Albert Bandura-social cognitive learning theories

Essay 4 Pieter van Rooyen 17333652 Albert bandura can be regarded as one of the most important representatives of social cognitive distinguishing theories. Hes surmisal on honoringal study (learning by observing sort) is the single most important form of learning. He argues that people learn most of their behaviour through observation and only a myopic through direct contact. The reason for this is the complexity of most behavior, and that this cant be learned through verbal instructions.This essay will stress on the principles of experimental learning, highlight the distinctiveness and weaknesses, and also how observational learning can promote lordly intergroup relations on campus at the University of Stellenbosch. comment is a common learning tool and many, if not most do it unconsciously. The term modeling is used to describe this. This is when an observer observes the behavior of a model and then repeats the behavior. There are a few factors that warp this observat ional learning.They are the nature of the modeled behavior, the characteristics of the model, the characteristics of the observer, the result of the models behavior and the self-efficacy comprehension of the observer. The nature of the modeled behavior refers to the actual behavior. The situation in which the behavior takes place and if it is new or old behavior. New behavior attracts more attention than old behavior. The characteristics of the model plays an important role in observation learning.This includes age, sex, race and status. A model with high status is more in all probability to be imitated. The observers characteristics also play a major role in learning new behavior. The motivation and interests of the observer as well as the values and self-confidence has a major impact on the selection of models to imitate. An important factor is the result of the models behavior to turn back whom to imitate. The reward gained from a certain behavior is a major incentive to imitate behavior.The final factor, the self-efficacy perception of the observer means that the observer inescapably to believe in his own capabilities to reproduce behavior. One cant try to imitate an Olympic gymnast if you dont believe you can. The strength of Banduras observational learning theory is that it gives a clear and undefiled picture of how behavior is learnt. We can clearly see that adults and children copy each others behavior in certain situations. Strength to his theory is that it can be applied to real world problems, like ethnic gaps or discipline problems at school level.This could mean that proper behavior can result large scale transfers among people if only more people model the right behavior. One of the clear weaknesses in the observational learning theory is that too much emphasis is placed on what happens to the observer after he imitates the model rather that what the observer truly does with the information gained from the model. Intergroup relations at the University of Stellenbosch can really benefit from absolute social behavior.When one social group sees another social group, irrespective of race, gender, age or religion act in a positive and uplifting manner and reap rewarding results from this, this could lead to variety show in the former social group. Even more, if this is done properly, it can quickly pass out and even more social groups can bring on change, initiatory in their own group then by modeling it, change another group. This can defiantly lead to a positive change on Stellenbosch campus.