Everyday people behave in society without giving attention to many of the actions and choices they make. Such things as how you act at a dinner table are basic manners that are socially learned behaviors and standards. By witnessing what works best for others, people make decisions based on a simple reward system. These actions and reactions are noted by psychologists as social learning behaviors. In this essay I will discuss social learning theory, self-efficacy and self-regulation, as well as conation.

Social learning is a theory primarily based on Albert Bandura’s research. He observed that human learning occurs in a social context, that is to say individuals learn from one another through imitating, modeling, and observation. Bandura simplified his research into four principle concepts that combined both cognitive and operant view points. Attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation he claimed were the ultimate determining factors involved in social learning theory. Since each individual child interprets events differently based on past experiences, relation to the model, and situation, attention is either established or not. Retention plays a valuable role in the ability to imitate the material that has previously been witnessed by the individual. The ability to reproduce the action performed by the model must be possible; the action has to repeatable. Motivation is the primary determinant in whether or not a behavior will be repeated, the more positively the individual values the reward of the action the more likely the action will be reproduced. In his “Bobo doll” experiment, Bandura repeatedly showed that children would change their behavior by observing others. In this classic experiment, three groups of children watched a movie that showed a similar aged child acting aggressively towards a Bobo doll. Each of these groups, however, experienced a different ending. The first group witnessed the child being praised for his reaction towards the doll, another saw the child punished for his actions, while the final ending showed the child simply leaving the room. Later when the children were given the opportunity to play with the same doll, Bandura observed that the children that had seen positive enforcement and those that had seen no consequences were much more likely to act aggressively towards the doll than those that had witnessed a negative reinforcement. The study also showed that males reacted more violently in all three situations as compared to the female children. (Huitt,2004). These findings suggests that violent programming could potentially lead to violent behavior, and educational type programming could certainly boost the intelligence of children. In a further study Bandura showed that watching “Sesame Street” on a frequent basis yielded higher test scores than those that had not been exposed to the same or similar programming.

Bandura at this point makes note of two particular characteristics that he calls “self-efficacy” and “self-regulation.” Self-efficacy is the foundation for motivation, well-being, and accomplishment. Unless people get the response they want from a given action, there is little desire to repeat the action or continue against extreme hardships. People often choose to do things that have a knowledge of or feelings of likely success. Persistence and effort can be clearly seen when a person tends to put more effort into an activity that is generally considered successful to achieve. (Pajares 2002). Self-efficacy is affected by social persuasions. Those enrolled in a college curriculum are more persuaded to put forth the necessary effort needed to succeed in the classes they are enrolled. Physiological states influence efficacy through self-appreciation or distress. Feelings of stress and depression often curve the involvement of an individual in specific tasks due to anxiety or fear of failure. Self-regulation is a personal moral and decision standard by which individuals choose what is appropriate behavior and that which is not. This often takes the form of standards and goals; every personal choice leads to either a positive or negative consequence when working towards responsibilities. Individuals will make decisions based on what they believe will be most beneficial to their personal desires. Through self observation individuals determine what actions are physically and emotionally supporting their desires. Self reaction is when the individual takes the knowledge they have and applies it to the decisions they make. (Behncke, 2002)

One of the three components of the mind is conation. Conation is defined as the processing of information, encoding and storing, as well as retrieval of information.. (Huitt, W. 1999). Conation is arguably considered motivation by many although the term tends to deal more specifically with “what” and “why” we make decisions to do things. In most recent texts, conation has been argued to be the main aspect of self-regulation and usually takes five distinct shapes: awareness of human needs, desire to reach various possibilities, making decisions, setting goals, and making plans. As Maslow has pointed out in his research, there is a hierarchical pyramid of human needs that must be satisfied to obtain happiness and stability. Becoming aware of one’s own needs is the key to conation, without it there is no beginning. Desire and dreams play an important role in establishing one’s possible self. These are the things that drive human beings to overcome difficulties. Without the ability to envision one’s self in a position other than the present, individuals would be over come with depression and anxiety as they become confused about direction when overwhelmed with tasks. Making decisions psychologists believe is what sets humans apart from other species. While animals are driven by instincts and reflexes, it is believed that humans do not posses many if any instincts, instead we have a freedom of choice. Setting goals has been viewed in a variety of forms. Psychologists agree that making decisions ultimately affects our personal goals either positively or negatively. Goals are ideal when they are made some what difficult, however they must be attainable. Those individuals that have low self-efficacy are likely to choose goals that are relatively easy and require little effort, whereas a high efficacy individual would likely choose goals that require more dedication and a larger payoff. Finally, planning is of most importance in today’s fast paced world. The most effective type of planning is backwards planning. Backwards planning is seeing what a person wants, and then working to identify the best means of achieving that desire. (Huitt, W. 1999).

In conclusion, human behavior is almost perfectly predictable when one knows what to look for. Paying attention to how others influence one’s decision making will allow for the accurate prediction of a given action. By being aware of how social learning works, one can easily manipulate a group or audience into behaving according to the experimental control. When failure to socially learn happens, the best course of action is to establish a set of rules based on self-regulation and self-efficacy. Through planning and good use of conation, one can easily get back onto track and perform successfully in the society.

Behncke, Luke. 2002. Self-Regulation: A Brief Review. Melbourne, Australia. 2005 August 16. http://www.athleticinsight.com/Vol4Iss1/SelfRegulation.htm

Feldman, Robert S. 2005. Development Across the Life Span. Pearson Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Huitt, W. 2004. Observational (social) learning: An overview Valdosta, GA: 2005 August 16. http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/soccog/soclrn..html.

Pajares, Frank. 2002. Overview of Social Cognitive Theory and of Self-efficacy. Emory University. 2005 August 16. http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/eff.html