MOD006960: Social Cognitive Theory Factors in Grand UK Holidays

This essay explores the application of Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) to the Grand UK Holidays case study, focusing on employee training and coach tours. The theory emphasizes the reciprocal interaction between personal, environmental, and behavioral factors, known as reciprocal determinism. Personal factors such as knowledge, expectations, and attitudes significantly influence learning, as seen in the employees' reactions to training. Environmental factors, including social norms, shape behavior and attitudes, exemplified by the negative perception of coach tours. Behavioral factors like skills, practice, and self-efficacy also play a crucial role. The essay analyzes how these factors interact within the Grand UK Holidays context, affecting employee training and customer perceptions of coach travel, demonstrating the theory's relevance in understanding and modifying behavior. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar solved assignments and past papers.

Social Cognitive theory factors in
application to the Grand UK
Holidays case study

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Social Cognitive Theory..............................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Social cognitive theory describes that portion of knowledge that individual observes get
influenced by social interactions of individual, experiences and outside media influences of
individual. Social cognitive theory was advanced by Albert Bandura as an extension of learning
theory. According to Bandura learning takes place in social context with dynamic and reciprocal
interaction of people, environment and behaviour. This essay will examine social cognitive
theory factors and application to the case of Grand UK Holidays, a tour company that specialises
in escorted tours for elderly and was started in 1983. The case study is in two parts one is related
to training of employees in organisation and another is coach tours.
MAIN BODY
Social Cognitive Theory
This theory focuses on importance of observing, modelling and imitating behaviours,
attitudes and emotional reactions of others. This theory suggests how environmental and
cognitive factors interact for influencing behaviour of individuals in relation with learning
(Schunk and DiBenedetto, 2020). This theory states reciprocal relationship of factors that are
personal, environmental and behavioural in which each factor influence other factor and get
influenced by other factor and this interaction of these factors is called construct that is called
Reciprocal Determinism.
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Figure 1 Social Cognitive Theory
Above figure outlines how three factors that are personal, behavioural and environment
are linked with each other. Collectively, these have influence on learning of the individual.
Personal Factors- Personal factors involve elements that are very personal and owned by people
and this include knowledge, expectations and attitudes of people. Knowledge of individual, their
expectations and attitude has considerable effect on their learning (Beauchamp, Crawford and
Jackson, 2019). This gets affected by their environmental and behavioural factors. Knowledge is
concerned with how much and what type of individual does posses affecting their learning. In
context of case of employees of Grand UK Holidays, many existing employees were not happy
with training they were taking part in because they thought they have knowledge and this had
negative impact on their learning. In relation with expectation as a personal factor, many of the
people were not expecting that they will be dealing with elderly people during their job because
of this they were disappointed and this made negative effect on their learning. People in training
with positive attitude accepted and completed their training successfully. Personal factors like
expectations and attitude of people and also knowledge they gain gets influenced by
environmental and behavioural factors. This means that practice is a behavioural factor and this
has direct impact on knowledge of people (Ozyilmaz, Erdogan and Karaeminogullari, 2018).
More a person practices better their knowledge gets and similarly, environmental factor also has
influence on this. For example, in some cultures education is perceived to be very important and
in such societies’ people give importance to education and work on developing and improving
their knowledge and skills.
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Environmental Factors- Environmental factors involve social norms, access in community,
influence on others this is concerned with ability to change own environment. This also has
considerable impact on behaviour and learning of individuals and individuals learn and act
according to norms of society in which they are living. In addition to this access in community
also contribute in influencing their learning as well as their behaviour. As personal factors
involve elements like knowledge, expectations and attitudes they also get influenced by
environmental factors. This means that social norms affect what individual expect from other
people around them and also have effect on building attitude of people and how and in what way
they perceive different situations and their environment (Lim and et.al., 2020). Case study
outlines negative attitude of people towards coach tour and this is because of social norm that
buses are for elderly people and not for everyone. Coach tours are considered poor because of
social norms and this built negative attitude of people towards coach tours, and thus people
become unable to see positive side of coach tours that is built-in company. Social norms also
have effect on different intentions of people. Transportation and travelling behaviour of people
also gets affected by social norms and in the case it has been explained with strong influence.
Social norms play important role in building and modifying community behaviour. However, in
this factor behaviour of people also affect and contribute in creating social norms. This means
that social norms are also created by people and in this emphasise of people living in a
community towards a certain thing and opinion of multiple people regarding something creates
social norms which later affect behaviour and personal factors of people.
Behavioural Factors- Behavioural factors involve elements like skills, practice, and self-
efficacy. Behavioural factors of individual get affected and affect environmental factors and
personal factors (Ozyilmaz, Erdogan and Karaeminogullari, 2018). Skills is concerned with what
kind of and how skilled an individual is and practice is concerned with regular efforts that people
make to learn something or a develop a particular behaviour and self-efficacy is also very
important behavioural element and this is concerned with level of confidence in own abilities of
individual which is developed through social experiences of people. This also affects how people
approach challenges and attains their goals. Social norms that people interact with have been
considered as important factor that affects wide range of repeated behaviour. For example, when
individual make considerable efforts in learning and developing new skills, this is possibly
because of social norms in which skill development and learning are emphasised for growth and
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development. Social norms also have effect on positive and negative behaviours that are
practiced by people in different areas of their life. In order to build positive behaviour of
employees towards learning Grand UK Holidays, they needs to create supportive environmental
influence which motivate and encourage people to get training and learning positively.
Examination of different factors helps in understanding how each of these factors are
linked with each other and how they are applied to Grand UK Holidays case study. Case study
presents two situation in first situation training of employees is contextualised and this reflect
impact on learning and behaviour of people on their training because of all three elements
(Beauchamp, Crawford and Jackson, 2019). In personal factor people perceived that they have
adequate knowledge and this is also involved in self-efficacy and people had adequate
knowledge of their work, this created negative impact on their learning behaviour. Behavioural
factor also included practice and people did not have positive knowledge towards practice and
this was the reason many existing employees were not happy with training. One of the
employees was disgusted at the idea of singles holiday for old people who want to continue
dating and this is results of social norm that old people cannot date or should not date. This
results in such behaviour of people towards dating of old people. Environmental factor and social
norm of old people normally have more health crisis and because of this, one of the employees
got panicked with the idea that there can be health crisis when travelling with older people.
In second part of the case study considerable emphasis have been placed on social norms
and environmental factor and how it affects individuals’ behaviour and also personal factor and
elements like attitude (Connolly, 2017). Attitude of people towards coach travel is such that it is
for old people and one of the possible reasons for this can be that mostly old people travel in bus
and this is why coach tours are for them. People have different and negative perception towards
coach tours because they have observed it in that way and this is how they built perception of
coach tours being for old people. However, as people realises through their observation that
coach tours and escorted tours are fun and they are missing joy change their attitude towards
escorted and coach tours. Further, company of older people also become attractive as elements
and features of their travelling comes out. This means that old travellers have less to prove
anything to anyone and they have more to recount and this is why they become more interesting
than youth travellers.
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This change is because of observation in environment of people and this help in building
different norms and attitude towards learning as well as different events of life (Abdullah, 2019).
Bandura have an idea that most of the learning is vicarious and this is what happened in second
part of the case study in which when people see old people travelling and having fun they also
get learning that old travellers are more interesting to travel with.
CONCLUSION
Based on above discussion, it can be said that social cognitive theory of Bandura has its
application in different areas of life. This is useful in learning and health and also in developing
and modifying behaviour of people. Important element of this is that there are three important
factors personal, environmental and behavioural and these factors are reciprocal and influence
behaviour of people.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abdullah, S.M., 2019. Social cognitive theory: A Bandura thought review published in 1982-
2012. Psikodimensia, 18(1), pp.85-100.
Beauchamp, M.R., Crawford, K.L. and Jackson, B., 2019. Social cognitive theory and physical
activity: Mechanisms of behavior change, critique, and legacy. Psychology of Sport and
Exercise. 42. pp.110-117.
Beauchamp, M.R., Crawford, K.L. and Jackson, B., 2019. Social cognitive theory and physical
activity: Mechanisms of behavior change, critique, and legacy. Psychology of Sport and
Exercise, 42, pp.110-117.
Connolly, G.J., 2017. Applying social cognitive theory in coaching athletes: The power of
positive role models. Strategies, 30(3), pp.23-29.
Lim, J.S and et.al., 2020. The role of wishful identification, emotional engagement, and
parasocial relationships in repeated viewing of live-streaming games: A social
cognitive theory perspective. Computers in Human Behavior, 108, p.106327.
Ozyilmaz, A., Erdogan, B. and Karaeminogullari, A., 2018. Trust in organization as a moderator
of the relationship between self‐efficacy and workplace outcomes: A social cognitive
theory‐based examination. Journal of Occupational and Organizational
Psychology, 91(1), pp.181-204.
Ozyilmaz, A., Erdogan, B. and Karaeminogullari, A., 2018. Trust in organization as a moderator
of the relationship between self‐efficacy and workplace outcomes: A social cognitive
theory‐based examination. Journal of Occupational and Organizational
Psychology, 91(1), pp.181-204.
Schunk, D.H. and DiBenedetto, M.K., 2020. Motivation and social cognitive
theory. Contemporary Educational Psychology. 60. p.101832.
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