Leonard and Blane, Ch. 4 : Social Learning Theory
(SLT)
• SLT is a general theory of behavior, one approach to
understanding human behavior, its major constructs and principles are
far reaching and expressed in broad terms.
• SLT is an approach that synthesizes principles of learning
with those of cognitive psychology. It is a systematic effort to
explain how the social and personal competencies that are often
referred to as "personality" develop from the social context in which
such learning occurs.
• SLT is an integrated statement about human nature that departs
significantly from the psychoanalytic and associative learning views
prevalent in American psychology in that era. SLT does not view
humans as impelled from within by psychological (e. g., traits,
unconscious drives) or biological drives. Similarly, behaviors was
not viewed as controlled only by the external environment
• SLT is a collection of theories that have in common an
emphasis on learning from the social learning environment that is
both direct (by personal experience of differential reinforcement)
and indirect (by modeling of others), and on cognition as major
determinants of behavior.
• SLT: "human functioning...involves interrelated control
systems in which behavior is determined by external stimulus events,
by internal processing systems and regulatory codes, and by
reinforcing response-feedback systems" (Bandura, 1969, p. 19)
• One implication of this view is that the same general
principles of learning can be applied to enhance understanding of
alcohol (or drug) use at any point along the quantity-frequency
continuum.
SLT: Four Major Principles or Constructs
Differential Reinforcement
Vicarious learning
Cognitive processes
Reciprocal determinism
Differential Reinforcement
The application of consequences for a behavior dependent on
stimulus conditions (the setting or context). In SLT, the principle
is used to help to explain variability in the same person's behavior
in different settings; this principle explains the role of
differential consequences of a behavior dependent on the setting in
which the behavior occurs; Differential consequences may also occur
vicariously or be self-administered
Vicarious learning or modeling
Humans may acquire new behaviors through observation of others, or
through communication by symbolic means such as spoken or written
language
Virtually all that can be learned through direct experience can be
learned vicariously
Cognitive processes
SLT views cognition as mediating environmental events and
behaviors. Cognitive processes such as encoding, organizing, and
retrieving information regulate behavior. Environmental events
provide the individual with information that is cognitively
processed, and the results of that processing determine the overt
behavior that will follow. Expectancies (probable consequences) are a
major piece of information obtained from the environment.
Accordingly, the expectancies of behavioral outcomes that are
acquired from the environment play an important part in guiding later
behavior, as individuals typically behave to access sources of
reinforcement in the environment
By ‘78 and ‘86, SLT emphasized the importance of cognitive
processes, especially, self-regulatory, in managing and coping with
environmental stressors; as a result people are able to exert a
degree of control over their own behavior.
Proposition of behavior being subject to self regulatory mechanism
set the stage for the idea of self-efficacy.
Reciprocal determinism (Triadic reciprocity)
behavior may be controlled by the environment, but that behavior
may also alter or control the environment
the person, the environment, and behavior are seen as interlocking
determinants of one another; reciprocal causality
Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy concerns the individual's beliefs regarding the
likelihood that they can enact behaviors at a level required to
result in desired outcomes. Self-efficacy expectancies are
distinguished from outcome expectancies in that the latter refer to
beliefs about behavior-consequence probabilities, independent of
whether the individual believes he or she can enact the relevant
behavior.
Self-efficacy expectancies are situation specific and are
hypothesized to mediate environmental or cognitive events and
behavior.
Four Sources of Self-Efficacy Expectancies
performance accomplishment
vicarious experience
verbal persuasion
emotional arousal
Forethought capability
most human behavior is planned; viewed as a product of reflection
and not of mechanical mediation b/t environment and behavior
Self-reflective capability
ability to have thoughts about own thoughts; individuals can
monitor their own ideas, make predictions from them, and change their
ideas based on evaluation of their adequacy or accuracy. Crucial to
this principle is the idea of the ability make judgments of
self-efficacy
Summary
• Human behavior is learned from the social environment.
• Traditional concepts of learning are enhanced by principles of
vicarious learning, and together provide mechanisms for the
transmission of information from the environment that the individual
processes cognitively. This cognitive processing in turn results in
the formulation of hypotheses about environmental consequences that
direct the individual's actions in a given situation. As a behavior
becomes established, it becomes increasingly under the control of
internal standards and self-evaluation, relative to control by the
external environment. Moreover, the person (primarily cognition), the
environment, and behavior are interdependent and influence each other
(triadic reciprocity) in the course of acquisition and maintenance of
behavior.
• SLT acknowledges the importance of distal factors but theory
gives little actual attention to their influences. The primary focus
is on situational (immediate context) and cognitive processes as
determinants of behavior.
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• Bandura's analysis of drinking behaviors emphasizes modeling
as a major source of the acquisition of drinking patterns and
ascribes an important role to negative reinforcement of alcohol use
through stress reduction as an etiologic agent of alcoholism.
However, the analysis is much broader, in that it argues for the
influence of coping skills and social resources as major determinants
of whether problem drinking patterns are changed, and if these
changes are maintained.
• Alcohol use, especially in its most severe forms, is largely
the result of the individual's efforts to handle challenges in the
social environment that may result in "stress".
End 2-16-01