Social cognitivism

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In psychology, social cognitivism is a learning theory based on the ideas that people learn by watching what others do and that human thought processes are central to understanding personality. In the book "Educational Psychology: Developing Learners" (2003) author Jeanne Ellis Ormrod lists the main principles of social cognitivism:

• People learn by observing others.
• Learning is an internal process that may or may not change behavior.
• People behave in certain ways to reach goals.
• Behavior is self-directed (as opposed to the behaviorist thought that behavior is determined by environment.)
• Reinforcement and punishment have unpredictable and indirect effects on both behavior and learning.

Teachers play the role as model in a child's learning acquisition. Teachers model both material objectives and underlying curriculum of virtuous living. Teachers should also be dedicated to the building of high self-efficacy levels in their students by recognizing their accomplishments.

The theorists most commonly associated with social cognitivism are Albert Bandura and Walter Mischel.

Categorization and Association are two fundamental concepts involved in stereotyping. Categorization- we tend to group people on the basis of easily identifiable characteristics such as age, race, and gender. This can happen outside of our awareness (Devine, 1989). Association- When we stereotype, we usually have sets of traits that go together, that is, are associated with groups of people. Ways of thinking leading to stereotyping…

The representative-ness heuristic: Our categorizations are based on the extent to which someone’s behavior represents a category we have of various social groups. Example: Is someone who is White, wealthy, and tough on crime a Republican or a Democrat?

The availability heuristic: We attempt to bring to mind examples of behaviors of people, and the easier we can imagine such examples, the more likely we will think those behaviors will occur. Example: If the only African American people who are portrayed in the media are criminals, then those who have little contact may vastly overestimate the number of African American criminals in the general population.

References

• Information obtained by a lecture given by Thomas McClean in 2005.