How do we learn to live and become a part of a society?
It happens through observation, imitation, and modeling and is explained by Social Learning Theory (SLT), which has fundamentally changed the understanding of human behavior and learning processes.
This theory emphasizes the significance of cognitive processes such as attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. Let's enrich our knowledge of social learning by exploring its definition and history, reviewing examples and practical applications of how it works and its key factors, and illustrating its benefits in educational and organizational settings.
What is Social Learning Theory?
Social learning is a concept through which people, either automatically or instinctively, find their place in this world throughout their lives. The theory of social learning was pioneered by psychologist Albert Bandura and then studied by other experts. According to it, people observe one another to adapt their behaviors to a social context, i.e., the environment, and internal processes like attitudes, emotions, and critical thinking affect our social-emotional learning. This concept is fundamental for designing our perception of gender roles, religion, political views, and self-esteem.
History of Social Learning Theory
Over the years, many experts have tried to study the human brain to understand how we actually learn things. In the 1930s, Piaget analyzed children’s learning ability; later in the 50s, Bloom offered his taxonomy approach based on increasing difficulty; the 60s brought forward Gagne’s 5 conditions. While other behavioral theories of learning suggest that all learning is the result of associations formed by conditioning, reinforcement, and punishment, social learning theory states that learning can also occur simply by observing the actions of others. Through his groundbreaking Bobo doll experiment in the 1960s, the author of SLT Albert Bandura demonstrated that children could learn aggressive behaviors simply by observing adults acting aggressively toward a doll.
Social learning theory is the key element in criminology to explain the reasons for criminal or abnormal behavior. Through social learning, we learn more about psychological and mental conditions, addictions, or causes that drive us forward to perform certain actions or express the desire to participate, for instance, in viral challenges.
How Social Learning Theory Works
Whether in educational or professional settings, we become a part of social learning either intentionally or without conscious awareness. We obtain new skills and strengthen our experiences through cohort-based learning or otherwise during our student years and further in our career journey. Below are some examples of how social learning works.
People Can Learn Through Observation
A key principle of Social Learning Theory is that individuals can acquire new behaviors by observation. This is not necessarily limited to watching only, it involves hearing and reading instructions (like when listening to a podcast and reading the commands or steps of a manual). Notwithstanding the benefit of observational learning, this theory has strengthened the fear of many parents regarding the negative impact of abundant video content on the behavior of their children. YouTube tutorials, DIY reels, or food-making shorts are all examples of social learning in everyday life.
Mental States Are Important to Learning
Not only external sources can affect our learning and behavior. The way we get motivated or how we set our minds to learning plays a crucial role. Mental states influence both the process of learning and the outcome, in other words, pride, satisfaction, and a sense of determination are the internal tools that allow us to reward ourselves during learning activities and knowledge retention afterward.
Learning Does Not Necessarily Lead to Change
Sometimes learning shows its immediate results. For example, when you are taught to play tennis, you first learn how to hold the racket, throw the ball, and receive the ball. As time passes, you don’t need further assistance since learning and practice bring you the desirable outcome - you enjoy playing tennis. However, learning does not always result in behavioral change. We can learn through observation but we may not demonstrate it without proper motivation or if the behavior is undesirable.
Key Factors of Social Learning Theory
There are certain steps to follow to ensure productive social learning. Let’s take a look!
Attention
Why is it so important to practice methods that ensure an increase in attention span? Because attention is the first step in the observational learning process. If a model lacks interest or there are several distracting factors, our attention decreases, thus resulting in poor learning. On the contrary, given the fact that the modeled behavior is attractive and promotes competence, we dedicate our attention to the issue as learners.
Retention
The ability to focus is half a deed. It’s quite challenging to retain what was observed so that we can retrieve the information from our memory later and apply it upon necessity. Effective retention depends on such factors as the information type, the learner’s motivation, and the practice level. Rehearsal and cognitive strategies promote the mental encoding of the behavior into memory and enhance retention ability.
Reproduction
When we perform the observed behavior again and again, simultaneously facilitating reinforcement, it is called reproduction. For example, a boy watches soccer on TV; he has favorite players and tries to reproduce their style by brushing a game trick when playing in the yard with friends. Initial results may not always be satisfying but continuous practice and feedback will result in mastering reproduction skills. Social learning theory indicates that individuals can learn from live models and symbolic ones through books, movies, etc.
Motivation
It depends on motivation whether an individual will reproduce an observed behavior or not. You can present someone with an opportunity but you cannot force someone to take advantage of it unless there are motivational factors. They vary: some get motivation from a study-buddy approach during learning, and others need rewards or such internal factors as personal satisfaction and self-efficacy. Understanding what motivates learners can significantly impact the effectiveness of social learning.
Social Learning Theory Examples
The most popular example of the social learning theory is the Bobo Doll experiment, where children watch a video of different attitudes toward a doll performed by adults and imitate the observed behavior.
Another and yet more modern example refers to social media trends. All of us have seen various short videos where young people perform tricks, thus challenging the audience to reproduce them. - for instance, a lady tries to tie a cherry tail with her tongue inside her mouth (not the smartest content, though). After the video goes viral, thousands of people, even celebrities, post videos of themselves doing the same trick. It’s an obvious example of observing, learning, and reproducing behavior.
A nice example of social learning theory in the workplace is new employee onboarding. There are so many things to learn, ranging from job responsibilities and company procedures to simple behavioral habits of staff. Is it OK to leave the office immediately after the working day is over? Does everyone use coffee supplied by the company or you should provide your own? These are things that are not available in any procedure manual but can be learned by observation.
Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory Overview
As we mentioned above, the key concepts of Albert Bandura’s social learning theory are a) the ability to learn through observation and imitation, b) the importance of mental state during learning processes, and c) that not everything newly learned should necessarily lead to change. This theory had a huge impact on various fields, especially on education where it promoted the need for newer pedagogical practices like behavioral modeling, self-efficacy, problem-solving, and a lot more. Bandura's work highlighted that individuals are active agents in their learning processes, capable of self-regulation and self-reflection. Social learning theory integrates behavioral and cognitive approaches and provides a comprehensive structure for understanding how people learn in social contexts.
Applications of Social Learning Theory
There are various real-world scenarios demonstrating practical applications of Social Learning Theory. The implementation of SLT is useful in multiple fields ranging from education to criminology or marketing; however, we will describe two major aspects of life where social learning is essential.
Let’s start with Education. The goal of every teacher is to create an interactive and engaging classroom and motivate students to learn social behaviors and academic skills by observing educators and peers. This is where social learning takes the form of emotional support, which facilitates the ability of learners to observe, retain, and reproduce the information. Surveys show that social modeling and examples are very powerful tools in education: witnessing positive consequences makes us reproduce the action and, vice versa, negative effects prevent us from practicing a certain behavior. Motivation among peers towards learning will more likely boost engagement. When a teacher demonstrates problem-solving strategies when explaining new material, it will help build new skills in the class. Social learning is a fantastic tool for changing student behavior to achieve better results, lower rates of skipping attendance, and higher levels of concentration.
The next aspect is Workplace Training. Employees learn new skills by observing more experienced colleagues. For instance, a newcomer might learn customer service techniques by watching how a senior employee interacts with clients. Social learning in an organization allows knowledge sharing among colleagues through observation, collaboration, and interactions. Workplace training comprises such activities as mentorship, peer learning, events arrangement, and learning circles - all of them can be smoothly incorporated into natural workflow and contribute to professional development and prosperity. Establishing a corporate learning culture in a workplace is about creating a comfortable environment for all employees to be valued and respected, receive feedback, and learn from one another.
Conclusion
Social learning is everywhere, irrespective of the activity we perform. It is an amazing concept of how people learn from their environment and each other. There are tons of examples of social learning theory in our everyday lives. Cooking shows give us useful culinary skills; a friend with an athletic shape motivates us to start working out; when a teacher shares one’s screen in the classroom to display useful computer tools in action, it promotes better retention of information; and so on. Social learning theory techniques can be useful for employee retention in HR. In marketing, it ensures targeting the right audience and enhancing sales. SLT in the machine learning field contributes to cognitive computing and robotics.
In other words, by emphasizing the importance of observation, imitation, and cognitive processes, social learning offers valuable insights into human behavior and learning.