Reflections and Thoughts on Social Learning Theory

Did you know? Academic degrees have been a part of Western civilization since the 13th century. Both the Universities of Paris and Bologna were authorized by Papal order to confer what we today would call advanced degrees, the earliest doctorate being a Doctor of Civil Laws awarded by University of Bologna. Universities are formal places of social learning. Even before that, though, humans have learned from each other and documented what they know for others to see and use. Cavemen observed other cavemen holding tools and using them to create other objects. Cavemen learned that fire, as from a lightning-ignited bush, hurts when one puts their hand in it, but also figured out from other cavemen how to create a fire from common objects lying around.

Social media was not the beginning of social learning. People have always learned socially. Besides universities, artisan guilds, apprenticeships, and communities of practice all give voice to the basic concept that people learn from each other. Social learning gives teachers opportunity to model (demonstrate) proper practice of a skill and allows learners the chance to imitate the skill in front of the teacher, figure out what if anything they might be doing wrong, and improve on it. The teacher being there to provide immediate feedback, learners can immediately try a new behavior and assess whether that new behavior helps them achieve the learning goal—in short, whether it works. As well, an immediately available teacher in a social learning context can be there to give positive reinforcement, and if any other learners are nearby, they gain vicarious reinforcement from their fellow learner's behavior.

Social learning to me is almost obvious: who but each other can we learn from? In the digital age, however, "each other" is suddenly the whole world. Learners have the opportunity to learn from experts who would not otherwise have been available to them. I wish I had had social media, notably YouTube and other visual media, when I was first learning to make soap. My first batch of soap was learned from a book—an info-packed book, to be sure, but as a visual aid it was completely lacking: no photos, diagrams, or illustrations of any kind. The book was kind of a soap cookbook. Imagine a cookbook with no pictures. Not as helpful as one with, to be sure! I used the book once and set it aside. What helped me much more were the many videos, blogs with photos, and commentary from other users available on various websites. The master soapers were modeling techniques—how to add lye to the water, not the other way around; how to pour the lye solution into the liquid oils, not the other way around, and also some techniques to keep the solution from splattering; how to stir the solution (the book never suggested using an immersion blender; I would never have thought of that if not for the video!); and so on. I was imitating their techniques, getting good results, and getting reinforcement from giftees who loved my early soap efforts. In addition, modeling and imitation helped me avoid behaviors that produced poor results. For example, working cold-process soap mixtures at temperatures low enough to cause solid oils to solidify before reacting causes unreacted lye to remain in the soap, a potentially dangerous situation. Another example is the dreaded soap mishap of ricing, which basically is the soap curdling and not staying smooth due to specific additives such as certain fragrance oils. That happened to me once, and I didn't know why. Only through a teacher explaining the phenomenon and what causes it could I then use logic and reason to avoid it.

Some other life experiences I have had which illustrate principles of social learning:

• In my first career as a low-level university administrator, one position I held was faculty manager of a part-time distance baccalaureate program in nuclear science and engineering. Most of the enrollees were nuclear power plant operators who had some college credit but no degree; lots of work experience in the field, including military experience; and lots of certification training. We observed that some of the students could not wrap their heads around problems in calculus, differential equations, or physics unless the problem were put in a nuclear-related context. I regard this as an example of situated cognition: the learners, correctly or not, felt they could learn a concept only if it was couched in the terms of an environment they knew all too well. Perhaps, also, their sense of self-efficacy was tied to the nuclear context.

• I was also pondering Weight Watchers. I got my start in training, my second career, as a group leader for WW from 1991 to 1995 (I'd been working for them since 1989 in other capacities). WW meetings are great observation labs for all sorts of social learning. Members see other members being successful by doing the recommended behaviors: counting food, exercising, and all the other little behaviors that add up to weight loss and maintenance, as well as little tangible milestone rewards like ribbons and badges. It's not luck; it's not being "blessed"; it's not genes, although that may help a little. It's doing the behaviors and seeing the results at the scale or in your dress or pants size. There's a unit in the curriculum, which by the way is developed by WW IDD's for the whole world (at any point in time, the whole world was on the same weekly discussion topic), called "How Do the Thin People Eat?" In that meeting, we group leaders ask the members, what do you see and hear thin people do that you could start doing? It's not exactly vicarious reinforcement (the members won't lose weight themselves just because a thin person turns down a second piece of pie :)), but they could use their thin people as role models: the thin say no to extra portions; they don't eat everything on the plate just because it's there; they walk instead of driving; they take the stairs instead of the elevator. When they do the activities that they see in successful members, and they experience the bodily changes they aim for, such as smaller dress or belt size, ability to walk up stairs without huffing and puffing, or running or biking a marathon or century, they experience self-reinforcement. Another topic in the curriculum is roughly labeled as "if you don't have it, you can't eat it"—an example of self-imposed stimulus control. Members learn what their danger foods are, the ones they can't control their intake of, and simply don't bring them into their eating environment. The group suggests replacements that may satisfy the same urge (low-fat snacks, like pretzels, instead of potato chips; sugar-free chocolate instead of regular, etc.), or healthy alternatives (raspberries instead of chocolate), because "if you don't have it, you can't eat it" applies to having healthy food in the house as well as not having unhealthy food in the house.
  WW meetings are also great little labs for distributed cognition: we as group leaders frequently asked the members to brainstorm treacherous eating situations and how they were going to navigate those. The members get ideas to try from one another. Though all group leaders are successful WW members at their goal weight, sometimes members don't want to hear how we would handle it: they want to hear ways to deal with situations from members who are at the same point on their weight-loss journey as they are. In doing so, they build up a body of knowledge shared by the group and peculiar to that group. And, of course, WW is a prime example of self-regulation. As a leader, I wanted members to ponder possible outcomes from a variety of choices they confronted every week, and adjust their behaviors accordingly.