Social Cognitive Theory

Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) draws from social learning theory and claims that an individual can acquire knowledge by observing others within the context of social interactions or from the media. In other words, people learn new behaviors not only by trying those behaviors and either succeeding or failing but also by replicating the actions of others. Depending on whether people are rewarded or punished for a behavior, that behavior might be modeled and subsequently performed.

SCT departs from previous theories that advocated a unidirectional causation of behavior and argues that three factors play a role and influence each other: (1) the external environment, (2) behavior, and (3) personal factors such as cognitive processes, beliefs, emotions, and biological influences. For example, each observed behavior can change a person’s way of thinking (i.e., cognition), and the environment in which one is raised may influence later behaviors. Because SCT is a broad theory that includes many different aspects, this entry highlights those aspects that are of special relevance to mass communication, especially the concept of modeling and its connection to the media.

Modeling

From the start, SCT emphasized that people learn through observation; this process is also described as vicarious learning or modeling because learning occurs as a result of watching the behavior of models from within an individual’s social network and within the media. According to SCT, the modeling of novel behaviors is dependent on four interrelated processes: (1) attention, (2) retention, (3) (re-)production, and (4) motivation.

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Attention means that a person must focus attention on a behavior and perceive that behavior accurately in order to model it successfully. The attention of the person influences what parts of a behavior are modeled. This process might be influenced by the cognitive skills, preconceptions, and value preferences of the observer or by the attractiveness and functional value of the modeled behaviors. Retention means that the observed behavior must be remembered in order to be used again. Reproduction means that people take action and attempt to reproduce the behavior, although initial attempts might be difficult and even faulty. Finally, motivation means that people must be motivated to model the behaviors that they learn. Several incentives motivate a person to model learned behavior including (a) positive outcomes after direct performance of the behavior, (b) observing another’s behavior and subsequent outcomes, and (c) evaluation based upon personal values or standards of behavior.

Whether modeling leads to changed behavior on the part of the observer depends on many other variables including an individual’s perceptions of the favorable or unfavorable consequences of the behavior, an individual’s perceived ability to carry out the behavior (i.e., the individual’s self-efficacy), and an individual’s outcome expectations (i.e., what the individual thinks will happen after performing the behavior). Outcome expectations are especially important and are related to the beliefs that the observer holds about the consequences of a particular behavior (e.g., whether the behavior leads to punishment or rewards). These beliefs are based on past experiences and on vicarious observations of others. Outcome expectations are important in SCT, as they influence decisions concerning which learned behaviors are performed and which behaviors are not performed.

SCT and the Media

Due to the growth of television and other media during the 20th century, a vast amount of information about human values, styles of thinking, and behavioral patterns is based on modeling the symbolic environment of the mass media. As media exposure increases, it can play a significant role in shaping individuals’ perceptions of social reality and influencing behavior.

Bandura’s most famous study related to media was the Bobo doll experiment, which was designed to examine social explanations for why and when children display aggressive behaviors. Bandura and his colleagues divided 72 three- to six-year-old children into three groups. In the first group, the children watched a male or female model behaving aggressively toward a toy called the Bobo doll. These behaviors included hitting the doll with a hammer and shouting at the doll. In the second group, the children were exposed to a nonaggressive model who played in a quiet manner with other toys but ignored the doll. In the final group, the children were not exposed to any model. The children were then led into another room that was filled with toys. The results of the study revealed that the children who were exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act in a physically aggressive manner than the children who were not exposed to the aggressive model. Another finding was that the children were more influenced by a same-sex model, which is consistent with SCT’s claim that people are more likely to model individuals with whom they identify.

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In a follow-up study, Bandura designed an experiment to test whether the model being rewarded, punished, or experiencing no consequences had an influence on the aggressive behavior of the children toward the Bobo doll. Depending on the experimental group, the children watched a short film that contained a scene in which the model was rewarded with candies or punished for hitting the Bobo doll. In the neutral condition, no ending was shown after the aggression toward the Bobo doll. Bandura and associates found that the children who were shown the punishment scene at the end of the film exhibited less aggressive behavior toward the doll than the children in the other groups. This finding is closely connected with the previously mentioned outcome expectation. After the main part of the experiment, the children were also interviewed. Irrespective of their experimental group, all of the children remembered the content of the video. This result demonstrated that rewards and punishments did not influence the learning or remembering of information—only whether or not the behavior was performed.

Bandura distinguished between inhibitory effects, which occur when a person refrains from reprehensible conduct due to fear of the consequences, and disinhibitory effects, which lift previously learned internal restraints on certain behaviors. For example, one reason for these effects may be the explanation given in the Bobo doll experiment: The reprehensible conduct is rewarded in the media, which makes the observer rethink their own behavior. Seeing others gain desired outcomes through their actions can create outcome expectancies that function as positive incentives; observed punishment outcomes can create negative outcome expectancies that function as disincentives.

SCT was also used to bring about positive changes in the media. The theory that children learn through observation was used to promote the idea that if children watch positive behaviors in television programming, they should also be able to learn those behaviors through positive role models. If a child can identify with the positive role model on television, he or she is likely to behave in a manner similar to that character. As a result, a large amount of educational programming is based on SCT.

The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society.