Albert Bandura

Born on December 4, 1925 in a small town called Mundare in northern Alberta, Canada (50 miles east of Edmonton).

He was the youngest and only boy of six children.

Bandura graduated in 1949 from the University of British Columbia.

It took him three years to graduate.

While employed at Stanford, Bandura met the renowned psychologist Robert Sears who was exploring the familial antecedents of social behavior and learning and aggression in collaboration with Richard Walters.

This research led to a program of laboratory research into observational learning.

This led Bandura to write his first book, entitled Adolescent Aggression.

His early work on learning was grounded in the behavioral principles of reinforcement and punishment, but he added a focus on learning from observing others.

This was labeled Social Learning Theory.

Later on, Bandura focused on cognitive factors such as beliefs, self-perceptions, and expectations, his theory is now called Social Cognitive Theory.

Social Cognitive Theory expands social learning theory to include cognitive factors.

Does the violence that children observe on television, movies, and video games lead them to behave aggressively?

This is a hot question today, but it was also of great interest years ago when Bandura led an experiment to determine how kids learn aggression through observation.

Stop & Think

In a famous and influential experiment known as the Bobo doll experiment, Albert Bandura and his colleagues were able to demonstrate one of the ways in which children learn aggression.

The experiment involved exposing children to two different adult models; an aggressive model and a non-aggressive one.

After witnessing the adult's behavior, the children would then be placed in a room without the model and were observed to see if they would imitate the behavior they had witnessed earlier.

The participants for the experiment were 36 boys and 36 girls enrolled at the Stanford University Nursery School. The children ranged in age between 3 and almost 6 years, and the average participant age was 4 years 4 months.

There were a total of eight experimental groups. Out of these participants, 24 were assigned to a control group that received no treatment. The rest of the children were then divided into two groups of 24 participants each. One of the experimental groups was then exposed to aggressive models, while the other 24 children were exposed to non-aggressive models.

Finally, these groups were divided again into groups of boys and girls. Each of these groups was then divided so that half of the participants were exposed to a same-sex adult model and the other half was exposed to an opposite-sex adult model.

Before conducting the experiment, Bandura also assessed the children's existing levels of aggression. Groups were then matched equally so that they had an average level of aggression.

Children exposed to the violent model tended to imitate the exact behavior they had observed when the adult was no longer present.

Bandura and his colleagues had also predicted that children in the non-aggressive group would behave less aggressively than those in the control group.

The researchers were also correct in their prediction that boys would behave more aggressively than girls. Boys engaged in more than twice as many acts of aggression than the girls.

Boys who observed an adult male behaving violently were more influenced than those who had observed a female model behavior aggressively.

Interestingly, the experimenters found in the same-sex aggressive groups, boys were more likely to imitate physical acts of violence while girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression.

Bandura and his colleagues believed that the experiment demonstrates how specific behaviors can be learned through observation and imitation.

In a follow-up study conducted in 1965, Bandura found that children were more likely to imitate aggressive behavior if the adult model was rewarded for his or her actions

They were far less likely to imitate if they saw the adult model being punished or reprimanded for their hostile behavior.

Several studies involving television commercials and videos containing violent scenes have supported this theory of modeling.

Albert Bandura believed television was a source of behavior modeling.

Enactive Learning

is learning by doing and experiencing the consequences of your actions.

Vicarious Learning

is learning by observing others.

if people can learn by watching, they must be focusing their attention, constructing images, remembering, analyzing, and making decisions that affect learning.

Human beings have specific abilities related to learning that sets them apart from other species.

Social cognitive theory states that there are three characteristics that are unique to humans: Vicarious consequences

(Model and imitate others)

Self–efficacy (self reflection)

Performance standards and moral conduct (Ability to regulate one’s own behavior)

1. Attention In order to learn through observation, we have

to pay attention. In teaching, you will have to ensure students’

attention to the critical features of the lesson by making clear presentations and highlighting important points.

2. Retention In order to imitate the behavior of a model, you

have to remember it. Retention can be improved by mental

rehearsal or by actual practice.

3. Production Once we “know” how a behavior should look and remember

the elements or steps, we still may not perform it smoothly. In the production phase, practice makes the behavior

smoother and more expert.

4. Motivation and Reinforcement We may acquire a new skill or behavior through observation,

but we may not perform that behavior until there is some motivation or incentive to do so.

If we anticipate being reinforced for imitating the actions of a model, we may be more motivated to pay attention, remember, and reproduce the behaviors.

1. Direct Reinforcement2. Vicarious Reinforcement – the observer may

simply see others reinforced for a particular behavior and then increase his or her production of that behavior.

3. Self-Reinforcement – or controlling your own reinforcers.

This reinforcement is important for both students and teachers.

We want our students to improve not because it leads to external rewards, but because the students value and enjoy their growing competence.

If one goal of education is to produce people who are capable of educating themselves, then students must learn to manage their own lives, set their own goals, and provide their own reinforcement.

In adult life, rewards are sometimes vague and goals often take a long time to reach. Think about how many baby steps are required to complete an education.

Life is filled with tasks that call for self-management (Rachlin, 2000).

Students may be involved in any or all of the steps in implementing a basic behavior change program.

Self- Management –use of behavioral learning principles to change your own behavior.

Steps: 1 --Goal Setting

2 --Monitoring and Evaluating Progress (assignments completed, time spent practicing a skill, number of books read, etc.) --One key to accurate self-evaluation seems to be for the teacher to periodically check students’ assessments

--Self-correction can accompany self-evaluation. 3 --Self-Reinforcement

Importance: Self-ManagementImplications

At times, families can be enlisted to help their children develop self-management abilities.

Working together, teachers and parents can focus on a few goals and, at the same time , support the growing independence of the students.

You have been assigned to an emotionally disturbed student. She seemed fine at first, but now you notice, she often interrupts or teases other students. How would you work with this student and the class to improve the situation?

Albert Bandura. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2003 from the Francis Marion University website: www.fmarion.edu/~personality/exper/bandura.htm

Albert Bandura. (n.d.). Retrieved September 18, 2003 from the Minot State University website: http://www.misu.nodak.edu/psych/Burke/book/bandura.htm

Albert Bandura: Biographical Sketch. (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2003 from the Emory University website: http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/bandurabio.html

Boeree, C. G. (1998). Personality Theories: Albert Bandura. Retrieved September 12, 2003 from the Shippenberg University of Pennsylvania website: http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/bandura.html

Isom, M. D. (1998, November 30). The Social Learning Theory. Retrieved September 18, 2003 from the Florida State University, Department of Criminology website: http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/bandura.htm

Moore, A. (n.d.). Albert Bandura. Retrieved September 18, 2003 from the Muskingum College website: http://fates.cns.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/bandura.htm

Peebles, V.R. (2003, March 28). Social Learning Theory Presentation. Retrieved October 6, 2003 from the University of Toronto at Mississauga website: http://home.utm.utoronto.ca/~valeriep/outline.html

Woolfolk, A. (2008). Educational Psychology Active Learning Edition