The purpose of this article is to compare various social learning theories and to highlight some of the theoretical contributions of Bandura's concept of observational learning in explaining and understanding the social learning process.
In explaini...
The purpose of this article is to compare various social learning theories and to highlight some of the theoretical contributions of Bandura's concept of observational learning in explaining and understanding the social learning process.
In explaining the human social behavior, the classical behaviorism only emphasis the external factors(s) as the determinant of the social behavior and learnign(R), and pays not much attention to the individuals' internal or psychological foctors. And this has been the serious theoretical limitation of the classical behaviorism.
Unlike classical behaviorism, Bandura brings some individual factors into light to explain the process of social learning and behavior.
Bandura argues that learning occurs not through simple imitation but through much more complex and complicated "identificatory" processes.
And in these identificatory learning processes, individuals' various learning mechanisms, such as attention, retention and motive reproduction play active and important roles.
Bandura's concepts of identificatory learning, and observational learning which is an essential part of the identificatory process, have received wide attention and support from the various empirical studies and proved to be a valid and useful to understand and explain individuals' social learning.