Social Learning Theory

Social learning theory is a school of psychology that views personality as being shaped by the interpersonal environments in which people are raised. Initially, social learning referred primarily to learning through imitation of others' actions. However, social learning now refers more broadly to any kind of influence our relations with others have on our behavior, beliefs, and values. Social learning theory sees social goals, such as getting approval from others, dominating others, or depending on others, as powerful motives that direct our behavior. Important psychologists associated with social learning theory are Julian B. Rotter, who began his work in the early 1950s, and Albert Bandura and Walter Mischel, whose work started in the 1960s. This entry reviews the development of social learning theory during the 20th century.

The first social learning theorists were the team of John Dollard and Neal Miller in the early 1940s. Dollard and Miller posited that humans have an innate desire to imitate the behavior of others. Dollard and Miller's work was primarily focused on children; however, they also examined group behavior seen in crowds. Although Dollard and Miller's was an important first step in explaining social learning, their theory was hampered by its reliance on now-discredited drive theory to explain human motivation.

During the mid-20th century, there were two competing explanations for what motivates people's behavior. Initially, drive theory dominated. Drive theory posits that behavior is motivated by an uncomfortable internal state (drive), brought about by deprivation, that propels people to satisfy and reduce the intensity of the drive. Thus, psychologists talk about a drive-reduction theory, in which people are motivated to return to a neutral, driveless state that feels optimally comfortable, known as homeo-stasis. The disadvantages of drive theory are, first, that drives are internal, physiological states that cannot be measured. If they cannot be measured, they cannot be used to predict future behavior. Second, if people's ultimate goal is the neutral state of homeostasis, then all behavior is considered an attempt to avoid discomfort. But people are not satisfied just with avoiding discomfort. Therefore, drive theory is inadequate to explain humans' goal-driven behavior, particularly when social motivations conflict with physical comfort.

The most prominent alternative to drive theory is the empirical law of effect, which proposes that [Page 1538]people not only seek to reduce negative stimulation, but also to enhance positive stimulation. All behavior is seen as an attempt to obtain desired outcomes, called reinforcement. Traditional learning theorists, such as B. F. Skinner, are known as stimulus-response psychologists. They believe that to predict behavior it is only necessary to know what stimuli are in the environment and what the individual's overt responses are.

The advantage of learning theory is that it gives a scientific framework for conducting psychological research on behavior. However, Skinner was opposed to considering anything mental—thoughts, feelings, or beliefs—when predicting behavior. Skinner's stimulus-response approach may work reasonably well when applied to such relatively simple organisms as rats and pigeons. However, it has shortcomings as a way of understanding the complex behaviors of human beings.