4.1.5 Social learning (Bandura) and motivation (Maslow)

Core facts

Bandura and social learning

• Albert Bandura (1925 to 2021), Canadian-born American psychologist at Stanford University. Theory: social learning theory (also called observational learning, imitation, modelling or vicarious learning). He added two things to behaviourism: mediating (cognitive) processes between stimulus and response, and learning by observing the environment; so his theory is called the bridge between behaviourism and cognitive theory. Behaviour can be learnt without the learner himself being reinforced.
• Bobo doll experiment (Bandura, Ross and Ross, 1961, Stanford nursery school): children who watched an adult hit an inflatable Bobo doll later copied the same aggression; children who saw a calm model were much less aggressive. Imitation was highest when the model was rewarded and lowest when the model was punished; merely seeing the act was enough to learn it.
• Books: Social Learning and Personality Development (with Richard Walters, 1963); Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis (1973); **Social Learning Theory (1977); Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory (1986); Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)**.
• Four processes of observational learning (in this order): Attention → Retention → (Motor) Reproduction → Motivation.
• Vicarious reinforcement: seeing a model rewarded makes the observer more likely to copy; vicarious punishment: seeing a model punished makes it less likely. Self-reinforcement: rewarding oneself against one's own standard.
• Types of models: live (parent, teacher, peer), symbolic (film, TV, book, cartoon character), verbal instructional (a description of how to act).
• Reciprocal determinism (triadic): Person (thoughts, beliefs) ↔ Behaviour ↔ Environment all influence one another.
• Social cognitive theory (renamed in 1986): learning is social and cognitive; it bridges behaviourism and cognitive psychology.
• Self-efficacy = a person's belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular task or situation (paper "Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioural change", 1977). It is the focal point of Bandura's social cognitive theory (asked in 2022).
• Four sources of self-efficacy: (1) mastery (performance) experiences, the strongest; (2) vicarious experiences (seeing similar others succeed); (3) verbal / social persuasion; (4) physiological and emotional states.

Motivation

• Motivation comes from Latin *movere* = to move. It is an orientation towards learning (APPSC 2022): the inner state that arouses, directs and sustains activity towards a goal.
• Definitions: J.P. Guilford: a particular internal factor or condition that tends to initiate and sustain activity. Petri (1996): the process by which activities are started, directed and continued to meet physical or psychological needs.
• Functions: it energises (arouses), directs and sustains behaviour; it does not decide intelligence.
• Four indicators of motivation: direction (what one chooses), latency (how soon one starts), intensity (how hard one tries), persistence (how long one keeps on despite obstacles).
• Motivation cycle: Need → Drive → Goal-directed behaviour → Incentive (goal) → Need reduced. Need = a bodily lack (tissue deprivation: no food); drive = the aroused tension it produces (hunger); incentive = the outside goal object (food, a prize, marks). Homeostasis (Walter B. Cannon, The Wisdom of the Body, 1932) = the body's tendency to keep its inner conditions in balance; a disturbed balance creates a drive.
• Kinds of motives: primary / biological (innate: hunger, thirst, sleep, pain avoidance, sex) and secondary / psychosocial / acquired (learnt: achievement, affiliation, power, status, approval); a third group, general motives, covers curiosity, exploration and the need for sensory stimulation.
• Positive (incentive) motivation works through reward; negative (fear) motivation works through force or threat and breeds anger and frustration. A reward motivates only when the learner values it and expects to get it (incentive value).
• Intrinsic motivation: the activity is its own reward (curiosity, interest, joy of mastery). Extrinsic motivation: the reward is outside the task (marks, prizes, praise, punishment, a job). Intrinsic is more lasting and is the better aim for a teacher.
• Abraham H. Maslow (1908 to 1970), American, founder figure of humanistic psychology (the "third force", after psychoanalysis and behaviourism). Paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" (**Psychological Review, 1943); book Motivation and Personality (1954)*; Toward a Psychology of Being* (1962).
• Maslow's hierarchy (lowest to highest): 1 Physiological → 2 Safety (security) → 3 Love and belongingness (social) → 4 Esteem → 5 Self-actualisation. A higher need becomes strong only when the lower ones are fairly well met; physiological needs must be met first.
• Deficiency needs (D-needs): the lower four. Growth / being needs (B-needs): self-actualisation (later extended).
• Self-actualisation = becoming everything one is capable of becoming ("what a man can be, he must be"); only about 1% of people reach it; such people have peak experiences (Maslow's examples: Lincoln, Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt).
• Esteem has two levels: respect, status and reputation from others (lower) and self-esteem based on real competence (higher).
• Achievement motivation (need for achievement, n-Ach): the wish to do well against a standard of excellence. Henry Murray listed it among human needs (1938) and measured needs with the TAT (Thematic Apperception Test); David McClelland studied it in depth (The Achievement Motive, 1953; **The Achieving Society, 1961) with n-Ach, n-Aff (affiliation), n-Pow (power)**.
• High achievers prefer tasks of moderate difficulty, want quick feedback and take personal responsibility (J.W. Atkinson's expectancy-value theory).
• Level of aspiration: the standard or goal a person expects to reach in a task, judged from past performance. First experiments: Ferdinand Hoppe (1930) in Kurt Lewin's group; success raises the level of aspiration and failure lowers it. A healthy level is set a little above present performance.
• William McDougall (An Introduction to Social Psychology, 1908): instinct theory: all behaviour springs from inborn, purposive instincts, each paired with an emotion (flight–fear, pugnacity (combat)–anger, curiosity–wonder, repulsion–disgust); each instinct has a cognitive (perceiving), affective (feeling) and conative (striving, acting) side.
• Freud: two basic instincts, Eros (life, love) and Thanatos (death, aggression); unconscious motives show in dreams and slips of the tongue. Alfred Adler: the striving for superiority (power) to overcome feelings of inferiority.
• Alderfer's ERG theory (1969): Maslow's five levels reduced to Existence, Relatedness, Growth. Herzberg (1959): hygiene factors (salary, job security, working conditions) only prevent dissatisfaction; motivators (achievement, recognition, the work itself) give satisfaction.