In accordance with this, the social learning theory depends on four basic principles for the completion of effective application in reeducating the young offenders. The said principles are as follows:
1. People can learn by observing the behavior is of others and the outcomes of those behaviors.
2. Learning can occur without a change in behavior. Behaviorists say that learning has to be represented by a permanent change in behavior, in contrast social learning theorists say that because people can learn through observation alone, their learning may not necessarily be shown in their performance. Learning may or may not result in a behavior change.
3. Cognition plays a role in learning. Over the last 30 years social learning theory has become increasingly cognitive in its interpretation of human learning. Awareness and expectations of future reinforcements or punishments can have a major effect on the behaviors that people exhibit.
4. Social learning theory can be considered a bridge or a transition between behaviorist learning theories and cognitive learning theories.
These principles primarily pertain to the rules of human behavioral observation that assists the theory on learning acceptance of human individuals. With regards recidivism and reeducating the young offenders, the said procedure of learning follows a certain pattern that helps the educators imply both education and punishment among the young adults.
1. Cognitive processing during learning: Social learning theorists contend that attention is a critical factor in learning.
2. Expectations: As a result of being reinforced, people form expectations about the consequences that future behaviors are likely to bring. They expect certain behaviors to bring reinforcements and others to bring punishment. The learner needs to be aware however, of the response reinforcements and response punishment. Reinforcement increases a response only when the learner is aware of that connection.
3. Reciprocal causation: Bandura proposed that behavior can influence both the environment and the person. In fact each of these three variables, the person, the behavior, and the environment can have an influence on each other.
4. Modeling: There are different types of models. There is the live model, and actual person demonstrating the behavior. There can also be a symbolic model, which can be a person or action portrayed in some other medium, such as television, videotape, computer programs.
