Activity 7.3

There are a few misconceptions in regards to the social cognitive theory, which Bandura discusses in his article, But What About the Gigantic Elephant in the Room. The first misconception of this theory is that, “modeling, constructed as imitation, could only produce response mimicry.” (p. 2) In reality, modeling involves students abstracting information and reproducing it to “generate new versions of the behavior that go beyond what they have seen and heard.” (, p. 2)

The next misconception deals with the scope of modeling. The critics argue that modeling doesn’t build cognitive skills because, “thought processes are covert and are not adequately modeled actions, which are the end-products of the cognitive operations” (p. 2) This notion is incorrect as cognitive skills can be observed and models verbalize their reasoning strategies.

The third misconception argues, “Modeling is antithetical to creativity.” (p. 3) However, Bandura argues that diverse modeling allows innovativeness and new characteristics which “differ from the original sources.” (p. 3)    

Another misconception, pertains to the Bobo Doll experiment on transmitting forms of aggression through social modeling. Research shows that the exposure to modeled aggression, “ can teach novel aggressive styles of conduct; weaken restrains over interpersonal aggression by legitimizing, glamorizing, and trivializing violent conduct; desensitize and habituate viewers to human cruelty; and shape public images of reality by how it represents social and power relations and the norms and structures of societies. (Bandura, p. 3) Bandura explains that the Bobo Dolls were designed to clarify observational learning and not to teach aggression.

A key point made in the article is, “the social cognitive theory is founded on an agentic perspective toward human self-development, adaption and change. To be an agent is to influence the course of events by one’s actions.” (p. 4) According to this theory, people contribute to their life circumstances rather than just being products of them. To summarize, when providing modeling to learners, students take what they’ve viewed, contribute and expand upon it, and in doing so demonstrate their cognitive abilities.

I personally agree and connect with Bandura’s social cognitive theory of social modeling. As an educator, it’s imperative to model instruction to young students to aid in their comprehension. I always begin a lesson by modeling a basic component of the content, scaffold instruction for students to perform the task and then increase the content rigor and observe the students independently apply these concepts. At first students are mimicking the modeling what they’ve observed, but upon further practice the students develop and contribute their own understanding to the content.

I've found that social modeling opens the door of understanding to students that struggle to grasp concepts, are too shy to ask questions and would otherwise be inattentive. Students also love when they get to perform modeling for their friends or the class and "pretend" they are the teacher. It's exciting to see students enjoy learning and anticipate when it's their turn to model what they've learned.