Interviewer: Welcome, Dr. Bandura. We’re glad you could be with
us today. Tell me a little bit about your personal background.
AB: Thank you for having me. I was born in Alberta, Canada,
in 1925, the only boy in a family of six children. I went to grammar
school and high school in Mundara, a small town without many educational resources;
however, the teachers there taught me the skills necessary to become a self-directed
learner. This has helped me throughout my life.
Interviewer: Where did you go after you left Mundara?
AB: First, I went up into the Northern Territories and worked
as a laborer on the Alaska Highway. This allowed me to meet many different
types of people. Then, I went to college at the University of British
Colombia.
Interviewer: How did you choose the field of psychology?
AB: (laughs) Well, actually it was almost an accident. At the time
I was in college, I was riding to campus with a carpool of other students
who had early classes, so I found a class to fill that early time slot.
And it turned out to be psychology! After I took that course, I began
to take more classes and became more and more interested in the field.
I enjoyed it so much that I finished my B.A. in just three years in 1949.
Interviewer: That is certainly an interesting story.
Where did your career take you then?
AB: For graduate school, I chose the University of Iowa.
There I received both by M.A. in Psychology and my Ph.D. in clinical psychology
in the early 1950s. Then, I married a my lovely wife, Virginia, and
we moved to California so I could take a teaching position at Stanford in
1953. I have been at Stanford ever since.
Interviewer: Dr. Bandura, you are well-known for Cognitive
Social Learning Theory. What are the basic assumptions of this theory?
AB: Well, I believe in a concept called reciprocal determinism,
which means that the world and a person’s behavior interact and each causes
the other. I also believe that personality is made up of a combination
of environment, behavior, and psychological processes. Observational
learning is another one of my theories. I believe that individuals learn
best by observation of others. Therefore, learners are tremendously
influenced by the models they see.
Interviewer: Will you describe your Bobo Doll Study for us?
AB: Sure, I designed this experiment to see how observational
learning was related to aggression. First, I put a Bobo doll (a blow
up doll with a weight in the bottom) in two rooms with children. One
group (control) had no adult visitor, but the other group (experimental) had
an adult enter the room and proceed to kick, punch, and yell at the Bobo doll
in front of them. After this experience, the children were put together
in another room with the Bobo doll. The children from the experimental
group imitated the adult’s behavior almost perfectly and began to kick, punch,
and yell at the Bobo doll. I was amazed because they had changed their
behavior without the promise of a reward or punishment. I was also
able to link this observational learning to the reason that so many abused
children become abusers themselves.
Interviewer: Besides your work with the Bobo doll study and aggression,
you are also known for your social learning theory. Can you describe
the parts of that theory?
AB: Certainly. I believe that social learning requires attention,
retention, reproduction, and motivation. By attention, I mean that in
order to learn a person has to be paying attention to what he is learning.
Thus, anything that causes you not to pay attention will interfere with learning.
Retention is simply the act of remembering to what the person has paid attention.
Imagery and language, in the form of visual and verbal cues, help us to retrieve
this information for later use. Reproduction indicates that the learner
must translate the imagery and language learned into action. It has
been shown that people can improve their ability to perform certain tasks
by simply imagining themselves doing the tasks. And finally, a learner
must have motivation to learn something whether they are motivated by past
reinforcements (like rewards or punishments), by promised reinforcements (like
incentives that we can imagine), or by vicarious reinforcement (like seeing
and recalling the model).
Interviewer: Thank you, Dr. Bandura for that description
of your theory. Now, I would like to move on to discussing your theory’s
implications for instruction in the 21st century. Would you recommend
teachers try modeling with their students?
AB: Yes, because most students benefit greatly from modeling
so it is very important for them to show students what the end product should
look like. For example, I believe that students would be more likely
to write in their journals when they see the teacher doing the same thing
during journal time. This modeling reinforces how important journal
time is to the teacher. Also, if the teacher shares her journal with
the class, then students will be more willing to share their journals because
they are modeling the teacher. Many times students will model what they
see even if there is not an explicit reward so teachers need to capitalize
on this.
Interviewer: How do you see teachers using social learning
theory in the classrooms of the 21st century?
AB: I think good classrooms are where students pay attention,
retain information, reproduce information, and are motivated. Teachers
have the opportunity to do this in many different ways.
First, I heartily believe that it is imperative for teachers to get students’
attention before they try to teach them anything. If a student is not
paying attention to the information, then she cannot learn it. I think
it is important for teachers to have many ways to get and keep students’ attention
as they are teaching. In today’s media-rich society, some ways to do
that may include using videos, audio recordings, multimedia CD-ROMs, PowerPoint
presentations, or Internet sites. Teachers who engage students’ attention
will be able to teach them skills, concepts, and information.
Retention is another factor that teachers can bolster in order to
improve student learning. Teachers can help students retain information
by creating images and words that are connected. This is a good argument
for using graphic organizers and mnemonic devices to enhance student recall.
After retaining the information, students need to reproduce what they have
learned. The best way to do this is through guided practice soon after
the teacher has modeled the skill. Independent practice after observation
is also helpful.
Lastly, teachers should use motivation to help students learn. Some
students are motivated by grades, others by praise. It is up to the
teacher to figure out how to motivate each student in her classroom to learn.
This requires that the teacher form relationships with her students in order
to find what explicitly motivates each child. I believe that teachers
will turn to technology as the chief motivator for children. Interactive
educational games, logical thinking puzzles and other tools found on the Internet
can be wonderful motivators for today’s kids.
Interviewer: Well, Dr. Bandura, you have many ideas on how teachers
today can use your theory. What do you think the impact of virtual violence
will be on the first “digital” generation?
AB: I am worried that the increased exposure of youngsters
to violence on the Internet, on television and in video games will create
more aggressive adults. I don’t believe it matters that the violence
is “virtual”. I think that seeing the model will still affect children
to act violently if a similar situation were to happen in their real life.
Children can learn how to shoot a gun to kill someone in a game, but when
faced with a real gun they will probably do exactly what they did on the game.
The problem in the real world is that there are consequences for the actions
that are not found in the video games and other forms of virtual entertainment.
Interviewer: What do you see as limitations of your theory
with regards to technology?
AB: I think the social aspect of my theory tends to get overlooked
when applying it to technology because the interaction of the personal, the
environmental and the psychological is difficult to assess when using asynchronous
methods of communication such as e-mail or discussion boards. Also,
I think that the citizens of the media-frenzied society we live are not aware
of how influential observational learning is for consumers since almost all
advertising relies on observational learning and modeling.
Interviewer: And, finally, Dr. Bandura, where do you see the
future of technology heading in light of your theories?
AB: I am encouraged that technology enables us to create virtual
beings after which we may model ourselves. I just hope that the beings
we create will be worthy of imitation.
Interviewer: Thank you very much for your time today,
Dr. Bandura. Your insights have enriched us all.
AB: It was my pleasure to visit with you today. Thank you.
Summary of Interview:
Albert Bandura is a psychologist and researcher interested in agression and
social learning theory. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University
of British Columbia and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. Currently,
he is a professor at Stanford. He is well-known for his Bobo doll study
from the 1960s on children and aggressive behavior. He believes in reciprocal
determinism, which means that environmental factors, personal factors, and
psychological factors interact in personality development. Bandura's
social learning theory has for main tenets, which include attention, retention,
reproduction, and motivation.
*N.B. This "interview" was conducted by Laurie Fowler as a requirement for
AIL 601 Fall 2002 at the Univerisity of Alabama. Dr. Bandura was not
contacted for this project. The information presented was found in the
following references.
References:
Boeree, C. G. (1998). Personality Theories Albert Bandura. Retrieved
October 9, 2002, from
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/bandura.html.
Kearsly, G. (1994). Social Learning Theory. Retrieved October 9,
2002, from http://tip.psychology.org/bandura.html.
Myers, D. G. (2001). Psychology.(6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth.
Pajares, F. (n.d.). Albert Bandura. Retrieved on October 29, 2002,
from http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/bandurabio.html.
Background from http://www.boogiejack.com/
