Bandura sicial learning

Bandura - Social Learning Theory
In social learning theory Albert Bandura (1977) agrees with the behaviourist learning theories of classical conditioning and operant conditioning. However, he adds two important ideas:
Mediating processes occur between stimuli & responses.
Behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.
Observational Learning
Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways.
Individuals that are observed are called models. In society, children are surrounded by many influential models, such as parents within the family, characters on children’s TV, friends within their peer group and teachers at school.  Theses models provide examples of behavior to observe and imitate, e.g. masculine and feminine, pro and anti-social etc.
Children pay attention to some of these people (models) and encode their behavior.  At a later time they may imitate (i.e. copy) the behavior they have observed.
First, the child is more likely to attend to and imitate those people it perceives as similar to itself. Consequently, it is more likely to imitate behavior modeled by people of the same sex.
Second, the people around the child will respond to the behavior it imitates with either reinforcement or punishment.  If a child imitates a model’s behavior and the consequences are rewarding, the child is likely to continue performing the behavior.  If parent sees a little girl consoling her teddy bear and says “what a kind girl you are”, this is rewarding for the child and makes it more likely that she will repeat the behavior.  Her behavior has been reinforced (i.e. strengthened).

Reinforcement can be external or internal and can be positive or negative.  If a child wants approval from parents or peers, this approval is an external reinforcement, but feeling happy about being approved of is an internal reinforcement.  A child will behave in a way which it believes will earn approval because it desires approval.
Third, the child will also take into account of what happens to other people when deciding whether or not to copy someone’s actions.  A person learns by observing the consequences of another person’s (i.e. models) behaviour e.g. a younger sister observing an older sister being rewarded for a particular behaviour is more likely to repeat that behaviour herself.  This is known as vicarious reinforcement.
This relates to attachment to specific models that possess qualities seen as rewarding. Children will have a number of models with whom they identify. These may be people in their immediate world, such as parents or older siblings, or could be fantasy characters or people in the media. The motivation to identify with a particular model is that they have a quality which the individual would like to possess.
Identification occurs with another person (the model) and involves taking on (or adopting) observed behaviors, values, beliefs and attitudes of the person with whom you are identifying.
Identification is different to imitation as it may involve a number of behaviors being adopted, whereas imitation usually involves copying a single behavior.
Mediational Processes
SLT is often described as the ‘bridge’ between traditional learning theory (ie. behaviourism) and the cognitive approach. This is because it focuses on how mental (cognitive) factors are involved in learning.
Bandura (1977) believes that humans are active information processors and think about the relationship between their behavior and its consequences. Observational learning could not occur unless cognitive processes were at work. These mental factors mediate (i.e. intervene) in the learning process to determine whether a new response is acquired.
Therefore, individuals do not automatically observe the behaviour of a model and imitate it. There is some thought prior to imitation and this consideration is called mediational processes. This occurs between observing the behaviour (stimulus) and imitating it or not (response)
Therea are four mediational processes proposed by Bandura:
Attention: The extent to which we are exposed/notice the behaviour. For a behaviour to be imitated it has to grab our attention. We observe many behaviours on a daily basis and many of these are not noteworthy. Attention is therefore extremely important in whether a behaviour has an influence in others imitating it.
Retention: How well the behaviour is remembered. The behaviour may be noticed, but is it not always remembered which obviously prevents imitation. It is important therefore that a memory of the behaviour is formed to be performed later by the observer. Much of social learning is not immediate so this process is especially vital in those cases. Even if the behaviour is reproduced shortly after seeing it, there needs to be a memory to refer to.
Reproduction: This is the ability to perform the behavior that the model has just demonstrated. We see much behaviour on a daily basis that we would like to be able to imitate but that this not always possible. We are limited by our physical ability and for that reason, even if we wish to reproduce the behaviour, we cannot. This influences our decisions whether to try and imitate it or not. Imagine the scenario of a 90-year-old-lady who struggles to walk watching Dancing on Ice. She may appreciate that the skill is a desirable one, but she will not attempt to imitate it because she physically cannot do it.
Motivation: The will to perform the behaviour. The rewards and punishment that follow a behaviour will be considered by the observer. If the perceived rewards outweighs the perceived costs (if there are any) then the behaviour will be more likely to be imitated by the observer. If the vicarious reinforcement is not seen to be important enough to the observer then they will not imitate the behaviour.

Cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition,[1] with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by neural circuits in the brain.
Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN) is the study of the biological bases of behavior: how the brain affects behavior.  Growth in our understanding of this relationship has been one of the major scientific developments of the last 50 years.  CBN includes human and animals studies of the role of specific brain regions and neurochemical factors in behavior.  Examples include examining the effect of drugs and their mechanisms of action; the biological bases of learning; behavioral problems associated with damage to specific brain regions; anatomical and chemical correlates of mental illnesses; and the use of modern noninvasive imaging techniques to study brain involvement in human cognition, perception, emotion, cognition.