Bandura's Social Learning Theory

From a young age, children constantly try to mimic their parents whether it be by dressing up as mom or playing a game pretending to be a doctor like dad. As children get older, they continue to look to their parents for how to respond to different situations. Bandura’s Social Learning Theory emphasizes this idea of observing behavior and then modeling these observed behaviors and emotions. In order for children to model behavior, the following four steps must be taken:

• The observer must pay attention to events (live or symbolic) that are modeled.

• When material has been attended to, it must then be retained, with the observed behavior represented in memory through a verbal or imaginal representation system.

• Symbolic representation must be converted into appropriate actions similar to the originally modeled behavior.

• The final step involves motivation and there being sufficient motivation for the observer to model the behavior.

    This theory can be applied to the current COVID-19 situation. If parents express anxiety and distress about what is going on in the world, then children may observe this behavior and model after it. However, if parents are able to remain calm and reassure their children that everything is going to be okay then children can model this. Because stay-at-home orders are in effect, children and parents are together most, if not all, of the day. This allows for more opportunities for children to observe their parents’ behaviors and be able to retain them. 

    In addition to children adopting the feelings and emotions of their parents, children can also model after their organizational behaviors. If parents create a schedule for themselves then children may observe this and be more motivated to create their own schedules and stick to them in order to be “just like mom or dad.” This has been seen on social media where parents post photos of them working from home and another photo of their children also “working from home just like mom/dad.” It is essential for parents to remember that their children are always watching to see how they are going to react to different situations and then learn/model this behavior. Because the pandemic situation is so unfamiliar to children, they are more likely to look to how their parents respond to the situation and model their behaviors off of that. 

Source: Grusec, J.E. (1992). Social Learning Theory and Developmental Psychology: The Legacies of Robert Sears and Albert Bandura. Developmental Psychology, 28(5), 776-786.