Social Learning Model of Addictive Behaviors

The social learning model posits that behavior is learned and can be explained by the reciprocal interactions among behavioral, cognitive, and environmental or situational determinants. Key concepts in the social learning model include learning via direct experience and through indirect means of modeling and the idea that learning experiences are mediated [Page 834]through cognitive processes. Applied to addictions, the social learning model suggests that drug and alcohol use are learned behaviors and that such behaviors persist because of differential reinforcement from other individuals, from the environment, from thoughts and feelings, and from the direct consequences of drug or alcohol use. Within the social learning model of addictive behaviors, treatment of alcohol and drug use behaviors focuses on how individuals might unlearn addictive behaviors. Moreover, treatment ...