In the Banduras Social Learning Theory, we know that it was focus on the observational learning and also personality. However, Rotters Social Learning Theory is not only a trait theory, it was also a “ process” theory that was focuses on single dimension of personality. (Johnson et al.) The violence behavior is always caused by long term repeated exposed to the violent media or people who react violent. (Anderson, 2000) Violence behavior is the behavior that people react in violence from his daily behavior. The violence behavior tends to have the violence tendency. Children will have tendency to become violent himself is because he have been hurt in the past. (Solter, 1989) In addition, a person who has the tendency of violence has the high percentage of the unpleasant childhood. (Solter) He had been kick, spanked, hit, beaten, and threaten will make him become more violence. (Solter) Moreover, the physical abuse is the violence behavior that categorized into social learning theory. The violence behavior had been showed by a 27-year-old laundry shop owner, John Paul Encinas. (Carvajal, 2012) He was splashing water on the lady cashier and throwing emptied bottle at her. (Carvajal) In addition, he was yanking her shirt by the collar till she hit the counter. (Carvajal) After that, he went to the other side of the counter and tried to stuff peso bills into a men’s mouth. (Carvajal) In this case, John Paul Encinas had showed that he had the violence behavior and he also had tended to physical abuse. Furthermore, a 24-year-old man, James Holmes who had murdered 12 people, and injured 58 more. (Malley, 2012) He was telling everyone that he was The Joker, the villain of the Batman films with his flaming red-orange dyed hair. (Malley) James Holmes was observe, imitate and modeling the behavior that had been showed in the Batman films. This kind of violence behavior that he react was observe, imitate and modeling the Batman films.
The aggressive behavior will increase immediately in the short term when exposed to violence. (Anderson, 2000) Brink (2001, p. 6) stated that “ aggressive is always a consequence of frustration.” “ In more specifically, the occurrence of aggressive behaviour always presupposes the existence of frustration and, contrariwise, that the existence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression.” (Brink, p. 6) In real life, sometimes the aggressive behaviour of a child was learned from their parents. Parents always become the models of their children. Besides that, in the Bandura’s classic experiment with the ‘ Bobo doll’, he showed that “ not only new behaviour can be learnt and also how the vicarious punishment had only blocked the performance of the new response not its acquisition.” (Sheehan, 2008, p. 8) This can be the main implications for aggression viewed on TV and films. (Sheehan) In addition, children always exposed to actors who commit crimes and although they are caught, the children have still probably learnt about criminal behaviour and hence may model this type of behaviour later if it is necessary. (Sheehan) This is a central feature of observational learning, the observer does not response the behaviour immediately but it is in order for it to be learnt. (Sheehan)
The classic experiment of ‘ Bobo doll’ had showed observing violent behaviour will make viewers more likely to become violent. (Johnson, McCann & Zimbardo, 2009) All the children watching adults appearing to punching, hitting and kicking an inflated plastic clown were bring out the aggressive behaviour. (Johnson et al.) Children will observe and imitate aggressive behaviour that they have seen on television or in video games. (Johnson et al.) Moreover, children will exhibit up to seven times more aggressive than the children under control. (Johnson et al.) Learning by observation and imitation can affect our behaviour in new situations showed in the Bobo doll experiment. (Johnson et al.) Children learned the aggressive behaviour through the imitating aggressive role models. (Johnson et al.) Most of the time, people who considered as successful or admirable are the role models for the children. (Johnson et al.) The observational learning occurs in nonhuman species as well. (Johnson et al.) For example, a hen brings her chicks to find the foods and also teaches them how to find the foods. While, there is the social aggressive present in the aggressive behaviour. Social aggressive is a person used to spread nasty rumours or try to make others to dislike particular people or friends. There is an example of a girl that have the behavior of aggressive and maybe will extent it to violence behavior when she growing up. A 16-year-old girl is dragged through a city mall by two men and her face is violently slapped by the older man. (Battering, 1990) She sobbing that, she will not going to let the older man beat anymore and goes to the youth shelter, but won’t go home. (Battering) In this case, the girl had showed the aggressive behavior and maybe she will do something violence when she getting older. On the other hand, some of the children will do the same things that they faced to their children when they become parents.
On the other hand, the less well understood by parents will cause the aggressive and violence behavior by a person who has not allowed to release the emotions resulting from the hurts. (Solter, 1989) For example, some of the children cannot release their emotions when they were scolded and beat by the parents or teachers. When they release their emotions, they will get scolding and beaten more seriously. The unresolved and unexpressed feelings about what the person has experienced will make him have a tendency to be violence towards others. (Solter) Nowadays, the rate of school violence is increasing rapidly, and this kind of problems were causing by the family issue and also the environment issue. The victims of school violence will also have the violence behavior because they cannot release the emotions. They received the outside pressure, so they react violent to release their dissatisfied. For example, there is a 14-year-old boy accused over a shooting at a high school, he is accused of opening fire with a 22 calibre rifle in W. R. Myers high school. (Mercury, 1999) He was killing a 17-year-old boy, Jason Lang and wounding another student on April 28. (Mercury) This case showed the violence behavior of a children and also school violence. In addition, a 15-year-old boy has been charged with threatening to shoot his classmate. (Mercury) Furthermore, “ violence behavior is tolerated and glorified in most of the industrialized countries, and the culturally linked to appropriate male behavior.” (Solter) Children who more exposed to the violent programs will be more violent. Such as, little boys had been giving the soldiers, guns and other war paraphernalia with which to play. (Solter) In addition, some of the parents will buy the story books that often glorify war, masculine activity, and describe great male conquerors as heroes. (Solter) Besides that, boys always taught by their parents that boys must be tough and cannot cry when faced any problems. (Solter) Therefore, this can be explained that men will commit more violent crimes than women. The culture will influence a person behavior and also producing violent people.
The limitations of this social learning are the theory has not stood up to the test of time. For example, in Bandura’s famous Bobo doll experiment, they did not limit the time that the children watching adult behaved aggressive. This will be the limitation of this social learning theory that they cannot accurately analyzed the children will can observe, imitate and modeling the behavior in how long of the period of time. In addition, the mental processes does not accounted when explaining behavior. (Grusec, 1992) When they are analyzing the theory, they only focus on what behavior had been reacting by a person, and they do not focus on what was thinking by the person. Furthermore, the social learning theory is view on personality, and it is unlike the traditional behaviorism does include social and mental process and their influence on behavior. (Ciccarelli & White, 2009) The different of the basic assumptions between the psychoanalytic and learning theory is about human behavior that they seem strange bedfellows indeed. (Grusec) According to Sear (1957), he actually “ had found himself in some difficulty in his attempts to explain the growth of drivers, attempts necessitated by the importance of motivation for both psychoanalytic and stimulus-response theory.” (as cited in Grusec, p. 779) In contrast, social learning theory also has it strength. The strength of this theory is the solid psychological research. (Johnson, McCann & Zimbardo, 2009) This theory is focusing on observation learning, imitating and modeling and it has the different with the ideas proposed by Freudians, neo-Freudians, and humanists such as Bandura’s famous Bobo doll experiment in observational learning. (Johnson et al.) The distinctions between short-term and long-term compliance with parental dictate are the strength of social learning theory. (Grusec) For example, in our culture, children will always follow parents’ opinion. On the other hand, children will observe, imitate and modeling parents’ behavior and accept their opinion. In addition, the strength of social learning theory is “ the concern with differential treatment of boys and girls and identifying specific relationships between parent discipline and internalization of societal standards.” (Grusec) In most of the Asia culture, parents treating their children according to their gender. In this theory, we can found that parents will tell their sons, you must be strong and do not cry, because you are a man. In contrast, most of the parents will treat their daughters as a queen and pamper them.
In conclusion, social learning theory is the theory that can be applied in our daily life and it was also useful for us to understand that the behavior of a person exposed happen around us. On the other hand, social learning theory is not only focusing on the observational learning and personality, it can be focus on the single dimension of personality as well. In addition, in social learning theory, we found that there can causes some of the behavior, such as violence behavior, and aggressive behavior. Aggressive behavior is the short term behavior. It will occur when a person is exposing to the violence behavior. If the person cannot expose the aggressive behavior in the short term, it will increase the level of aggressive and it will become violence behavior. Furthermore, violence behavior is a long term behavior. It can be exposed after a few years. In addition, the factors that will cause the violence behavior occurred are depending on the level of aggressive or violence behavior had been exposed to the person in his childhood or life. On the other hand, social learning theory has its limitations and strengths. The limitations are the social learning theory does not stood up to the test of time, and mental processes not accounted in explaining behavior. While, the strengths of this social learning theory are solid psychological research, the short-term and long-term compliance with parental dictate, and the differential treatment of boys and girls and the identity of specific relationships between parents discipline and also internalization of societal standards.
