We all indulge in some form of Social Learning or other. According to Richard Walters and Albert Bandura who proposed the Social Learning Theory, we learn from each other through observation, imitation and modelling. The Social Learning Theory that Walters and Bandura came up with is regarded as a bridge between the cognitive and behaviourist learning theories as it touches upon aspects such as memory, motivation and attention.
Walters and Bandura have made some interesting observations. According to the Social Learning Theory first outlined by them in 1963 and then discussed in further detail in 1977:
- We learn when we observe other people’s attitudes, behaviours and the outcomes of those behaviours.
- The learning that takes place is not purely behavioural; it is a cognitive process that takes place in a social context.
- Our learning involves observation, extraction of information from those observations and making decisions about the performance of the behaviour. Thus, learning can occur without an observable change in behaviour.
- Mere reinforcement is not entirely responsible for learning although it does play a major role.
- We are not passive recipients of information. Aspects such as cognition, environment and behaviour all mutually influence each other for our learning to take place.
The social media phenomenon that we see today justifies a lot of these observations they made with their Social Learning Theory. Almost everything has gone “social” today and if this phenomenon is not leveraged for learning, you’re missing out on something that a majority of your learner population relates to.
Want more insights on how Social Learning can turn things around for Corporate Training initiatives? Check out our Online Portfolio or schedule a call with our Solution Architecting Team.
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