Individual differences have become an important aspect of modern psychology and were also a subject of traditional psychology under the name of the psychology of the person. It relates to how different individuals are similar and/or different. How these differences came about, what controls them, and how they affect people are all important aspects of this general subject. Among the most important subjects under the general subject of individual differences is the issue of gender. Traditionally, gender, which was mostly referred to as sex, was a simple and mainly biological concept (Cheng et al., 2013) . It aligned itself to the biological and physiological concept of being either male or female. However, gender issues have become so complex that the traditional opinion of gender has now been given its own title; cisgender. This is because there are other gender affiliations such as genderqueer which does not align itself with either male of female and also transgender, which is the gender affiliation that differs from the biological gender of birth (APA, 2015) . It, therefore, follows that gender has become more of an issue of social and psychological affiliation than a biological one, albeit cisgender is still the dominant form of gender in the world.
Of specific focus to the instant research, however, is how the Social Learning Theory operates when gender is applied as a variable. Social learning theory is a nurture based theory of learning that holds that behavior can be developed through the observation of others. Nurture in this scenario operates as the opposite of nature in the development of character and behavior. Nature will mainly rely on inherited, genetic, and biological characteristics that are reflected by an individual. Cisgender individuals, for example, can be said to have developed their character based on the fact that they were born either male or female (APA, 2015) . Their biological affiliation came with genetic and inherited characteristics that control the identity of their character and the nature of their behavior. This concept is, however, divergent from Social Learning Theory. The theory denotes a human being as having been born as a learning system, without preset behavior. Behaviors and character are developed through observation. This may be the observation of actual character or the observation of the rewards and consequences of character trait. This research paper, therefore, investigates social learning theory and how gender plays as a variable within it, from the perspective of individual differences.
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Overview of the Social Learning Theory
The genesis of the social learning theory can be traced back to the subject of language and how human beings, more so children develop the use of language. In the mid-1940s, psychologists such as B.F. Skinner and Clark Lewis Hull commenced the argument that language use was all nurture with no application of nature aspects. This argument was based on the fact that no human being was biologically predisposed to speak any specific language. It is through observation and imitation, therefore, that languages are learned (McLeod et al., 2015) . A child will develop a very high proficiency in what is called the mother’s tongue, more so with regard to pronunciation because of early observation of the parent using the particular language. Since the early years of a child are the most important phase of cognitive learning, this and not biology is the reason of high proficiency.
The above argument seems to credibly answer the age old question about the learning of English as a second language. Native English speakers pronounce words exponentially different from those who learn English as a second language. In most cases, those who learn English as a second language may achieve great proficiency in written language bus still struggle with spoken language, more so when pronouncing words (McLeod et al, 2015) . Accentuation that closely resembles the first language learned is also common. The justification of this as under the Social Learning Theory is that the initial cognitively learned language at childhood is dominant to an individual. Whereas it is not a genetic affiliation, the fact that this language was learned through childhood when the highest amount of cognitive learning happens means that it takes a central position in behavior from a perspective of language (Davison, 2015) . Even when English is learned as a second language, the initial dominance of the original language will still be felt. This, however, does not mean that language has any element of biological and/or physiological affiliation.
Learning itself as a Bearing Factor
The concept of learning itself as well as its bearing factors cannot be ignored in the understanding the Social Learning Theory. Several aspects of learning also come into play within the overall concept. The ability to learn varies from individual to individual based on nature. It also varies based on environmental factors which can be associated with nurture. Other aspects that play a major role in learning include the age factor as well as exposure ( Zakriski et al., 2005) . From a practical perspective, if the environment is kept at a constant and an infant, teenager, adult and middle-aged persons are exposed to it, they will learn differently based on their age affiliation. At the same time, if age is kept at constant and environmental issues are varied, they also affect the ability to learn, not just what is essentially learned . Other variables within this matrix include individual learning preferences, academic exposure, encouragement to learn or lack thereof, the existence of a role model and even peer pressure.
The Albert Bandura Expansion of the Social Learning Theory
Bandura, a great American psychologist affiliated to Stanford University built in the language based idea of social learning. He expanded the concept of learning as outlined above to include other aspects of behavior that culminates in the formation of human character. Bandura arrived at and published the conclusion that social learning was responsible for the development of all character traits (Davison, 2015) . Therefore, individuals learn through the observation of other individuals. The character of an individual will be formulated after the individual that one has been scrutinizing. This scrutiny takes one of two ways. The first is observing behavior and is more direct as it involves looking at the behavior of the individuals within the environment and gradually developing the same behavior. The second is through observation of rewards and consequences of behavior. This is more advanced and relates to the outcomes that an individual wants either to achieve or avoid. Therefore, the individual will identify anyone who has achieved what the individual wants to achieve and either seek to imitate or emulate them. Similarly, individuals may look at those who had undergone consequences that an individual may want to avoid and definitely avoid the behaviors prevalent in this individual. In this manner, Bandura expanded the original theory to establish that the learning of behavior is a cognitive process developed through social observation (Davison, 2015) .
As further evidence to the aforesaid concept, technology in general and particularly the internet has exponentially changed academia. Today, it is possible for a student to undertake an entire graduate course from a university without ever stepping into any of its campuses. However, governments all over the developing world continue to spend millions of dollars to send students into the developed world to learn. Further, students from the developed world are also spending fortunes to travel to different places to attend school. According to McLeod et al (2015) in their study titled Evaluating the study abroad experience using the framework of Rotter’s Social learning theory, this concept can be explained through the social learning theory. The individual does not only travel to study but also to learn. This is because as they interact with individuals in other societies, they will be placed in a position to learn and adopt the behaviors preferred in those places and, therefore, better develop their character.
The Gender Factor
With learning being a cognitive factor based on social observation, then the basic premises for character and behavior moves from biology to social factors. Behavior will then be based on two fundamental issues. The first is the individuals who are closest to the learner and, therefore, who the learner will observe the most. This will be the point of learning through pure observation. The second is the individual whom the learner admires the most and would want to be like. This becomes the essence of learning through reward and consequence. These, therefore, moves the behavioral affiliation from sex to gender ( Scheim & Bauer, 2015) . As aforesaid, sex is a more traditional definition of the modern gender issue and was based on biology. The social learning theory will, therefore, be more affiliated with the more malleable gender issue. Normally, male children are closest to other male children, and male young adults. They will be able to study this individual much more than they will their female counterparts. Therefore, most learning by pure observation will result in male children developing male-related behaviors and character traits ( Scheim & Bauer, 2015) . This also applies to their female counterparts. The difference, however, comes in when social learning is based on reward and consequences. The learner will be more careful about whom they are observing and also learning from.
A young boy who admires the mother and abhors the father, for example, will desire to be like the mother and avoid being like the father in future. This child will, therefore, focus on learning members of the female gender and seek to learn that behavior. Further, the child will watch men and even boys with an intention of avoiding such behavior. The same will happen to girls who are more affiliated to men than fellow women and will aspire to be more than the boys and also avoid being like fellow girls. This has resulted in the society having born males who almost instinctively behave like women actively and passively ( Scheim & Bauer, 2015) . These are men who will be easily emotional and overly conscious about the way they look at all times. The group also includes women who will seek to cover their beauty through clothes , glasses and shave their hair and also have a lower threshold for expressing emotions than other women. Yet both the men and the women defined herein above are genetically congruent to the members of their respective sexual affiliations ( Scheim & Bauer, 2015) . Therefore, the concept of cisgender, transgender, and genderqueer supports the contention that behavior is developed through observation and is not biologically preset. This supports the concept developed under the social learning theory.
The Connectivism Perspective
In some circles, connective has been accepted as a novel concept and theory but many scholars consider it as an extension of the social learning theory that incorporates technology. Based on this perspective, connectivism can be used to expound on the social learning theory, more so in the modern age when the world is dominated by technology. Connectivism has a root in Connectionism, a computer system that had been developed in an attempt to teach computerized systems intelligence (Siemens, 2014). It regards a central source of information such as a brain from which other parts gradually develop knowledge through connecting with it. Today, the internet has euphemistically become a form of the global brain where the world downloads knowledge on almost every subject. Everything is on the internet, which contains so much information that no single person can learn it all. A successful internet user must, therefore, employ selection and choose what to study and what to avoid. After making this initial decision and actually studying content, the individual will need to decide what to believe and incorporate into character and what not to believe and ignore (Siemens, 2014). It is through the very same internet that very different characters have developed all over the world. The use of technology and the internet had gone a very long way in proving that gender issues are related to learning and not biology, thus supporting the social learning theory. In areas such as Africa and the Muslim world, there was a very clear distinction between genders based on sex. Almost the entire populace would have cisgender and their gender affiliation. However, with the advent and proliferation of the internet, issues such as transgender and genderqueer have started emerging. A careful analysis of these trends will show that they are happening in urban centers and learning institutions where there is increased use of the internet. This means that as long as social interactions are controlled, cisgender reigns supreme creating the false notion that gender characters have biological affiliations. Exposure to the internet creates choice and results in altered behavior, a fact that cement the contentions made in the social learning theory.
When Biology is Placed Aside, There are only limited Gender Differences
It is common knowledge that boys are very different from girls. However, research has continually proven that common knowledge is often based on fallacies, developed through non-scientific reasoning. Unless all factors kindred to a subject are considered, the common mentalities about major subjects can be erroneous. Researcher ventured to evaluate the veracity of the contention that males and females are exponentially different by factoring variables kindred to the subject. The first research to arrive at the contention that outside of biology, males had a high behavioral congruency to females was by Zakriski et al (2005) titled. Their study assessed patterns to evaluate behavioral characteristic to arrive at the aforesaid conclusion. The research was, however, visited with a lot of controversies based both on its procedure as well as its conclusion. A more similar research, based on the more advanced process of meta-synthesis was conducted to confirm or contradict the initial research as aforesaid. This research as reported by Zell et al (2013) also had findings similar to those of Zakriski et al (2005), and, therefore, supported the conclusions made therein. Further, the research also established that whenever there are variables in the differences between males and females, there would always be found an explanation for the same based on the environment. This implies that if the environmental effects on males and females were kept at a constant, there would be a higher level of congruency between the two sexes (Zell, et al, 13). This is another definitive confirmation that a gender variable is an important tool for the confirmation of the social learning theory.
The Liberal versus Conservative Perspective
When males and females are placed in a similar environment, they will generally be exposed to the same factors which beg the question on how differences emerge. The answer to the same lies in the concept of locus of control, which determines whether the males and females will pick their own choices to learn from within the environment of predetermined choices. When the choices are predetermined by issues such as norms, culture, and moral rules, then the differences will be higher. However, when free choice is allowed to males and females to learn from the environment as they choose, then the differences become exponentially lower. It is on this basis that in liberal communities like the USA or Canada, the differences between genders will be exponentially lower than in the more conservative communities such as Saudi Arabia ( Scheim & Bauer, 2015). Among liberal Americans for example, a child will be brought up on the understanding the future is open and the child can be anything it wants to be. This child will have a wider learning curve with little limitations on what in the environment the child can learn from. This child can, therefore, be said to have a high locus of control over its learning. A child brought up in a conservative environment, however, will constantly be reminded of gender dictates. The child will be constantly reminded of what is expected of a man or a woman and how bad it would be if the child fails to live to this expectation (Vogel et al., 2014). The locus of choice will, therefore, be very low and the child will be predetermined to adhere to characteristics of a particular gender (Cheng et al., 2013). This contention further supports the social learning theory even as it explains why behaviors may look different between people of different genders yet they have been exposed to the same environment.
Conclusion
From the totality of the foregoing, it is clear that the variable of gender is an invariable tool in deporting the contention that behavior and character are developed through the social learning theory. The theory is based on the fact that individuals enter the world as learners of behavior and, therefore, do no come with a biologically and/or genetically preset behavior characteristics. The individuals will then take the time to study the environment they find themselves in. Based on these studies, the individuals will cognitively develop behavior and character. The mode of study may be based purely on the behavior of the studied subject, or rather on reward and consequence. Gender becomes an effective tool for the study of the social learning theory based on several factors. The first one is based on the fact that gender lines are increasingly becoming blurred. More so in the liberal world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to label the gender of an individual based on their sexual affiliation ( Scheim & Bauer, 2015). Many individuals born as males are now living as women whereas a number of individuals born as females are living as men. There are also individuals who align themselves to neither gender, leading to the development of a gender affiliation dubbed genderqueer (APA, 2015). All these have arisen because from a very young age, boys and girls have become increasingly empowered to select whom within the society they are going to learn from. This is as opposed to conservative communities where the choice is made for and on behalf of the children, leading males to align with males and females to align with females. Based on the social learning theory, it seems that if the locus of choice is expanded creating a truly liberal society, gender lines would become absolutely blurred.
Potential Research Area
Many people in the world today, more so in the developed and, therefore, more liberal world are suffering from Gender Dysphoria or Gender identity disorder (GID). This is based on a conflict between the gender they were assigned at birth and the gender they would prefer to be in as they grow up. In many cases, this leads to depression and other mental problems. The numbers of communities adopting a more liberal approach to the issue of gender continue to rise. Contemporaneously, the flow of information through the internet is also on the rise leading more people to question their initial gender affiliation. The area of further research based on the instant subject lies in the fact that the social learning theory clearly shows that the gender of birth is but a label with the little psychological significance of a child as long as a positive locus of choice is maintained. Does Gender Dysphoria, therefore, emanate from psychological issues or a psychological reaction to social issues? Is the problem in the mind of the individual, or is the individual simply reacting to a society that is still conservative about gender issues?
References
APA. (2015). Guidelines for psychological practice with transgender and gender nonconforming people. American Psychologist , 70(9), 832-864. doi.org/10.1037/a0039906
Cheng, C., Cheung, S., Chio, J. & Chan, M. (2013). Cultural meaning of perceived control: a meta-analysis of locus of control and psychological symptoms across 18 cultural regions
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Scheim , A. I., & Bauer, G. R. (2015). Sex and gender diversity among transgender persons in Ontario, Canada: results from a respondent-driven sampling survey. The Journal of Sex Research , 52 (1), 1-14
Siemens, G. (2014). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning ( ITDL ), 2(1), 3-10.
Vogel, D. L., Wester, S. R., Hammer, J. H., & Downing-Matibag, T. M. (2014). Referring men to seek help: The influence of gender role conflict and stigma. Psychology of Men & Masculinity , 15 (1), 60-67
Zakriski, A. L., Wright, J. C., & Underwood, M. K. (2005). Gender similarities and differences in children's social behavior: finding personality in contextualized patterns of adaptation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 88 (5), 844-855
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