13.1.7

Psychological Explanations: Social Learning Theory

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Social Learning Theory and Anorexia Nervosa

Social learning theory suggests that children learn their behaviours through observation and imitation of role models. This may apply to people with anorexia nervosa (AN) with the media, mothers and peer influence.

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Media influence

  • In modern Western societies, where rates of AN are highest, being slim is the culturally-determined, ultimate beauty standard. Models in fashion magazines and on TV are often extremely thin. Even dolls young girls play with, such as Barbies, have unrealistic body shapes. These ideals model are what children think they should look like.
  • When models and celebrities become successful and praised for their slim figure, this serves as vicarious reinforcement for young people trying to imitate them.
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Self-esteem

  • Individuals with low self-esteem may be particularly susceptible to the influence of seeing thin models in the media.
  • There is evidence that young girls with low self-esteem are more likely to develop an eating disorder in adolescence.
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Peer influence

  • During adolescence, reinforcement from peers is very influential.
  • Friends dieting together, with the collective aim of wanting to get thinner, has been linked to diet restrictive behaviours like those seen in people with AN.
  • It's been shown that overweight girls and underweight boys are more likely to be teased and bullied than individuals of other weights. This suggests that adolescent girls’ obsessions with being a certain weight may be to avoid teasing, and this may lead to the development of AN.

Evaluation of Social Learning Theory and Anorexia Nervosa

Social learning theory suggests that children learn their behaviours through observation and imitation of role models. This may apply to people with anorexia nervosa (AN) with the media, mothers and peer influence.

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Strengths of social learning theory

  • Rates of AN diagnoses have increased over the last 30 years, and social learning theory can explain this through the fact that adverts and the media obsession with thin women has also become more obvious.
  • Media pressures on women to look thin and diet are far greater than those on men, which may explain why women are far more likely to develop AN than men.
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Weaknesses of social learning theory

  • Because all girls and young women are subject to the same pressures from the media, there must be other factors, such as genes, involved in the development of AN. Otherwise, all women in Western countries would develop it.
  • Society has made a conscious effort to be more body positive in recent years, but rates of AN have not decreased. So there is evidently a more complex explanation at play here.

Jump to other topics

1Social Influence

2Memory

3Attachment

4Psychopathology

5Approaches in Psychology

6Biopsychology

7Research Methods

8Issues & Debates in Psychology (A2 only)

9Option 1: Relationships (A2 only)

10Option 1: Gender (A2 only)

11Option 1: Cognition & Development (A2 only)

12Option 2: Schizophrenia (A2 only)

13Option 2: Eating Behaviour (A2 only)

14Option 2: Stress (A2 only)

15Option 3: Aggression (A2 only)

16Option 3: Forensic Psychology (A2 only)

17Option 3: Addiction (A2 only)

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