Bandura & Social Learning Theory

Bandura’s social learning theory is sometimes seen as a bridge between cognitive and behavioral theories because he believed that people learn by observing others, which involves cognition (memory, attitude, beliefs) and behavior (actions taken, rewards).  He posited that children learn by observing the actions of others, such as parents, siblings & other peers.  This observation leads to the acquisition of new skills & information.  Intrinsic reinforcements such as a sense of pride, accomplishment & satisfaction also lead to learning.

Bandura developed this theory in part by conducting what was called the Bobo doll experiment.  Here, a video is work a thousand words: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4586465813762682933.  Basically, Bandura found that kids who watched a video of an adult aggressing upon an inflatable doll would in turn aggress upon a similar doll.  Bandura’s research primarily concentrated on the impact of TV violence on children’s behaviors.

Bandura thought that four processes were necessary for the child or other observer to learn a behavior via social modeling.

• Attention: Obviously you have to be paying attention to what the other people are doing to learn anything from it.  If I’m ignoring the people on the dance floor, I’m not going to learn to dance just by standing close by.
• Retention: You have to remember the stimuli to imitate later.
• Reproduction: This is when you reproduce the image of what you observed.  You have to have the physical capability to do so.
• Motivation: There has to be some reason that you want to recreate what you observed.  Some reasons might be positive reinforcement (a reward, a promise of a reward) or a negative reinforcement (punishment of some kind).

The main critique of Bandura’s theory is that it does not reliably predict behavior.  In his experiments, the relationship between observing & recreating violence was strong.  In later longitudinal studies, the relationship was much weaker.

Piaget & Cognitive Child Development Theories

Piaget’s theory is a little different from the theories covered thus far, in that Piaget was interested in cognitive development, rather than social/psychological development.  Piaget was the first to note that children play an active role in gaining knowledge of the world.  Although it may seem obvious now, it was a novel idea at the time.  Children, Piaget said, are like “little scientists” who actively pursue knowledge & develop an understanding of the world.  If you’ve ever watched a baby at play, dropping things to see what happens, then you’ll know this to be true!  Piaget believed that children’s cognitive abilities developed in fits & starts rather than as a smooth process.  He believed at about 18 mos, 7 years & 11 or 12 years thinking abilities would take off.  Piaget coined a number of terms to describe cognitive processes.  I will not delve into a full vocabulary here, as it does not seem necessary to my ends.  This site gives a nice & relatively straightforward Piaget vocab: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm, if you’re interested in learning more.  Piaget’s stages are covered below in a general way.  Piaget theorized that there were substages within each stage; however, covering the substages is beyond the scope of what I’m looking to achieve.

Piaget’s Stages:

Stage	Age	Description
Sensorimotor	Birth – approx age 2 (or language acquisition)	Develops reflexes, such as sucking, tracking objects by watching them, the palmar grasp (when a baby closes his or her hand around an object that touches the palm).  Develops motor skills, like sitting, crawling, walking (hence the name “sensorimotor”).  Later in this stage, they start experimenting with new behavior & begin to be able to set a goal & work towards it (I’m going to get that candy & go hide in the closet & eat it all!).
Preoperational	Age 2 – 7	Language development takes off & the child is able to represent objects with words, images & drawings.  They are not able to perform operations, meaning tasks that require use of logic or reasoning.  Children at this age are egocentric & unable to see things from other people’s perspective, literally or figuratively.
Concrete operational	Age 7 – 11	Child begins to be able to use logic & the ability to sort objects, classify objects & begins to be able to see things from another’s perspective.  Not able to think about abstract problems or concepts.
Formal operational	Age 11 into adulthood	Abstract reasoning develops & the individual reaches their full cognitive abilities.  Adolescents can understand things that are not strictly black-and-white.

• Critiques of Piaget’s theory:
• Subsequent research has contradicted much of Piaget’s theory & some work suggests that some processes develop more quickly or slowly than others.  For example, an individual kid might pick up logic more quickly, but be slower in developing language or motor skills.
• Some more recent critics suggest that development happens more smoothly than in the fits & starts that Piaget suggested.
• Some critics believe that many individuals never reach the level of abstract reasoning that Piaget theorized all people achieve in the formal operational stage.

Erikson & Stages of Psychosocial Development

Each stage of development is focused on overcoming a conflict.  Success or failure impacts overall functioning.  I find the names of the stages to be relatively self-explanatory, but this site: http://allpsych.com/psychology101/social_development.html has a decent discussion of each stage.  Erikson theorized that successful completion of each stage would result in a healthy, normal individual.  Unsuccessful completion of a stage could result in either an unhealthy personality or the inability to complete later stages.  Fortunately for those people, Erikson also believed that one could return to a previously unsuccessfully negotiated challenge & have a “re-do” so to speak.  Research around Erikson’s theory has lent credence to the theory.  For an interesting & more lengthy discussion of the theory, including a little bit of bio about Erikson visit here: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/erikson.html.  I found the bio & how he developed the theory pretty interesting stuff, but I’m going to take a shot in the dark and say that the clinical exam probably doesn’t ask where Erikson was born.

Stages are:

Life Stage	Psychosocial Challenge	Significant Others
Infancy (birth – age 1 or 1 ½)	Trust vs mistrust	Maternal caregiver
Early Childhood (age 1 ½ to 3)	Autonomy vs shame & doubt	Paternal caregiver
Play age (age 3 to 6)	Initiative vs guilt	Family
School age (Age 6 to 12)	Industry vs inferiority	Neighborhood
Adolescence (Age 12 to 18)	Identity vs identity diffusion	Peers
Young adult (Age 19 – 40)	Intimacy vs isolation	Partners
Adulthood (Age 40 – 65)	Generativity vs self-absorption	Household
Mature age (Age 65 on)	Integrity vs disgust & despair	Humanity

(credit to Walsh, 2006 for table, ages added from Wikipedia)

• Critiques of the theory:
• As with any linear model, one may question whether the stages must occur in the order in which they are presented.  Might there be recycling through stages?
• The adolescent stage in which the psychosocial challenge is identity presents a question to some people.  Do we only search for identity in the adolescent years?
• After the extensive criticism I found yesterday about Freud & his Psychosexual stages, the critiques on Erikson seem relatively slim.  Reviewing the material, I did find the age ranges to be somewhat restricting.  At the age of 29, I still see myself sorting out my identity at times & working in the next stage at other times, asking myself questions like, “What am I contributing to the world?”
• I did not really see anyone else pointing this out, although I’m sure I’m not the first, but the stages seem culture-bound to me.  In a culture where people mate earlier or later, or where autonomy is not emphasized as it is in our culture, I would suspect things might be a tad bit different.

Freud & Psychosexual Developmental Theory

Freud stressed the importance of events & experiences during childhood.  He described childhood development as being a progression through psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital.  If a child does not complete a stage successfully, Freud suggested that he or she would develop a fixation that would continue to impact the person as they grew into adulthood.

 

• Stages are as follows:
• The oral stage: begins at birth, the infant finds comfort from nursing & sucking.  Having these needs met also leads to a sense of trust.  Stage lasts about 1 – 1 ½ years.  Failure to resolve this stage (i.e. being nursed too much or not enough) leads to the infant growing into an adult who is either pessimistic & sarcastic or overly optimistic & gullible.
• The anal stage: begins with the advent of toilet training, or around age 1 – 1 ½.  Child becomes obsessed with the anus & the retention or expulsion of feces.  Results in a conflict between the id (which says it’s fun to poop all over the place) and the ego & superego (which say you better listen to your mommy).  Unsuccessful resolution leads to an anal expulsive character (messy, disorganized, destructive) or the better known anal retentive character (neat, obsessive, careful, stingy).  So next time you hear someone referred to as “anal” you can feel nice & smug that you know the origin of the term.
• The phallic stage: child’s focus moves to his/her genitalia & curiosity about the genitalia of others.  The child has an unconscious desire to eliminate the opposite sex parent & possess the same sex one.  This is the Oedipal conflict (for boys) or the Electra complex (for girls).  Castration anxiety describes boys’ fear that his father will discover his affection for his mother & will punish him by castrating him.  Freud also believed girls suffered from penis envy.  For either sex, the general idea is that the child resolves his/her incestuous desires by learning to identify with the same sex parent & becoming more like him/her.  Failure to resolve leads to a person who may be reckless, resolute or afraid of love.
• The latency stage: a period where the sexual drive lies dormant.  Children put their repressed libidal energy into asexual pursuits like sports, academics & same sex friendships.
• The genital stage: begins with puberty & interests shift from same sex friends to opposite sex relationships.  Freud believed that successful resolution of the previous stages was necessary for successful pursuit of romantic relationships.
• Critiques of Freud’s model:
• Focuses primarily on male development.
• The concept of penis envy has a tendency to piss women off.
• He focused primarily on disorders, rather than normal development.
• It is so abstract & theoretical that it is difficult to test scientifically.  Research that has been conducted tends to discredit Freudian theory.
• Predictions & linkages are vague.
• Theory is based upon case studies rather than empirical research.  Theory was based on Freud’s memories of adult patients & not on observations of children.