ABSTRACT
Despite its importance now to the field of social psychology, it is difficult to place Bandura's Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis solidly in any particular school of thought. Bandura initially shared the behaviorist view that B. F. Skinner perpetuated. But he extended Skinner's theories significantly, believing that his models of behavior were far too simple. Arguably, Social Learning and Imitation, by American psychologists John Dollard and Neal Miller, influenced Bandura's concept of social learning theory. The idea of social learning was relatively new and underdeveloped prior to Bandura's work; certainly, the concept had not been significantly applied to aggression. The instinctual theory suggests that aggression is an evolutionary trait or instinct: it is an essential aspect of being human as it helps humanity survive and reproduce. Bandura was influenced by the early psychoanalysts- as were most scholars interested in behavioral development- and also the work of the behaviorists.
