Episode 116 - Social Learning Theory - 16:1

Education News Headline Roundup [00:08:10]

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is once again majorly delayed. On August 7th the U.S. Department of Education announced a rollout process for the 2025-2026 form that includes an October 1st date for limited testing, with the application set to open to all students on December 1 2024, two months later than the typical release date for the application.
A federal appeals court has allowed an Iowa law that bans books with sexual content from K-12 school libraries and restricts instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity before seventh grade to take effect. This overturns a previous injunction that had paused the law, signed by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds in 2023.
An update to a previously discussed story: in the wake of former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse announcing his resignation from the University of Florida presidency, the UF student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, has reported that Sasse may have been forced out over escalating tensions with the university’s board chairman, Morteza “Mori” Hosseini.

Social Learning Theory: Bandura, Bobo, and Beyond [00:15:16]

Social Learning Theory (SLT) seeks to explain how we learn behaviors by observing and imitating others. This episode explores SLT’s unique position between behaviorism, which focuses on observable behaviors, and cognitive psychology, which emphasizes internal processes like memory and perception.

We’ll discuss how Albert Bandura revolutionized psychology by developing new theories on aggression and modeled behaviors, challenging the dominant behaviorist views of the time. We’ll cover Bandura’s famous Bobo Doll experiment and its groundbreaking findings on observational learning, and we’ll also introduce you to other key figures in the development of SLT, like Julian Rotter, who developed the concept of locus of control, and Walter Mischel, known for the marshmallow test on delayed gratification. We’ll also tease apart the core concepts of SLT (modeling, self-efficacy, and vicarious reinforcement) to show how they work together to shape behavior. Finally, we’ll discuss the broader applications and criticisms of SLT in areas like education, media, and even advertising, where the power of observed behavior is leveraged in both positive and controversial ways.