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Learning Theory
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
Theory:

Bandura believes that people learn by watching the behaviour of others
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Aggression can be learned from watching others behave in an aggressive
manner
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: Learned aggressive skills
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Vicarious reinforcement- reinforcement that is
experienced through watching another person
being rewarded or punished for a behaviour
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Supporting
research:

Bandura carried out a series of tests involving a Bobo doll
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In the aggressive model, adults were seen to kick and pummel the doll and
also hit it with a mallet and throw it in the air
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How does this
theory explain
criminal
behaviour?

Children in the aggressive condition were much more likely to play aggressively with
the Bobo doll than both of the other two groups of children
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Bandura concluded that aggression can be learnt through imitation, by observing
aggressive models
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Observational learning: this is where viewers learn behaviour from, watching others by seeing
them rewarded or punished
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Evaluation of Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
A strength of Bandura’s study is that the experiment and variables, such as the
gender and actions of the model, were well balanced thus allowing greater
reliability
...
To that
effect, the study has been replicated with slight changes and similar results
have been found
...

A strength of Bandura’s social learning theory is that there is research
evidence to support
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Therefore such supporting research provides an element of validity to the
theory and shows how observational learning can explain criminality
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The concept that a
complete behaviour such as criminality can be reduced down to being
explained by observational learning could be breaking criminal behaviour
down too much, resulting in other relevant and applicable explanations not
being considered, therefore a more holistic approach in which serval factors
are considered may provide a more in depth, useful explanation
...
The children are exposed to aggression which
could have resulted in psychological harm therefore this limits the credibility
of the theory as an explanation of criminal behaviour
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When developing the superego, the child will internalise their sa

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