Albert Bandura’s research while affiliated with Stanford University and other places

Investigated basic change processes accompanying several social-learning procedures from the perspective of a dual-process theory of avoidance behavior. 48 snake-phobic Ss were administered either symbolic desensitization, symbolic modeling, live modeling combined with guided participation (contact desensitization), or no treatment. All 3 approaches produced generalized and enduring reductions in fear arousal and avoidance behavior and positive changes in attitudes. Modeling with guided participation proved to be the most powerful method. Moreover, Ss who attained only partial improvement through the other treatments displayed total extinction of phobic behavior after a brief period of modeling with guided participation. Favorable changes produced toward the phobic object were accompanied by fear reduction toward threatening situations beyond the specifically treated phobia, the decrements being roughly proportional to the potency of the treatments employed. Moderately high positive correlations were found between behavioral and attitudinal changes. Some evidence was obtained that modeling procedures expedite behavioral changes through vicarious extinction of fear arousal to aversive stimuli below the threshold for activating avoidance responses. (52 ref.)

USED 48 3-5 YR. OLD CHILDREN TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT MAGNITUDE OF VICARIOUS EXTINCTION IS PARTLY GOVERNED BY THE DIVERSITY OF AVERSIVE MODELING STIMULI WHICH ARE NEUTRALIZED, AND BY OS' SUSCEPTIBILITY TO EMOTIONAL AROUSAL. 1 GROUP OF SS, WHO WERE MARKEDLY FEARFUL OF DOGS, OBSERVED A GRADUATED SERIES OF FILMS IN WHICH A MODEL DISPLAYED PROGRESSIVELY MORE INTIMATE INTERACTIONS WITH A SINGLE DOG. A 2ND GROUP WAS EXPOSED TO SIMILAR FILMS DEPICTING A VARIETY OF MODELS INTERACTING NONANXIOUSLY WITH NUMEROUS DOGS VARYING IN SIZE AND FEARSOMENESS, WHILE CONTROLS WERE SHOWN MOVIES CONTAINING NO ANIMALS. BOTH THE SINGLE- AND MULTIPLE-MODELING TREATMENTS EFFECTED SIGNIFICANT REDUCTIONS IN AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOR, BUT ONLY THE MULTIPLE-MODELING TREATMENT WEAKENED SS' FEARS SUFFICIENTLY TO ENABLE THEM TO PERFORM POTENTIALLY THREATENING INTERACTIONS WITH DOGS. EMOTIONAL PRONENESS AND DEGREE OF VICARIOUS EXTINCTION WERE FOUND TO BE UNRELATED IN THE SINGLE-MODEL CONDITION AND NEGATIVELY CORRELATED FOR SS WHO RECEIVED THE MORE POWERFUL MULTIPLE-MODELING TREATMENT.

TESTED BEHAVIOR MAINTENANCE CAPABILITIES OF SELF-MONITORED REINFORCEMENT AND COMPARED IT TO THAT OF AN EXTERNALLY IMPOSED SYSTEM OF REINFORCEMENT. 1 GROUP OF CHILDREN SELECTED THEIR OWN PERFORMANCE STANDARDS AND REWARDED THEMSELVES WHENEVER THEY ATTAINED THEIR SELF-PRESCRIBED LEVEL. FOR A 2ND GROUP THE SAME BEHAVIORAL STANDARDS WERE IMPOSED, AND THE REINFORCERS WERE EXTERNALLY ADMINISTERED. CONTROLS PERFORMED EITHER WITHOUT ANY INCENTIVES OR RECEIVED REWARDS ON A NONCONTINGENT BASIS. RESULTS DISCLOSED THAT SELF-MONITORED AND EXTERNALLY APPLIED REINFORCEMENT WERE EQUALLY EFFICACIOUS, BUT BOTH REINFORCEMENT SYSTEMS SUSTAINED SUBSTANTIALLY MORE RESPONSIVITY THAN DID THE CONTROL CONDITIONS. CONTRARY TO EXPECTATION FROM REWARD-COST THEORIES, MOST SS IMPOSED UPON THEMSELVES HIGHLY UNFAVORABLE SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT WHICH INCURRED HIGH EFFORT COSTS AT MINIMUM SELF-REWARD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

AN EXPERIMENT WAS DESIGNED TO ESTABLISH THE SOCIAL CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH PERSONS WILL EMULATE HIGH STANDARDS OF SELF-REWARD EVEN THOUGH THE SELF-IMPOSITION OF SUCH CONTINGENCIES GENERATES NEGATIVE SELF-EVALUATIVE CONSEQUENCES. CHILDREN WERE EXPOSED TO AN ADULT MODEL WHO ACHIEVED SUPERIOR PERFORMANCES AND ADOPTED A HIGH CRITERION OF SELF-REWARD. THE MAIN VARIABLES SELECTED FOR STUDY WERE THE DEGREE OF NURTURANCE DISPLAYED BY THE MODEL, SOCIAL REINFORCEMENT OF THE MODEL'S HIGH STANDARD-SETTING BEHAVIOR, AND THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF A PEER MODEL WHO ADOPTED A LOW STANDARD OF SELF-REWARD. VICARIOUS POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT ENHANCED SS' EMULATION OF SEVERE PERFORMANCE DEMANDS FOR SELF-REWARD, WHEREAS HIGH MODEL NURTURANCE AND EXPOSURE TO CONFLICTING PEER STANDARDS REDUCED RECEPTIVITY TO ADULT MODELING CUES. THE COMBINED INFLUENCE OF LOW NURTURANCE, VICARIOUS POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT, AND THE ABSENCE OF COMPETING PEER CONTINGENCIES PRODUCED THE MOST STRINGENT PATTERN OF SELF-REWARD. (15 REF.)

INVESTIGATED THE EXTINCTION OF AVOIDANCE RESPONSES THROUGH OBSERVATION OF MODELED APPROACH BEHAVIOR DIRECTED TOWARD A FEARED STIMULUS WITHOUT ANY ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES ACCRUING TO THE MODEL. CHILDREN WHO DISPLAYED FEARFUL AND AVOIDANT BEHAVIOR TOWARD DOGS WERE ASSIGNED TO A CONDITION IN WHICH THEY (1) PARTICIPATED IN A SERIES OF BRIEF MODELING SESSIONS IN WHICH THEY OBSERVED, WITHIN A HIGHLY POSITIVE CONTEXT, A FEARLESS PEER MODEL EXHIBIT PROGRESSIVELY STRONGER APPROACH RESPONSES TOWARD A DOG; (2) OBSERVED THE SAME GRADUATED MODELING STIMULI, BUT IN A NEUTRAL CONTEXT; (3) MERELY OBSERVED THE DOG IN THE POSITIVE CONTEXT, WITH THE MODEL ABSENT; OR (4) PARTICIPATED IN THE POSITIVE ACTIVITIES WITHOUT ANY EXPOSURE TO EITHER THE DOG OR THE MODELED DISPLAYS. THE 2 GROUPS WHO HAD OBSERVED THE MODEL INTERACT NONANXIOUSLY WITH THE DOG DISPLAYED STABLE AND GENERALIZED REDUCTION IN AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOR AND DIFFERED SIGNIFICANTLY IN THIS RESPECT FROM CHILDREN IN THE DOG-EXPOSURE AND THE POSITIVE-CONTEXT CONDITIONS. HOWEVER, THE POSITIVE CONTEXT, WHICH WAS DESIGNED TO INDUCE ANXIETY-COMPETING RESPONSES, DID NOT ENHANCE THE EXTINCTION EFFECTS PRODUCED THROUGH MODELING.

The present experiment was conducted to determine the role of appropriate modeling cues, reinforcement variables, and strong attentional responses in altering children's syntactic style. For an extremely infrequent response such as the passive construction, neither reinforcement nor modeling alone was effective in increasing the use of passives in sentences constructed by children in response to a set of simple nouns. However, children generated significantly more passives when verbal modeling cues were combined with attentional and reinforcement variables designed to increase syntactic discriminability. On the other hand, in the case of a syntactic category as common as prepositional phrases, reinforcement combined with an active attentional set increased children's usage of prepositions, but modeling cues were not a significant contributory factor. These findings indicate that syntactic responsivity which depends upon the acquisition of general rules rather than isolated responses can be accounted for in terms of social-learning principles.

This study investigated the effects of symbolization on delayed reproduction of modeling stimuli in a test of the contiguity-mediational theory of observational learning. During exposure to the behavior of a film-mediated model, 1 group of children engaged in concurrent verbalization, a second group observed passively, while a third group engaged in competing symbolization. Half of the children in each of the treatment conditions observed the model's behavior under a positive incentive set; the remaining Ss were provided no incentive to learn the model's responses. Ss who generated verbal equivalents of the modeling stimuli during exposure subsequently reproduced more matching responses than the passive viewers, who, in turn, showed a higher level of acquisition than children in the competing symbolization treatment. Observational learning, however, was not influenced by incentive set.