Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

People learn new behaviours, which leads to a change of behaviour, from the observation and then imitation of other people.

However, this might not be exclusively limited to the observation and imitation of humans, as other animals may be used as the subject source where a particular imitation is required.

The majority of learning takes place within a social context, being influenced by the environment in which the observation occurs, personal factors such as prior knowledge and experience of the individual or situation, as well as the individual’s motivation, and behavioural choices which may influence the environment in which the observation is made. He referred to these influences and their interactions as reciprocal determinism.

There are four key elements within Bandura’s observational learning:
1. Attention: Paying attention to something that is of interest to the learner.
2. Retention: Being able to remember what was observed; using techniques to store in memory for later use.
3. Reproduction: Being able to demonstrate and recall what was observed into a tangible action.
4. Motivation: Having the desire and interest to perform the observation.