Social Learning

By: Jake Ferdinand

Educational Psychology
Dakota State University
June 20, 2015

As a child, many of us do not understand why we have to go to school. There are many
reasons why education is a necessity, but the main one is because we need to learn. Over our
lifetime, we learn different attributes to live and thrive in this world. Learning is a huge part of
surviving in the world. Even animals need to learn to adapt to survive. There are many ways that
we learn new information. The three main learning theories are constructivism, behaviorism, and
social learning. Constructivism is when a person learns based on their own experiences.
Behaviorism is based on observable behavior that uses reinforcements and punishments. The one
that is the bridge between those two theories is social learning. In my mind, it is the one most
used as well as the one that is the most natural.
According to the Essentials of Educational Psychology, social learning is the theoretical
perspective that focuses on how people learn by observing others and how they eventually
assume control over own behavior (Ormrod). What this means is that most people learn from
observing what others do. For example, this is especially true when a person is a baby. They do
not understand what their parents are saying, however they learn to walk, talk, and behave from
observing their parents. The most famous person who studied social learning was Albert
Bandura. In 1961 he conducted an experiment that involves children playing with a doll named
Bobo (McLeod). There were two groups of children, the first group played with a bunch of toys
including the doll. The second group of children watched adults beat up on the doll before
playing, once they started playing with the doll they became violent, proving that people learn
from observations they have made. Bandura also said that there are certain conditions that are
needed for this kind of learning. The first condition is attention, because the person that is doing
observations needs to be able to pay attention. The second condition is retention. Being able to
remember what you have observed is very important. The third step is called reproduction. This

means that the observer needs to be able to reproduce what they just saw. The final condition is
motivation, this is very important because the observer needs to have a reason why they want to
do this (McLeod). An example how all of this works is when learning to hit a baseball. When
doing this the first thing you would do is watch someone swing. You can do this in person or by
using videos so you can slow it down and watch in slow motion. When you see the person swing
you need to remember everything that happens, such as where their hands go before the pitch,
when do they step, getting their hands to the ball, how they get their hips into their swing, and
how they finish their swing. The third condition is imitated what you just remembered, when I
was a kid I tried to make my swing look like Derek Jeter because that was who I watched the
most. And the last step is being motivated, learning to hit a baseball could be motivating because
you want to be a pro baseball player or maybe because everyone in your family plays baseball.
Just like in the example above, social learning can be affected by many different factors.
Children can learn from many different people such as friends, family members, and celebrities.
Social learning starts when you are a baby. You learn so many things that you would never even
think about from observing your parents. For example, if you look closely many of us walk, talk,
and even stand the same way that our parents do. According to the article titled A First Step in
Learning by Imitation, Baby Brains Respond to Anothers Actions, babies often observe others
demonstrate how to do things and then copy those body movements. Its how little ones know,
usually without explicit instructions, to hold a toy phone to the ear or guide a spoon to the
mouth (McElroy). As we get older, we expand our horizons on who we learn from. We learn
different things from our friends and the people we look up to. These people provide us with
knowledge such as our language, clothing styles, and sometimes how we act. That is why having
good role models in todays society is very important. It is also very important for children to

find good friends, if they get into the wrong crowd, they are more likely to get into trouble. But
how and why do kids learn from certain people? According to Sam McLeod in Bandura-Social
Learning Theory, the child is more likely to attend to and imitate those people it perceives as
similar to itself. Consequently, it is more likely to imitate behavior modeled by people of the
same sex (McLeod). This explains why many of our role models are the same gender as us.
Reinforcement and punishment can also have an effect on the way we learn things. It also
explains how students get into the wrong crowd at school. Peer pressure and the craving of
positive reinforcement can cause a good student to do bad things, because some of their peers
will think it is cool.
Social learning is used in all aspects of life, including the classroom. There are many
different ways that teachers can use the social learning theory to get the best out of their students.
Teachers can use demonstrations to help students understand the material. This works well in
subjects like math and science, especially for students that are visual learners. For example,
many of my math teachers in the past have used a white board or promethean board to
demonstrate how to do equations. It was the only way that I could understand their directions
because it allowed me to go through the problems with them. Another great way to use social
learning in the classroom is peer reviews or peer tutoring (Social Learning Theory). This allows
the students to help each other and share what they have observed to the other students in the
class. Teachers can also lead students in experiments, this allows the students to learn from the
teacher while also doing the experiment on their own. The last way you can use social learning in
the classroom is by having students work in groups, while do experiments or projects. This
allows the students to learn from each other by observing what their peers do to succeed. The

process of learning new things is so important, which is why the education system was
established. Learning from others is an amazing resource.
The ability to learn is the most underrated trait that we own. Without learning the human
race would be extinct. Everything we know now, we have once learned. The use of social
learning can be traced all the way back in time to when man created fire. It is used in our
everyday life and is a very powerful tool. When added together all three learning theories can
make for a very useful arsenal.

Works Cited
McElroy, Molly. "A First Step in Learning by Imitation, Baby Brains Respond to Anothers
Actions." UW Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 June 2015.
McLeod, Sam. "Albert Bandura | Social Learning Theory | Simply Psychology." Albert Bandura
| Social Learning Theory | Simply Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 June 2015
Ormrod, Jeanne Ellis. Essentials of Educational Psychology. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall, 2006. Print.
"Social Learning Theory." K5ChalkBox. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 June 2015.