Handbook of Moral and Character Education by Nucci Larry; Krettenauer Tobias; Narvaez Darcia

Author:Nucci, Larry; Krettenauer, Tobias; Narvaez, Darcia
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1682202
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY AND THE COGNITIVE REVOLUTION

Social Learning Theory (SLT) (e.g., Bandura, 1973; Rotter, 1954) had enormous impact on the methods and techniques of SEL programs. It was derived from work in clinical and personality psychology and an appreciation of how cognitive factors led to the persistence of behaviors that appeared on the surface to be undesirable and even counterproductive. Rotter, a seminal theorist in this field, studied under Alfred Adler and was highly influenced by his work with children. “Striving for superiority,” “style of life,” and “fictional finalism” are all essentially cognitive schema that presage much of the later work in cognitive-behavioral theory. Bandura, in particular, observed how traditional, purely behavioral learning theories were unable to explain how humans acquired novel, unrehearsed, and unreinforced behavior from watching other individuals’ actions (Bandura, 1973). SLT therefore focused not only on the impact of modeling and observation but also the way in which individuals draw from their experiences to create expectancies about interactions with others. These expectancies, in turn, exercise strong influence on behavior.

Generalization, in SLT, is a function of creating an expectancy about the likely desirable outcome of a behavior and its value. For this reason, the overall climate of the classroom and school (i.e., the normative structure) is important to sustaining prosocial behavior. Behaviors must reach a certain threshold of repetition, reinforcement, and salience if they are to be internalized. As more influences in the environment provide messages contrary to the program, the “dosage” of whatever an SEL (or moral or character education program) wishes to convey in attitudes and skills will have to be higher before an intervention’s message is received and remembered. Hence, SLT recognized the powerful role presented by the ecological environment while also keeping in focus that it is the individual’s interpretations of the environmental contingencies (i.e., expectancies) that would ultimately be the most powerful influence on behavior.

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