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ReportBy KirstyChampion
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Non-experimentalresearch methods in Psychology
ReportAssessment
Title:
An investigation into social learning theory and communication in the 21st
century.
Introduction
This report was based on the idea of communication in the 21st century and to
establish social learning theory as a reason to why learned behaviour has
changed the way people communicate. In addition to this, the report shows
specifically an age difference regarding behaviour of communication.
Method
The method that was chosen for this report was a survey with ten short
response questions. The questions were chosen as a group discussion.
Included in the survey were open and closed questions to gain as much data
from the participants as possible. The survey was anonymous, ensuring the
privacy of the participants. Ethical guidelines such as, no name and no
personal details were obtained during this investigation and the participants had
a choice to take part in the survey. Following this further, a survey was chosen
because it was the quickest and most ethical way to retain quantitative data
using the website www.surveymonkey.com, which is open to the public. This
way the group was able to access the survey and post the link from survey
monkey to their own individual Facebook pages, to ensure enough participants
took part in the survey. The survey was produced before the Easter holidays to
leave enough time to gather the data needed. Unfortunately the amount of data
gathered was limited due to some members of the group not being able to
share the survey to their Facebook. Therefore only gathered small amounts of
data, nevertheless the data gathered is enough to form some results and
conclusions.

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Results
Due to the limited amount of data that was retained during the half term Easter
break, the group decided to extend the time to which more data could be
gathered. From doing this there was admittedly still a small amount of data but
enough to analyse some results. Furthermore the results cannot be generalised
across all ages as there was only 31 responses from the survey. In light of this,
the results are only based on a small portion of people and will specifically
define the results only based on what results that have been achieved.
The results of the survey show that there was a familiar pattern with regards to
age and how we communicate. Below is a graph that shows the age ranges of
participants and the percentage of response to specific questions. The blue
column represents the preferred device the participants would use. The red
column represents a yes or no answer to whether society is too reliant on
technology. Finally the green column represents how long the participants
would be able to last without their preferred devices. In this situation the ages
16-24, 25-30 and 31-40 all chose the smart phone as the preferred device for
communication. From the ages of 41-50 and 50+, the smart phone was not as
popular; the device drops significantly with regards to first preferred choice.
From the question that stated ‘Is Society too reliant on technology?’ shows a
similar pattern to the preferred devices with regards to age correlation. But on
the other hand there is an opposite reaction to how long the technology device
is used for. The graph shows the ages of 16-24 and 25-30 can only spend a
short amount of time without their devices but from the ages of 41-50 the
amount of time spent without devices dramatically increases. This indicates a
change in behaviour for communication through generations.

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ReportBy KirstyChampion
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There is negative correlation that shows in this data which is, the older you are
the less dependent you are on technology and believe that society is not reliant
on technology. But the younger you are the more reliant you are on technology
for communication and believe society is too dependent on technology.
In addition to this, a question asks the participants what time of day the
preferred devices are used. The below chart shows how many participants use
technology in the evening compared to face-to face communication.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
16-24 25-30 31-40 41-50 50+
Preferred Device
Society too reliant
How long without
Technology
Non-technology
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
100%
Communicationfrom 18:00-06:00
Participants

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The graph shows a large difference between people who use technology in the
evening compared to the people who do not. These results give an example of how
society has changed. Society has adapted to technology therefore using this as our
first means of communication instead of face to face communication.
Discussion
The results of the communication survey are related to social learning theory
because over time society has adapted to the change in technology and through
inventions of the smart phone, social media and faster internet, have learned to
change behaviour towards ways of communicating with each other. Social learning
theory is behaviour that is learned from observing our environment;
“In social learning theory Albert Bandura (1977) states behavior is learned from the
environment through the process of observational learning” (Mcleod 2011).
Therefore from society observing new technology and new inventions, people have
changed and adapted their behaviour to suit the environment. According to author of
‘The end of Absence’ by Michael Harris, people born before 1985 grew up in a world
very different from today. In the morning people would not check their e-mails as
soon as they wake up because they would be ‘missing out’ on the last 8 hours of the
internet.
“When you wake up, you have this gift of a blank brain. You could fill it with anything.
But for most of us, we have this kind of panic. Instead of wondering what should I do,
we wonder what did I miss. It’s almost like our unconsciousness is a kind of failure
and we can’t believe we’ve been offline for eight hours,” (Mirani 2014).
This shows that society has learned and adapted their behaviour to match new
technology as it appears. People observe, learn and then adapt behaviour to survive
in society, whether that is as an adult or child. The results of the survey have shown
behaviour with communication and technology as it is today. Even with this small
sample it shows that the people who were aged 41-50 and 50+ seemed to behave
differently to the younger ages with technology due to the younger participants
learning and observing at a younger stage in life. An example of young people of
learning and adapting behaviours was the famous experiment by Albert Bandura

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with Bobo dolls. In this experiment he showed how easily children would observe
and learn new behaviours with regards to aggression (Mcloed 2011).
From the results gathered it is clear that from the sample of people the older
participants show less behaviour with technology compared to the younger
participants, which reflects in their answers of how reliant they believe society is on
technology.
For this investigation a positive point of using the survey was that is was the quickest
and easiest method to gather some data needed to analyse for the hypothesis. But
on the other hand the method may have ignored the older generation due to how the
survey could be accessed (Only through social media). If the group decided to
gather a more reliable source of data then the survey would have to have been in
paper form as well as the internet. Another negative point to this data collected was
the small amount of time the data was gathered for. The data that has been collected
cannot be generalised to everyone as there were only 31 participants. On the other
hand it has shown some behaviour with communication. If this experiment were to
be re done then the time limit would need to be longer and gain more participants to
ensure the reliability of the research.
Conclusion
To conclude, the survey was not reliable enough to generalise results and took
longer than expected. But feel that from the time the group had, to what the group
achieved was just enough to form some data and use this to gather some
conclusions.
(Word Count 1231)

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References:
Mirani.L. (2014). What it feels like to be the last generation to remember life before
the internet. Available: http://qz.com/252456/what-it-feels-like-to-be-the-last-
generation-to-remember-life-before-the-internet/. Last accessed 18th May 2015.
Mcleod.S. (2011). Bandura - Social Learning Theory. Available:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html. Last accessed 18th May 2015.