A Comparative Test of the Status Envy, Social Power and Secondary Reinforcement Theories of Identificatory Learning

Although it is generally assumed that social behav­ ior is learned and modified through direct reward and punish­ ment of instrumental responses, informal observation and laboratory study of the social learning process reveal that new responses may be rapidly acquired and existing behavioral reper­ toires may be considerably changed as a function of observing the behavior and attitudes exhibited by models (Bandura, 1962).