approaches that discount the influence of social variables are nowhere more clearly revealed than in their treatment of the acquisition of novel responses." Skinner's explanation of the acquisition of new responses relied on the process of successive approximation, which required multiple trials, reinforcement for components of behavior, and gradual change. Rotter's theory proposed that the likelihood of a behavior occurring was a function of the subjective expectancy and value of the reinforcement. This model did not (according to Bandura) account for a response that had not yet been learned - though this contention does not address the likelihood that generalization from related situations would produce behaviors in new ones. Bandura also argued that Miller and Dollard had essentially abandoned the hypothesis that imitation was an important form of learning based on the fact that the made little mention of it in their later book, Personality and Psychotherapy Dollard and Miller, 1950). In fact, that book was not a revision of their earlier work at all, but treated a wholly new subject - the attempted integration of Hullian behaviorism with Freudian psychoanalysis. In any case, Bandura began to conduct studies of the rapid acquisition of novel behaviors via social observation, the most famous of which were the Bobo doll experiments. Theory Social Learning Theory integrated behavioral and cognitive theories of learning in order to provide a comprehensive model that could account for the wide range of learning experiences that occur in the real world. As initially outlined by Bandura and Walters in 1963, the theory was entirely behavioral in nature; the crucial element that made it innovative and increasingly influential was its emphasis upon the role of imitation. Over the years, however, Bandura shifted to a more cognitive perspective, and this led to a major revision of the theory in 1977,. At this time, the key tenets of Social Learning Theory were stated as follows: Learning is not purely behavioral; rather, it is a cognitive process that takes place in a social context. Learning can occur by observing a behavior and by observing the consequences of the behavior (vicarious reinforcement). Learning involves observation, extraction of information from those observations, and making decisions about the performance of the behavior (observational learning or modeling). Thus, learning can occur without an observable change in behavior. Reinforcement plays a role in learning but is not entirely responsible for learning. The learner is not a passive