This is some ideas that I had about the role models in general, and they are based on Albert Bandura's social learning theory.

1. The role model
Before going deep into this idea and explain the point of view that I got about "Role models"
in general, I want to say that I get inspired to talk about this topic and think about it by the
questions of an awesome interview that I got asked by a good friend of mine or lets call that
friend my good Instagram friend ('cause we haven't got the chance to meet in real life) about
an interesting topic. So all thanks goes to the one who wrote the questions and the special one
who chose me to answer those questions. Thank yaw!
A role model or the role model as its been explained on "dictionary.com" is
basically "a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated
by others, especially by younger people." That's why it got some synonyms such as :
example, exemplar, hero/heroine, good example and idol...etc. As it's been mentioned in an
article by Michael T.Kaufman in 24th of Feb 2003 in The New York Times, the term of "Role
Model" has been created by a sociologist named Robert K. Merton.
After defining the term of "role model", now it's time to see this term from the perspective of
psychology . The psychologist Albert Bandura was the first to use a similar term to "role
model" in a theory of the social/learning theories and this term is "modeling", and in order to
explain how this term works we should first explain briefly Bandura's theory of learning. First
of all the theory called "Bandura's social learning theory" in which there are two main ideas
the first one and it's the one that we are concerned about in today's topic is about the
mediating process that occur between stimuli and responses. The second one is that behavior
basically is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.
So ,the opposite of Skinner, Bandura see that humans are active information processors and
think about the relationship between their behavior and consequences. That's why he
proposed four meditational processes : starting with attention; if we want to imitate a behavior
we must pay attention to it. Followed by retention ;we must create a memory about the
behavior so that we can imitate it. Thirdly reproduction; the ability to perform the behavior
,nonetheless we are limited by our physical ability so even if we remember such an act or
behavior if we don't have the principal ability to perform it we will not be able to imitate it.
Lastly motivation; and it's a response from the observer that follow the perform of the
behavior, the response/reply that the imitators gets it can be either in a form of punishment or
a reward, if it's a reward then the person will do it again in similar situation, if it's a
punishment then the person would not be doing it again in situations that looks the same as
the one he/she imitating.
Now, my ideas or point of view about "role model" will be based on this theory.
First of all , role model for me is basically the sum of multiple characters, and those characters
are like tools that we use in our daily/social life, in our social interaction. For example "how
to say hi" is a tool or character that can be changed from a person to another one, or "what to
address someone that you don't know" this tool can be either by saying "hey" or "bro" or
"dude" or even "sir".

2. Secondly, role models for me is a temporary thing; it changes from person to another for sure
,yet ;it also changed in the same person from a period of time to another period and from a
situation to another one or from a topic to another. As an example when we were kids we
were fascinated by superheroes and wanting to act like them and fight criminals and evils as
they did , and when we became in the ages between 12 to 18 we were imitating players in
either basketball or soccer or even tennis, that's for the long period of time. For the small
period, let's take for example a year like a person named T in the year of 2017 he wanted to
get same body as Ronaldo or whatever you want, and he wanted to get a good grades in Maths
as that guy or girl in his class, and more of that he wanted to have a Youtube channel with 5
million subscriber as Lele or you name that person. So our guy T he got at least three role
models and from each one he's aiming to adapt a tool or character and add it to his system
with other characters he got.
Thirdly, when we get or learn or imitate that character or tool that we are aiming to it we will
not be seeing the person we got this tool from as a role model because we learn the thing that
made him or her a role model for us so you can say that we become our own previous role
model after adapting such a character or tool.
Lastly, when we see that finally we got/imitated/learn all the characters and tools that we
wanted, we achieve the time or level when we say that "I don't have a role model", but as soon
as we ended up in a situation in which we don't have the right tool or the right character to use
in it, we again start the search for a role model who got that character and again we will try to
imitate it until we add it to our system of tools.
As a conclusion, if you are in a period where you don't have a role model then congratulation
and be aware, and if you are in the situation in which you have multiple role models then
good luck with that sir.
*Those are just ideas of mine that don't have any scientific prove.
References:
1-Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall, Inc.
2-Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
3-http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/24/nyregion/robert-k-merton-versatile-sociologist-and-father-of-the-focus-
group-dies-at-92.html
4-http://www.dictionary.com/browse/role-model