Santrock,1993: p.139)
In the Bobo doll experiment, the children witnessed the Bobo doll being verbally and/or
physically abused by live models and filmed models.

Retention is the next component. In order to reproduce the modeled behavior, the
individuals must code the information into long-term memory. Therefore, the
information will be retrieval. For example, a simple verbal description of what the
model performed would be a known as retention (Allen & Santrock, 1993: p139).
Memory is an important cognitive process that helps the observer code and retrieve
information. In the Bobo doll experiment, the children imitated the aggression they
witnessed in the video. They aggressively hit the Bobo doll because it was coded and
store in their memory.

Motor reproduction is another process in observational learning. The observer must be

able to reproduce the models behavior. The observer must learn and posses the
physical capabilities of the modeled behavior. An example of motor reproduction would
to be able to learn how to ski or ride a bike. Once a behavior is learned through
attention and retention, the observer must posses the physically capabilities to produce
the aggressive act. The children had the physically capabilities of hitting and
pummeling the doll to the ground.

The final process in observational learning is motivation or reinforcements. In this

process, the observer expects to receive positive reinforcements for the modeled
behavior. In the Bobo doll experiment, the children witnessed the adults being
rewarded for their aggression. Therefore, they performed the same act to achieve the
rewards. For example, most children witnessed violence on television being rewarded
by the media. Historically, bank robbers were heroes. Many people were highly upset
about the death of Bonnie and Clyde. When individuals, especially children witness this
type of media, they attend, code, retrieve, posses the motor capabilities and perform
the modeled behavior because of the positive reinforcement determined by the media
(Bootzin, Bowers, Crocker, 1991: 201-202). The Bobo doll experiment helped Bandura
to theorized that "As children continue to age, the experience still effected their
personality, turning them into violent adults.

Environmental experiences is a second influence of the social learning of violence in

children. Albert Bandura reported that individuals that live in high crime rates areas are
more likely to act violently than those who dwell in low-crime areas (Bandura, 1976:
p.207). This assumption is similar to Shaw and McKays theory of social disorganization.
They believed that a neighborhood surrounded by culture conflict, decay and
insufficient social organizations was a major cause of criminality (Bartollas, 1990:
pp.145).

Albert Bandura believed television was a source of behavior modeling. Today, films and
television shows illustrate violence graphically. Violence is often expressed as an
acceptable behavior, especially for heroes who have never be punished. Since
aggression is a prominent feature of many shows, children who have a high degree of
exposure to the media may exhibit a relatively high incidence of hostility themselves in
imitation of the aggression they have witnessed (Berkowitz, 1962: pp. 247). For
example, David Phillips reported homicide rates increase tremendously after a heavy
weight championship fight (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960). There have been a number of
deaths linked to violence on television. For example, John Hinckley attempted to
assassinate President Ronald Reagen after he watched the movie "Taxi Driver" fifteen
times. In the movie "Born Innocent," a girl was raped with a bottle by four other girls. In
1974, a similar incident happened to a Californias girl. The girls who raped her testified
in court that they had witness the same scene in "Born Innocent." In addition, Ronald
Zamora brutally killed an elderly woman and pleaded the insanity defense. His attorney
argued that Zamoras was addicted to the violence on television. As a result, he could
not differentiate between reality and fantasy. However, Zamora was founded guilty
because the jury did not believe his defense (Siegel, 1992: p.172).

Contemporary Views

Today, many social learning theorists have indicated that crime is a product of
learning the values and aggressive behaviors linked with criminality. Sutherland
developed the differential association theory that suggests that individuals
learn criminal behavior while in their adolescence from family members and
peers (Sutherland, 1939, pp25). In "Deviant Behavior: A Social Learning
Approach," Akers believed individuals learned aggressive acts through operant
condition (Akers, 1977). In this process, the aggression was acquired after
through direct conditioning and modeling others actions. He believed that
positive rewards and the avoidance of punishment reinforced aggression
(Akers, 1977). William Benson found that adolescents that watched excessive
amounts of television during their childhood became adult criminals. They
committed crimes, such as rape and assault, "at a rate 49% higher than
teenage boys who had watched below average quantities of television violence
(Centerwall, 1993: pp.70-71) Also, Banduras theory has made the public and
political affairs realize that violence does cause aggression in children. He has
spoken at a number of political conferences concerning the Bobo doll
experiment and the effects television has on children. Several political
candidates have indicated that violence on television does cause aggression.
President Clinton has implemented policies that would deter violence on
television.

Criticisms

The social learning theory advocates that individuals, especially children, imitate or
copy modeled behavior from personally observing others, the environment, and the
mass media. Biological theorists argue that the social learning theory completely
ignores individuals biological state. Also, they state that the social learning theory
rejects the differences of individuals due to genetic, brain, and learning differences
(Jeffery, 1985: p.238). For example, if a person witnessed a hanging or a violent
murder, he or she might respond in many different ways. "Biological theorists believed
that the responses would be normal and come from the autonomic nervous system. In
the autonomic nervous system, the heart rate, increase blood pressure, nausea, and
fainting would be normal symptoms of the responses that individuals might expressed
in this particular situation. Therefore, the symptoms and behavior are not learned, but
partially inherited. In addition, the social learning theory rejects the classical and
operant conditioning processes. The biological preparedness of the individual to learn
as well as the role of the brain in processing information from the social environment,
are critical to learning theory, but they are ignored by the social learning theory. Social
reinforcement is conditioned reinforcement based on the relationship of the
conditioned stimulus to an unconditioned stimulus" (Jeffery, 1985: p.239).

In the Bobo doll experiment, critics have argued that the children were manipulated
into responded to the aggressive movie. The children were teased and became
frustrated because they could not touch the toys. Many critics believed the experiment
conducted was unethical and morally wrong because the children were trained to be
aggressive. "How many more of the experiments finding a link between violence on
television and aggressive behavior have ethical problems? It is not surprising that the
children had long-term implications because of the methods imposed in this
experiment"(Worthman and Loftus, p.45)

There have been many debates over whether or not violence on television causes
aggressive behavior in children. Many studies have indicated that television does not
lead to aggressive behavior. For instances, psychologists have found that some
cartoons are very violent and cause children to illustrate aggressive behavior. However,
the general public believes that children view cartoons such as Elmer Fudd shooting the
rabbit as funny and humorous. It is the parents responsibility to inform their children
that the cartoons are not real.

Feshbach and R.D. Singer believed that television actually decreases the amount of
aggression in children (Feshbach: 1971). They conducted a study within a six-week
study on juvenile boys who regularly watched television violence compared to juvenile
boys who were exposed to non-violent shows. After the six-week period, Feshback and
R.D. Singer found out that the juvenile boys that viewed the non-violent shows were
more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior than the juvenile boys that witnessed the
violent shows. "The study show that the violence on television allows the viewer to
relate with the characters involved in the violent act (Feshback & Singer, 1971: p.247).
In doing so, the viewer is able to release all aggressive thoughts and feelings through
relation, causing them to be less aggressive than they would have been without
watching the violent television. This theory that viewing violence on television leads to
a decrease in aggression is called the Catharsis effect (Gerbner,G., Gross,L.,
Melody,W.H., pg.40).

Cooke believed that individuals tend to support the theory that television
violence causes aggression because the public needs to justify the aggression
they see in others. He also believed television was a form of education and
positive role models. "If violence in television causes people to be more
aggressive, than shouldnt the good-hearted qualities in television cause its
audience to be kinder to others (Cooke,1993, p.L19)? Therefore, television can
serve as deterrence if individuals focus on the positive qualities. Despite these
criticisms, Albert Bandura s Social Learning Theory has maintained an
important place in the study of aggression and criminal behavior. In order to
control aggression, he believed family members and the mass media should
provide positive role models for their children and the general public (Bandura,
1976).

References

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Akers, R., (1977). Deviant Behavior: A Social Learning Approach. Belmont Mass,
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Bandura, A., & Walters, R.H. (1959). Adolescent Aggression. Ronald Press: New York.
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Bandura, A. (1975). Social Learning & Personality Development: Holt, Rinehart &
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Francisco

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