Social Cognitive Theory

Social cognitive theory, used in psychology, education, and communication, posits that portions of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences. In other words, people do not learn new behaviors solely by trying them and either succeeding or failing, but rather, the survival of humanity is dependent upon the replication of the actions of others. Depending on whether people are rewarded or punished for their behavior and the outcome of the behavior, that behavior may be modeled. Further, media provide models for a vast array of people in many different environmental settings.

Contents [hide]

1 History

2 Overview

3 Observation of models

4 Identification, self-efficacy, and vicarious learning

5 Applications

6 Morality

7 Variations in morality

8 Education and Social Cognitive Theory

9 See also

10 References

11 Further reading

12 External links

History[edit]

Social cognitive theory stemmed out of work in the area of social learning theory proposed by Neal E. Miller and John Dollard in 1941. Identifying four key factors in learning new behavior, 1) drives, 2) cues, 3) responses, and 4) rewards, they posit that if one were motivated to learn a particular behavior, then that particular behavior would be learned through clear observations. By imitating these observed actions the individual observer would solidify that learned action and would be rewarded with positive reinforcement. The proposition of social learning was expanded upon and theorized by Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura. Bandura, along with his students and colleagues conducted a series of studies to find out why and when children display aggressive behaviors. These studies demonstrated the value of modeling for acquiring novel behaviors. In 1986, Bandura proposed Social cognitive theory with more emphasis on the cognitive processes that mediate learning....