Abstract
Cognitivism and social learning theories are considered to be vital aspects of learning. Cognitivism majorly focuses on the activities of the mental especially the inner part of the mental, and this helps in the process of opening the black box of the human mind in order to ensure that it is necessary and valuable to make people understand how people are able to learn. The mental process that includes memory thinking, problem-solving, and thinking should be explored (Bandura & Hall, 2018). Social learning argues that people are able to learn from one another through the means of observation, modeling, and imitation. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the learning theories, identify the weaknesses and the strengths of the theories, and relate the theories to real-life situations.
Literature review
Cognitivism learning theory
In the 1950s, learning theory started to make changes concerning the use of the behavioral models’ approaches that depended on the models and learning theories from cognitive science. Most of the psychologists and majority of the educators started to put more emphasis on the observable behaviors and overt instead of using complex cognitive processes such as problem- solving, thinking, language, concept formation and information processing (Miller, 2003). Most of the authors have rejected the behavioristic assumption and acknowledge that cognitive theory has been at the forefront to help in the process of learning.
Cognitive theory of learning helps in the process of stressing the acquisition of the internal mental structure and knowledge. According to this theory, learning has been equated with discrete changes that are existing between the knowledge states and not in the changes in the probability response. Cognitive theory is majorly focusing on the conceptualization of the learning process of the students. It helps in addressing how the information is supposed to be received, stored, and organized and retrieved by the use of mind. Cognitive is concerned so much with the students know and how they have acquired it but not what the learners do (Sellers et al. 2017). Therefore, in this theory, the acquisition of knowledge is considered a mental activity that entails internal coding and the students’ structuring process. The students, in this case, are considered to be active participants in the process of learning.
Social learning theory
We have realized that during the 20th century, the school of psychology concerning the behavioral was a dominant force. Most of the behaviorists proposed that learning came as a result of having direct contact and experience with the environment through the process that involves reinforcement and association. According to Bandura’s theory, he posits that direct reinforcement cannot be able to account for all types of learning. Social learning theory states that human beings are able to learn through observation. The internal mental states are also applying a vital role in learning. One crucial aspect that social learning posits is that whatever one has learned does not necessarily mean that he or she will change their behaviors. Human beings can learn from other people through observation, which makes the majority perform and act based on what they have observed from other people (Bandura & Hall, 2018).
Social learning theory is helping in elaborating on the behaviors of human beings based on their continuous interaction that exists between the environmental impacts, behavior, and cognitive. The significant components underlying the process of observational learning include attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. Social learning theory helps in the process of spanning cognitive and behavioral framework. According to Bandura, the theory can be improved when there is a strict behavioral interpretation of the modeling. Social learning has been, on most occasions, applied in understanding the aggression and some of the psychological disorders, especially in behavior modification. Social learning theory is also used in the training programs in most of the institutions that are existing around the globe.
Discussion
In both social learning theory and cognitivism learning theory, there is a bearing that concerns behaviorism. This is because, in both theories, the aspect of the environment student affects the learner’s performance at different stages of life. The cognitive theory argues that behavior can be controlled by the mental organization known as the scheme (Higueras-Herbada et al. 2019). Therefore, in both theories, learning can be affected by the environment because the environment can alter the action of an individual. Both the social learning and cognitive theories are involved in the process of development and modeling stages. For example, there are development stages, from childhood to adulthood (Shaker, 2018).
Social learning theory projects much on how human beings are related to each other and involves different social aspects. It focuses on personality as a process of interaction, basically among the psychological process of a person, environment, and behavior (Campbell, 2018). The psychological processes involved in social learning theory helps in entertaining the images in the minds of the learners and their language. On the other hand, cognitive is focusing on how human beings can process the information and the possible means of possessing the ability to summarize symbolic reasoning, which is different from animals.
Social learning theory has strengths and weaknesses; one of the most crucial strengths of the social learning theory is that children can emulate aggression. Children can copy what the adults are doing and practice the same thing, which forms the part of their learning process (Acevedo, 2018). The other strength of the social learning theory is that many acts concerning aggression, such as murder, suicide, and homicide, are generally linked to the television shows and video games. This is based on the three concerns arguments of the social learning theory concepts. Therefore, it states that learning of violence can be as a result of the video watching. The other aspect is that about the internal mental state, whereby the information is stored at the back of the mind but never thinks about it until one is triggered by something. The third aspect states that a person’s behavior cannot be changed, even if something new is learned (Lobo, 2019).
Social learning has weaknesses also; one of the weaknesses concerning this theory is that it does not give an explanation as to why the children are able to watch violent shows or videos, and they end up not emulating the violent behaviors. It argues that any behavior can be learned through experience or watching another person who has gone through the same experience of a given action. It posits that most of the behaviors can be learned when one is involved in copying what an individual or a group of people are doing and makes it a norm (McLeod, 2018).
Cognitive learning theory tries to look deep into the inward and exposes how the brain can interpret stimuli. It helps in the process of highlighting how cognition is majorly affecting the behavior and the reason why it is vital for people to be able to comprehend how their brains are working. Therefore, this has stood to be the most crucial strength of the cognitive learning theory. Cognitive learning theory helps most people improve their behavior because it can efficiently work together with other approaches (Ferreira, 2018).
One of the weaknesses of the cognitive learning theory is that it does not include some of the essential factors of human behavior such as genes, biological structure, chemical imbalances, and individual experiences. Therefore, this may lead to generalizations of human behavior, which do believe that individuals are different (Connolly, 2017). One of the reasons as to why most of the psychologists prefer cognitive is because it is based on the experiments which are scientifically sound since it involves scientific methods. But the weakness involved in this case is that people argue that the experiments are not valid, which may contribute to false approaches.
Under social learning theory, there are several theories that are essential in our daily application. One of these theories includes Maslow’s theory concerning the humanistic views on employee motivation to learn (Lussier, 2019). In most of the organization, learning is a vital aspect that ensures the success of the organization. Therefore, managers and employees are supposed to acquire skills and knowledge that will help them to improve the performance of the organization. For example, based on the Maslow of humanism, we realize that behavior cannot be predetermined by the environment and subconscious, but it is as a result of the consequence of human choice. In real-life situations, people seem to be excellent and free to act in order to achieve unlimited potential learning, development, and growth (Edinyang, 2016). Everyone has the liberty and responsibility to become whatever he or she wants to become, and this comes with the responsibility to learn in order to fulfill daily needs.
According to Maslow, everyone is born with an already set of needs, including psychological, belonging, safety, self- esteem, and self-actualization. Therefore, needs are satisfied depending on the motivation because each level of need is directing the behavior of a person to meet his or her needs (Fallatah & Syed, 2018). Therefore, in every organization, the need to achieve high-performance levels depends on the motivation of an individual and the managers to learn and acquire knowledge. When comparing learning theories, social learning theory becomes an essential learning theory because it involves attention during the learning process, retention, production, and motivation for learning.
Conclusion
Based on social learning theories, we have realized that learning can take place through various approaches. Learning can be through emulation of what other people are doing, and this ends up becoming their behavior. Information learned can be stored in the inner mental states of an individual and retrieved mainly when triggered by something. Learning involves attention, retention, production, and motivation. Therefore, most people are able to learn because they can copy what other people are in society. One aspect of the social learning theory is that any action which has been emulated may not affect an individual’s behavior during the learning process.
References
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