{"id":670,"date":"2016-10-03T11:11:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T11:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/101psych.com\/2016\/10\/03\/criminology-social-learning-theory\/"},"modified":"2016-10-03T11:11:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T11:11:45","slug":"criminology-social-learning-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2016\/10\/03\/criminology-social-learning-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminology: Social Learning Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social Learning Theory<\/p>\n

Children that grow up in violent households might be more prone to violence not only because of the physiological effects of the trauma that may have altered their brain and\/or cognitive development, they may have also learned<\/em> to be violent from watching their parents. Stanford Psychologist Albert Bandura proposed the Social Learning in the 1960s…<\/p>\n

Key Theory: Social Learning Theory<\/u><\/p>\n

Background Information<\/p>\n

In the 1960s and 1970s, Social Psychologist Albert Bandura devised a theory of learning called Social Learning Theory. As the name suggests, Bandura\u2019s theory was a theory that explained how humans learn.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no coincidence that it was during this time TV watching the United States was becoming more and more popular. Prior to the 1960s TVs were no in many households but as this changed TV exec\u2019s rapidly realized the potential market in children. Animated shows (The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Road Runner, Looney Tunes, etc.) became very popular with children. But these shows were also blamed for causing children to act violently.<\/p>\n

Episode 9 of Season 2 of The Simpsons<\/em> deals with this issue as Marge campaigns against the makers of \u201cItchy and Scratchy\u201d after she realizes Maggie is learning all sorts of violent acts from this show (including hitting Homer over the head with a mallet). It\u2019s worth a watch if you haven\u2019t seen it.<\/p>\n

What is Social Learning Theory (SLT)<\/p>\n

According to Bandura\u2019s theory, learning happens through:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Direct <\/em>experience\/s of the learner<\/li>\n
  2. Observing the behaviour of others (modelling<\/em>)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For the purposes of applying Bandura\u2019s theory to an explanation of how the media can cause violence we will only focus on the role of learning through the observation of a model (b).<\/p>\n

    Learning Through Modelling <\/u><\/p>\n

    SLT is often over-simplified in its understanding and people think that just by watching someone else there is a chance that the behaviour will be copied and thus, learned. This is not the case. There are a few factors that increase the likelihood that the viewer will a) copy the behaviour and b) continue to copy the behavior (i.e. \u201clearn\u201d something).<\/p>\n

    Here are the four processes that SLT claims influence the likelihood that observation of a model\u2019s behaviour will result in learning:<\/p>\n