Social Learning Theory of Aggression - Case Study Example

Social Learning Theory of Aggression Two teens have shot and killed a tourist at an interstate rest area. It is a question as to why the youngsters undertook such delinquent act. The developmental theory that is used to explain this scenario in this paper is the social learning theory, which states that one’s environment causes one’s behavior; thus, social learning (Rinehart and Bandura, 1977). Social learning theory states that individuals are more likely to adopt a modeled behavior if such behavior results in outcomes they value. It is posited that people are more likely to adopt a modeled behavior if the model is similar to the observer, possesses an admired status, and has a functional value. This is the focus of Bandura’s social learning theory. It is already noted that Bandura was responsible for the bobo doll studies, where an egg-shape balloon with a weight in the bottom was used, which bobbed up once knocked down (Rosenstock, et al., 1988). The experiment suggests that children imitated what was done on the doll (hitting, punching, and shouting at it) without waiting for any reward. This is where social learning theory is based, an observational learning or modeling (ibid). It suggests that both the environment and psychological factors create a kind of behavior that an individual acts upon. It states that individuals, especially children, learn and act according to what they see in the environment, which are based on imitation. They become socialized within such environment, pursuing a modeled behavior. It is then significant to point out that since children imitate values, actions, and social behavior modeled to them, it is thus, better that these actions and values are good and correct in order for them to act as valuable social beings. The social learning theory has a continuous reciprocal interaction among behavioral, cognitive, and environmental influences. It points to us the relevance of observing and modeling in order for an individual to imitate a perceived appropriate social behavior. It has extensively been applied to understanding aggressive behaviors and how an individual may be influenced to trail the path of aggression. The two teens who have shot and killed a tourist at an interstate rest area are said to have modeled a behavior on their environment, which is aggressive and geared toward taking the act lightly. Hence, the two teens have certainly seen this action as “cool” and “not a big deal,” which likely emphasizes the same environment in which they function. It was not an overnight behavioral learning, but did require certain forms of modeling, which they perhaps acquired from watching violent television shows, playing violent computer games, being engaged in gang riots, reinforced by frequent liquor intake and prohibited drugs. Their environment signifies that such action may be committed and gotten over with quickly, in which they are unconscious of the consequences. The two youngsters themselves are representations of their own environment in which they model violent and decadent behaviors. Just like the bobo doll experiment in which the children who participated did the same unlikely acts demonstrated to them on the doll without thinking if the act is correct or otherwise, the two teens did the act out of a modeled behavior. This modeled behavior was not just simply acquired from a pigment of imagination, or out of a queer idea, but from the same modeling, which they have been seeing around and in which they were frequently exposed to. Moreover, they are active players in this environment. The imitated behavior may in fact did not allow the teens to analyze if the act of killing the tourist was right or wrong, having internalized the behavior in their own confederates and even the mass media – which support the behavior and which they perceive as normal (if not bad) and “cool” among adventurous people. Television commercials and computer games are few of the most pervasive examples of social learning situations nowadays. Television commercials promote a certain value (materialism, physical beauty, popularity, attraction to the opposite sex, etc.) and they reveal a great deal of influence to the viewers, especially children and teenagers, who are most in the verge of imitating their environment in their stage of defining self (especially in the case of teenagers). Likewise, violent television shows and films offer behavioral conditioning to people, especially if watched coherently. In the same manner that television commercials influence social learning, computer games are also modes of learning aggression through aggressive war games constantly played by a child. It was found out that the child learns to imitate from his playmates what he has seen in the computer games, which he regularly plays; just like the children in the bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1978). In today’s society where children and youngsters can easily get access of unlimited information on just anything, the notion of violence - which can be found in different genres such of music, films, games, television shows, and printed materials – can condition people’s behavior easily especially if there is no presence of modalities for analyzing the situation as wrong and inappropriate. In the case of two teens who killed a tourist, the act may have been taken as a game, just like what they frequently play as protagonists in violent computer games, which became just a plain and cool thing to do. It exhibits a laxity of social control, which will require a sense of accountability on the part of the two boys, or fear for a possible punishment. Such laxity may have been lacking at home, not just in society itself. The exposure of the youngsters in violent thoughts and actions may not have been countered by their parents, allowing the modeled behavior to thrive and result in killing an innocent person. There are a number of ways in which children and individuals learn social behavior through mass media, and the Internet is a tumultuous source of information about this. People tend to imitate the social lives of their favorite celebrities, imitate their hairstyles, their manner of dressing, their behavior and mannerisms, even their decadent behavior (e.g. being apprehended for reckless driving, drinking liquors while driving, being involved in a club fight, etc.). Foul language, torn boots and pants, high-caliber deadly weapons, and murderous behaviors shown by a favorite action hero on screen become models for emulation (Bandura, 1978). Advertisements suggest that using a particular brand of shampoo or drinking a particular brand of beer would make an individual popular and attractive; thus, it may be inferred in this paper that the massive sales of products are actually the gauge of the population of those who intend to imitate the perceived behaviors. In some conservative societies (socially, that is), behaviors imitated from television commercials are frowned upon because of “social discouragements” that people in that particular place experience whenever they imitate a behavior such as wearing scanty stringed bikinis in a beach filled with people who prefer wearing long shorts and tops. It suggests that behaviors may be learned and unlearned, according to how society rewards and punishes such behavior. However true this may seem, the mass media also offer huge amounts of information about good behavior, which may rather be imitated than the opposite ones. This is how social learning is seen to influence behavior, which is the mode of analyzing why and how the two youngsters in the paper committed the crime. Showing how the social learning theory supports to address the problems on aggression, a cross-sectional study of Burton, Miller, and Tai Shill proves this construct (2002). The study was about a comparison of the sexual victimization of adolescent sexual offenders and nonsexual offending male delinquents. The social learning theory hypotheses were generally supported by the study, with findings that show that the gender of the perpetrators and their forcefulness were the best predictors of being in the sexual offending group. The theory was used to explain media effects on the behavior of people, especially children, and gave an alarming caution of the effects of violent television programs on children. Bandura (1969), on the other hand, believes that without the “permission” of parents, children will not be turned into brutes, which these violent shows tend to effect on them. Proper guidance and parental supervision are then needed in order for the gentle children not to turn into insensitively aggressive ones. Indeed, he warned that “children and adults acquire attitudes, emotional responses, and new styles of conduct through filmed and television modeling” (ibid). This may be further illustrated by a child who frequently faces the boob tube. He watches a violent cartoon in the morning and is very engrossed with it. After two hours of preoccupied watching, he watches a DVD of Arnold Schwarzenegger and sees how he fires using his hi-tech rifle in “The Terminator.” He then switches to another hard-core violence. Even in the dinner table, he emulates the stunts and gun firing of his heroes, imagining that they were him. Bandura points out that TV violence tends to turn a child into a sensitive brute, supported by several literatures on this subject. Just like the two teens who killed a tourist in the interstate area, behavior does not simply develop instantly and baselessly, but is patterned to certain social modeling. There is hence, a need to change certain modeling stimuli in society in addressing this issue. REFERENCES Bandura, A., 1969. Principles of behavior modification. New York: Holt, Bandura, A. (1978) Social learning theory of aggression. Journal of Communication. Vol. 28, Issue 3, pp. 12-29. Burton, David L., Miller, Dianne Lyn, and Tal Shill, Chien, 2002. A social learning theory comparison of the sexual victimization of adolescent sexual offenders and nonsexual offending male delinquents. Elsevier Science Ltd. Rinehart, W. and Bandura, A., 1977. Social Learning Theory. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. p. 27. Rosenstock, I., Strecher, V. J., and Becker, M.H. (1988) Social learning theory and the health belief model. American Psychological Association. Read More