Oleh: Ni Made Ayu Sari Puspadana, Study Program Guidance and Counseling, University of Ganesha Education, Singaraja
INTRODUCTION
Personality development refers to the process of developing, improving, and changing an individual’s personality over time. Personality development involves all factors that influence how an individual’s personality is formed which can change over time. This can include the genetic background of the individual and the environment in which the individual was raised. Of course, we are all aware of the personality we have within ourselves. The personality we have will definitely be different from other people’s personalities. Each person certainly has their own personality which makes them look unique. However, many questions still arise as to how this personality can actually be formed and developed. Therefore, currently there are many theories from experts that describe the various steps and stages that occur during the development of an individual’s personality.
There are so many theories of individual personality development that can be found, one of which is social learning theory. Social learning theory is a learning theory which states that new behavior can be formed by observing and imitating other people. This social learning theory was developed by Albert Bandura, explaining that this theory accepts most of the principles of behavioral learning theory or behavioristic theory, but places more emphasis on the impact of cues on behavior and on internal mental processes. In this theory, Bandura emphasizes the importance of observing, modeling, and copying the behavior, attitudes, or emotional reactions of others in the learning process. According to Bandura, the environment does shape a person’s behavior and vice versa, behavior shapes the environment. In other words, there is a process in which the world and a person’s behavior influence each other.
IMPLICATION OF SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
Apart from being individual creatures, humans are also social creatures who are always in contact with each other. Because humans are always learning, they experience a learning process through this interaction. According to Bandura’s theory, cognitive factors function as internal factors in the learning process to change behavior, and the environment functions as an external factor. Thus, humans are not just objects that are influenced by their environment, but also influence their environment. Basically, the environment makes humans and their ability to think, organize or direct themselves, and control their environment. Therefore, interaction with the environment determines how a person behaves and how his personality develops. In interaction, people observe other people. Learning by observation is called modeling. In modeling there is a process of imitation of the model.
Human behavior that is displayed every day is a picture of behavior that is learned from the environment around them. There are at least six ways for individuals to choose a social way of learning, such as experiencing and trying, perceiving an object, observing other people’s responses to the object, modeling, becoming someone else’s behavior as a model to learn, and studying other people’s behavior as a warning against what the individual will do. So for example, much of what we have learned is based on observations of models, parents, teachers, peers, television, and others. Effective social learning with mass media, such as television and other mass media plays a very important role. Audiences gain multiple powers from a single model that delivers new ways of thinking and behaving to many people in different locations. Mass media can transmit new thought patterns and behavior patterns simultaneously to groups of people. Many of the impacts of mass media may occur through social learning processes, such as people learning how to dress in the latest fashions or a dancer learning certain moves.
CONCLUSION
So it can be concluded, this social learning theory is a learning theory which states that new behavior can be formed by observing and imitating other people or modeling. Models that can be imitated can come from parents, teachers, peers, people around them, and even from the mass media. The mass media in question can come from television or the social media that we have. Mass media can transmit new thought patterns and behavior patterns simultaneously to a group of people. The impact of mass media may occur through social learning processes, such as people learning how to dress in the latest fashions or a dancer learning new movements. Thus, social learning theory through modeling can be said to have an influence on the process of individual personality development.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mathematics, A. (2016) ‘Social Learning’, 4(3), pp. 1–23.
Tarsono, T. (2018) ‘Implications of Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory in Guidance and Counseling’, Psympathic: Scientific Journal of Psychology, 3(1), pp. 29–36. Available at: https://doi.org/10.15575/psy.v3i1.2174.
