Final answer:
Social learning is a cognitive process that involves observing and imitating the behaviors of others, which is essential for socialization. Four cognitive processes necessary for social learning are attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. Prosocial and antisocial effects reflect the nature of the behaviors being learned and repeated within society.
Step-by-step explanation:
Social learning refers to the process in which individuals observe the behaviors of others and then imitate or model those behaviors. This type of learning is considered more complex than simple imitation and involves cognition, where a person takes in information, processes it, and decides whether the behavior is worth repeating. The four key cognitive processes required for social learning to occur, as per Albert Bandura's theory, are attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation.
Attention: The individual needs to notice the behavior that is being modeled.
Retention: The observed behavior must be remembered in order to be later replicated.
Reproduction: The individual must be capable of reproducing the behavior that has been observed.
Motivation: There must be a reason or motivation for an individual to want to adopt the observed behavior.
This modeling process is a part of our socialization, helping us to adopt the beliefs, values, and norms of our society. Socialization includes learning how to interact with various agents like families and peers, and how to use objects of our society's material culture.
Bandura's concept of reciprocal determinism also plays a role in social learning, indicating that personal factors influence which behaviors one chooses to imitate. These behaviors, in turn, are processed cognitively according to other personal factors such as self-efficacy – one's confidence in their own abilities, which affects how they approach challenges and the success in imitating behaviors.
Observational learning can have both prosocial and antisocial effects. Prosocial effects can be seen when individuals adopt positive behaviors that contribute to societal well-being, and antisocial effects occur when the observed behaviors are harmful or detrimental to society.