1. behavioral and social learning theories’ principles, along with their limitations
Many theories historically have been attempting to explain the way human being learn things.
Out of these theories are behavioral learning and social learning. The two theories have plenty
elements in common and they are wide-apart in some areas. This essay will briefly summaries the
key tenets of each theory, stating some of their limitations by the end of the essay.
As far as behavioral theory of learning is concerned, it stresses the importance of children
making connections between experience and behavior. This includes two perspectives: Classical
conditioning and operant conditioning. In the former, an organism learns to connect, or associate,
stimuli so that a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus, whereas in the
latter the learning in which the consequences of behavior produce changes in the probability that the
behavior will occur. Also, there are two ways for the teachers or parents to increase or decrease
behaviors of the kids in that they punish the misbehavior and reinforce the good behavior. When it
comes to application of the behavioral theory in the classroom, the teacher should use the operant
conditioning to change human behavior. For the teacher to do that he/she should strive to increase
desirable behaviors and decrease undesirable behaviors. As to desirable behaviors, there are some
tactics that teacher might use to achieve that; these strategies can be listed down:
1- Choose effective reinforces
2- Make reinforces contingent and timely
3- Select the best schedule of reinforcement (fixed-ratio schedule, variable- ratio schedule,
fixed-interval schedule and variable-interval schedule)
4- Consider contracting.
5- Use negative reinforcement effectively
6- Use prompts and shaping
Regarding undesirable behaviors, there are four tactics and it is recommended to be used in this
order. These strategies are:
1- Use differential reinforcement.
2- Remove reinforcement ( extinction)
3- Remove desirable stimuli
4- Present desirable stimuli ( punishment)
Unlike the behavioral theory of learning that sees learning as a habit formation, social
leaning theory claims that behavior is learnt from the environment through the process of
observation. According to this theory, children observe the folks around them acting and
behaving in different ways. These individuals surrounding the kids are considered the models;

2. for instance, parents at home, actors in films on TV, teachers at school…etc. How does
learning take place according to this theory? The answer is that children observe these models
and try to imitate their behavior and while doing that process of imitation, kids try to
reproduce the same behavior taking into consideration the gender; girls observe females
whereas boys observe males. Moreover, like behavioral theory of learning, social learning
theory also stresses the notion of reinforcement and punishment to increase or decrease a
certain behaviors. If educators, embodied in teachers or parents, want to decrease an
undesirable behavior, they use punishment and use reinforcement to increase a desirable
behavior.
Although the theories attempted to approach the way human being learn through
conditioning and observation, they still have many limitations; some of which are the whole
approach stresses external control of students’ behaviors and it should help students’ learn to
control their own behaviors and become internally motivated. This is because it is not the
reward or punishment that changes behavior, but, rather, the belief that certain actions will be
rewarded or punished. Other weaknesses are related to ethical problems which might emerge
if operant conditioning is used inappropriately. Finally, while applying behavior analysis,
teachers might focus too much on student conduct and not enough on academic learning. As
to social learning, one of the weaknesses is generalization. This means that the theory ignores
the fact that people are born with different genetics and the impact these genetics have on
human behaviors. Also, when it comes to punishment, it seems that it is not plausible to
punish children for an action they are not responsible for. The two theories did not pay
attention to cognitive side and its contribution to learning process. Finally both theories see
students are passive and their learning takes place thanks to the environment they live in.
Basically, the two theories, behavioral learning and social learning, have substantially
contributed to the explanation of the way people learn. Yet, their attempts to come up with
feasible elucidations could not have been safe from many critics from cognitive learning
theories.
Akharraz Mohamad