0.17 Social learning theory and personality development  (Page 3/30)

Bandura has received numerous honors during his career. Included among them, he has served as president of the American Psychological Association and received a Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from APA. He received the William James Award from the American Psychological Society (known today as the Association for Psychological Science), a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Distinguished Contribution Award from the International Society for Research in Aggression, and a Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society of Behavioral Medicine. Bandura has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and he has received numerous honorary degrees from universities around the world. The list goes on, not the least of which is his Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology Award , received from APA in 2004.

Placing Bandura in Context: Social Learning Theory

Establishes Its Independence

Although social learning theory has its foundation in the work of Dollard and Miller, they addressed social learning in the context of Hullian learning theory (complete with mathematical formulae). Bandura shifted the focus of social learning away from traditional behavioral perspectives, and established social learning as a theory on its own. Bandura also freely acknowledged cognition in the learning process, something that earlier behaviorists had actively avoided. By acknowledging both the external processes of reinforcement and punishment and the internal cognitive processes that make humans so complex, Bandura provided a comprehensive theory of personality that has been very influential.

Although Bandura criticized both operant conditioning and Pavlovian conditioning as being too radical, he relied on a procedure that came from Pavlovian conditioning research for one of his most influential concepts: the use of modeling. The modeling procedure was developed by Mary Cover Jones, a student of John B. Watson, in her attempts to counter-condition learned phobias. Subsequent to the infamous “Little Albert” studies conducted by Watson, Jones used models to interact in a pleasant manner with a rabbit that test subjects had been conditioned to fear. After a few sessions, the test subjects were no longer afraid of the rabbit (see Stagner, 1988). This may have been the first use of behavior therapy, and Bandura’s use of the procedure helped to bring together different behavioral disciplines.

Perhaps one of Bandura’s most significant contributions, however, has been the application of his theory to many forms of media. Congressional committees have debated the influence of modeling aggression through violent television programs, movies, and video games. We now have ratings on each of those forms of media, and yet the debate continues because of the levels of aggression seen in our schools, in particular, and society in general. Bandura’s Bobo doll studies are certainly among of the best known studies in psychology, and they are also among the most influential in terms of practical daily applications. The long list of awards that Bandura has received is a testament to both his influence on psychology and the respect that influence has earned for him.