Comparing Cognitive Developmental Theory by Piaget and Social Learning Theory by Bandura

This essay compares the Cognitive Developmental theory by Jean Piaget and the Social Learning theory by Albert Bandura. It discusses the similarities and differences between the two theories and how they help in understanding how people learn through observation and imitation.

Running head: EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Educational Psychology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
The development theories are based on the various stages of the development of a child.
It is argued that although every child is unique, their growth and developmental process are
considered universal based on the various principles like cephalocaudal principle, proximodistal
principle and maturation. Developmental theories help adults to assess the stages or sequence of
development taking place in children along with their integration of many abilities that he/she
will in due course of time. Developmental theories are also crucial in the domain of teaching and
training children so as to understand their powers (Demetriou et al., 2016). There are several
theories and ideas suggested by many scientists and behaviourists. There are different kinds of
views about how a person develops physically as well as psychologically throughout the lifespan
of the individual. Social learning theories are based on the learning of the human beings
depending on what the human beings learn from the society, it is often said to bridge the gap
between the behaviorist and the cognitive learning theories. This essay will discuss about two
theories, the Cognitive Developmental theory by Jean Piaget and the Social Learning theory by
Albert Bandura.
The Cognitive Developmental theory proposed by Jean Piaget suggests and explains the ways in
which the children make up their minds about the world. Some of the other influential theories
interrelated with cognitive theories are Socio-cultural theories, care-knowledge theories and
information-processing theories. He did not believe in the idea that intelligence is fixed trait and
he explained that development occurs in an individual when that person develops biologically
and interacts with the environment or the society (Illeris, 2018). His theory deals with the
complex understanding of infant cognitive skills, language development in children, reasoning
involving mathematics and science as well as moral development. A thorough understanding of
his theories promotes understanding of children in adults that would motivate a faster learning

2EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
session for the children (Demetriou et al., 2016). Furthermore, the learning theories are truly
interesting in their demonstration of how human beings process their mental activities and
perform abstract symbolic reasoning. The theory can be used by the parent to support the growth
of their children, by the teachers to determine the abilities of the students and can be used by the
parent to support the growth of their children (Taylor, 2017).
As a part of his career, he was employed to translate English intelligence question papers
into French, while working there he became interested in the answers provided by the children
and why they marked the wrong answers, he believed that this was the chief difference between
the children and adults. According to his theory there are four stages of cognitive development in
an individual, sensorimotor stage which occurs from birth to 18 to 24 months, preoperational
stage which occurs from 18-24 months and continues up to early stages of childhood. Concrete
operational, this stages occur among the children aged 7 to 12 months and formal operational
which indicates the journey from adolescence to adulthood. He was the first psychologist to
develop a systematic study of the cognitive development in human beings (Gray & MacBlain,
2015). His studies included the cognitive developmental stages in a child, the detailed
descriptions of detection of cognition in children. He also developed simple tests to determine
the different levels of cognitive development in children. Piaget did not want to measure the
efficiency of the children related with their counting abilities, spelling check or determining their
I.Q. (Hartley & Ho, 2015). Before the research, done by Piaget everyone believed that children
were stupid than the adults, but Piaget proved that children have unique intelligence and their
way of thinking is strikingly different from that of the adults. Piaget’s theory is considered to be
a major breakthrough as it helped in bringing a radical change in how people experience

3EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
children. His theories emphasizes on fostering a better understanding of the children to facilitate
their learning process.
Coming to the Social development theory of Bandura, this theory is somewhat similar to
the behaviorist theory and agrees with classical as well as operant conditioning. According to his
theory children learns from their own environment, the people from whom they learn from are
called models and there are many models whom the children follow and they also imitate their
behaviour and actions (Bandura, 2014). The children observe and learn according to their
respective role models and they imitate different types of behavior such as masculine, feminine,
anti social and others. The children give attention to these models and imitate their behavior
which they have observed, they do not think whether their behavior is appropriate for their
gender or not, but they learn from the society and start imitating those gender which are
appropriate for their gender. At first, the child will try to imitate those people who will seem to
be similar to them and most likely is that they will imitate those people who will be closer to
their gender. Secondly, a child will respond to the stimuli they receive from their environment
(Olson, 2016). For example if a child does something good the parents or others appreciate
him/her, in this way they learn that they are doing something right and continue doing so.
Moreover according to Bandura, a child’s satisfaction, sense of accomplishment and pride plays
a huge role in their learning and behavior. According to him intrinsic reinforcement or internal
reward has a substantial role to plan instigating children to faster learning. Bandura’s stress on
the internal reinforcement apart from the external factor emphasizes the complicated nature in
understanding children’s learning process. In understanding social learning theory it s also
essential to consider that learning does not induce a change in behavior amongst the children. His

4EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
observations are in stark contrast to the Behaviorist’ notion that emphasizes learning leads to a
permanent change in behavior.
To compare both the theories the cognitive development theory by Piaget is depends on
the biological factors, which contribute toward the growth of a person and the social
developmental theory by Bandura. The cognitive theory by Piaget tries to find out how the
human beings are able to process the various mental activities. Piaget was interested to know
how the human beings understand things or gather information. According to him, the chief
difference between humans and other creatures is that the humans are able to make out an
abstract meaning or find out reason in things. While working with Binet and studying the
knowledge ability of young children he observed that every child had a different thought process
and they did not answer in the same way as their peers (Fu & Hwang, 2018). He theory
developed by Piaget focuses more on the ability of the human beings to process the information
they receive and the reasoning capability, the social learning theory by Bandura studies the
relationships of one human with another and how the society teach individuals.
Bandura tried to find out link between three things, the psychological process of a
person, the behavior of the person and the link between the person and the environment. Bandura
is considered to be the “father of the cognitivists movement”. Both the theories rely somewhat on
behaviorism, as they both believed that the environment of a person hugely affects the person in
various phases of his/her life (Esmaeili, & Tafti, 2016). Piaget was a biologist and he was
interested in understanding the way in which a biological organism functions. Bandura stresses
that behavior stems from the environment round the individual through the process of
observational learning and taking into considerations minute details surrounding the individual.
A major chunk of this learning, according to Bandura, includes the process of encoding the

5EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
behavior of people. Children therefore learn through acute observational process try to imitate
these behaviors. If the satisfaction on doing the same is rewarding they most likely will repeat
the behavior.Behavior is controlled with the help of mental states called schemes an individual
utilizes these schemes to designate actions in the world. In the social learning theory according
Akin, “in the experimental method, the standard procedure is to manipulate one variable, and
then measure its effects on another. All this boils down to a theory of personality that says that
one’s environment causes one’s behavior (Strauss, 2017). Thereby proving to the assertion that
both theories have a bearing on behaviorism. Both the social learning theory and cognitive
theory involve some stages which can be followed.”
Thus to conclude, this can be said that the two theories have a lot in common and are
different in other ways as well, but both the social learning theory and the cognitive
developmental theory the human beings learn from their environment adapting with the behavior
of the people around them as well as taking note of their attitudes and behavior. The theories
make people understand how people learn through observation and imitation. Learning theories
therefore help people to possess a constructive idea of how they perceive the world around them.

6EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Reference List
Bandura, A. (2014). Social cognitive theory of moral thought and action. In Handbook of moral
behavior and development(pp. 69-128). Psychology Press.
Demetriou, A., Shayer, M., & Efklides, A. (Eds.). (2016). Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive
development: Implications and applications for education. Routledge.
Esmaeili, N., & Tafti, M. A. (2016). how to learn: identify key factors in learning process from
the perspective of different instructors and their learners. iioab journal, 7, 171-179.
Fu, Q. K., & Hwang, G. J. (2018). Trends in mobile technology-supported collaborative
learning: A systematic review of journal publications from 2007 to 2016. Computers &
Education.
Gray, C., & MacBlain, S. (2015). Learning theories in childhood. Sage.
Hartley, J., & Ho, Y. S. (2015). Classic Papers in Psychology: From Theory to
Practice. Psychology Teaching Review, 21(1), 73-75.
Illeris, K. (2018). An overview of the history of learning theory. European Journal of
Education, 53(1), 86-101.
Jose, S., Patrick, P. G., & Moseley, C. (2017). Experiential learning theory: the importance of
outdoor classrooms in environmental education. International Journal of Science
Education, Part B, 7(3), 269-284.

7EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Meltzer, L. (Ed.). (2018). Executive function in education: From theory to practice. Guilford
Publications.
Olson, M. (2016). PSY3410-01. Theories of Learning. F16. Olson, Matthew.
Resnick, L. B. (2017). Toward a cognitive theory of instruction. In Learning and motivation in
the classroom (pp. 5-38). Routledge.
Strauss, A. L. (2017). Psychological modeling: Conflicting theories. Routledge.
Taylor, E. W. (2017). Transformative learning theory. In Transformative Learning Meets
Bildung (pp. 17-29). SensePublishers, Rotterdam.