Social Theories Post 1

This chapter was about the social cognitive theory.  Basically, the main idea behind this theory is that children learn from watching and imitating, or not imitating, behaviors.  To learn, according to this theory, children must learn through observational learning--which is learning by seeing other people's behaviors.  In this theory, learning does not require a change in behavior.  This means that a student could observe a behavior, and learn it, but they might not necessarily perform that behavior.  In this theory, there is also an emphasis on one's personal beliefs.  The chapter said that if a student believes they will be successful at performing a task, they are more likely to be.

When discussing observational learning, the chapter discussed different characteristics that play a part in the process.  There are model characteristics, imitator characteristics, and environmental characteristics. This different characteristics include ideas like the following: models must be relevant (if a student is going to model a behavior, the person they are modeling must be relevant and easy for them to see behavior), the imitator must pay attention (a teacher might be very relevant for a student, but if that student isn't paying attention to the teacher's behaviors, they will not be imitated), and response facilitation effect should be used (this is also known as vicarious reinforcement, and it is the idea that students who see other students getting rewarded for good behavior will also perform that behavior because they want to be rewarded as well).  Lastly, the chapter discussed self-efficacy and self-regulation.  Self-efficacy is basically the belief that one can do well.  For example, this is your belief that you will do well.  Self-regulation is the ability to control one's emotions, cognitions, and behaviors. Both of these ideas are important for a student to succeed.

At one point in the chapter, it discussed how cultural differences affect self-efficacy.  How can teachers help to eliminate these ideas?  For example, how can teachers work to boost the self-efficacy of these individuals who feel like they can't succeed due to race or gender?

According to the social cognitive theory, learning is when an individual observes a behavior and remembers the outcome of that behavior.  The student may or may not demonstrate this behavior, but either way it can be considered a learned behavior as long as they retain the information.  One implication for teaching is to make sure that the students are paying attention.  You, as the teacher, could be demonstrating the correct behaviors, but if your students aren't paying attention to you, they will not learn them.

Other people can be a very large impact on how we, as people, learn, as we have seen from this chapter.  According to the social cognitive theory, we learn from observing behaviors, which means that it takes interactions with other people to learn.  People also use vicarious reinforcement and punishment to decide whether or not they will demonstrate the behavior that they observed.  If their model performed a behavior and got something that an individual wanted, they would repeat this behavior to get it as well; this is a vicarious reinforcement.  If that person saw someone perform a behavior and get something that they didn't want, they would not repeat that behavior; this is known as vicarious punishment.  People learn through observing others all of the time.