social learning theory
the general view that learning is largely or wholly due to modeling, imitation, and other social interactions. More specifically, behavior is assumed to be developed and regulated by external stimulus events, such as the influence of other individuals, and by external reinforcement, such as praise, blame, and reward. For example, if a student receives extra credit for arriving early to class and another student in the classroom observes this, the latter student may model the behavior by arriving a few minutes early each day as well. Indeed, modeling is one of the most pervasive and powerful means of transmitting patterns of behavior: Once observers extract the rules and structure underlying the modeled activities, they can generate new patterns of behavior that conform to those properties but go beyond what they have seen or heard, expanding their knowledge and skills rapidly without having to go through the process of learning by response consequences. Although many
researchers have proposed their own specific social learning theories, the term is most commonly associated with the work of Albert Bandura and Julian Rotter. Bandura subsequently incorporated cognition into his ideas on social learning, a modification that became known as social-cognitive theory. Despite the distinction, however, many people use the two terms interchangeably.