Critically consider one social psychological theory of aggression.

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Critically consider one social psychological theory of Aggression

The social learning theory is learning that occurs as a function of observing, retaining and replicating behavior observed in others. Although observational learning can take place at any stage in life, it is thought to be particularly important during , particularly as  becomes important. Because of this, social learning theory has influenced debates on the effect of  violence and parental . Bandura's  is widely cited in psychology as a demonstration of observational learning and demonstrated that children are more likely to engage in violent play with a life size rebounding doll after watching an adult do the same.

Observational learning allows for learning without any change in behavior and has therefore been used as an argument against strict , which argued that behavior change must occur for new behaviors to be acquired. Bandura called the process of social learning modeling and gave four conditions required for a person to successfully model the behavior of someone else. Firstly, “attention to the model”, a person must first pay attention to a person engaging in a certain behavior (the model).  Secondly, “retention of details” once attending to the observed behavior, the observer must be able to effectively remember what the model has done. Thirdly, “motor reproduction”, the observer must be able to replicate the behavior being observed (E.G juggling cannot be effectively learned by observing a juggler if the observer does not already have the ability to perform the component actions). Lastly, “motivation and opportunity”, the observer must be motivated to carry out the action they have observed and remembered, and must have the opportunity to do so, (E.G  a suitably skilled person must want to replicate the behavior of a juggler, and needs to have items to juggle to hand). Furthermore social learning may affect behavior in the following ways. It teaches new behaviors, increases/decreases the frequency of which previously learnt behaviors are carried out, can encourage previously forbidden behaviors and can increase/decrease similar behaviors. For example, observing someone excelling in piano playing may encourage an observer to excel in playing the saxophone.

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The Bobo doll experiment was conducted by  in 1961 to study aggressive patterns of behavior. During the experiment, groups of children were shown a film where a model acted violently towards a Bobo Doll. During this film, a model is in a room full of toys, including a Bobo doll. The Model then repeatedly hits the doll, says abusive language at it, and even hits it with a hammer. This film had one of three endings, and three groups of children were all shown a different ending. One showed the model being punished for his behavior, one showed him ...

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