instituting goals for systems at one level is
The
the means by which systems of higher level
achieve their own goals. Once one under-
stands a goal as an internal specification
for a perception rather than an objective
external state of affairs or a command to
act, the problem of multiordinal goal
seeking becomes tractable. As mentioned,
a model of this sort has been around for
quite a long time. If Bandura chooses not
to use it, that is his prerogative; but in that
case he should know what it says and
should show how his version is an im-
provement on it.
Control Theory in the Social Sciences
Control theory is best used and tested
through the method of modeling or sim-
ulation. To devise working models, how-
ever, and especially to test them, one needs
experimental data that are more reliable
than the customary results of research in
the social sciences. By helping to refine
commonsense terms, control theory can
help devise experiments that yield far less
equivocal data--especially data that leave
far fewer subjects either not showing the
proposed effect, or showing the opposite
effect! It can generate ideas for tracking
down causes of variability and eliminating
them, so that instead of simply abandon-
ing an approach that fails to get anywhere
(the fate of most lines of research in the
social sciences), investigators can system-
atically refine experiments until they pre-
dict correctly for nearly every subject,
nearly every time.
Consider, for example, the use (as in
Carver & Scheier, 1981) of a mirror to in-
duce self-awareness. This is a chancy
method because there is normally no way
to tell whether the person uses the mirror
as assumed. Subjects who ignore it dilute
whatever effect there may be, putting un-
necessary variability into the results.
Control theory suggests that to see whether
the visual perception of external appear-
ance is in fact of concern to each subject,
the experimenter should introduce a dis-
turbance and see if it is corrected. The
mirror, for example, could be set at the
wrong angle for self-viewing. If the subject
adjusts it appropriately, one can be much
surer that this subject is concerned with
what can be seen in the mirror (although
what that means to the subject is still un-
determined without further testing to re-
veal more detailed controlled variables).
Testing for controlled variables by the use
of systematic disturbances is one of the
primary techniques of behavioral control
theory. This method, even so briefly de-
scribed, may suggest many applications to
social scientists.
F e b r u a r y 1991 • A m e r i c a n Psychologist
Conclusion
Hundreds of life scientists in all disciplines
have adopted control theory as a basic
paradigm. More are working to under-
stand and apply it. Control theory prom-
ises to bring a new precision into our un-
derstanding of human behavior, replacing
the fuzziness of statistical findings with
system models that behave and can be
tested. It does not have to be applied re-
ductionistically, nor is its scope limited to
neuromuscular coordinations. It shows us
a new way in which behavior could be or-
ganized, one that involves neither re-
sponses to stimuli nor actions calculated
by programs in the brain. These new or-
ganizing principles can be as useful to the
personality psychologist as to the physi-
ologist. It behooves everyone who wants
to use this new tool, however, to learn what
it is about: As any wide receiver would
advise, don't run with the ball before it is
securely in your hands.
REFERENCES
Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social
cognitivetheory. American Psychologist, 44,
1175-1184.
Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. E (1981). Attention
and self-regulation. New York: Springer-Ver-
lag.
Hyland, M. E. (1988). Motivational control
theory: An integrativeframework. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 642-
651.
Powers, W. T. (1973). Behavior: The control of
perception. New York: Aldine/DeGruyter.
Powers, W. T. (1978). Quantitative analysis of
purposive systems: Some spadework at the
foundations of scientificpsychology.Psycho-
logical Review, 85, 417-435.
Powers, W. T. (1989). Living control systems.
Gravel Switch, KY: Control Systems Group
Press.
Richardson, G. (in press). Feedback thought in
social science. Philadelphia: University of
PennsylvaniaPress.
Robertson, R. J., & Powers, W. T. (1990). In-
troduction to modern psychology. Gravel
Switch, KY: Control Systems Group Press.
Some Philosophical Implications
of Bandura's Social Cognitive
Theory of Human Agency
William A. Rottschaefer
Department o f Philosophy,
Lewis and Clark College
It is no news that a cognitive revolution
has occurred in psychology. Nor, perhaps,
that two revolutions have occurred.
first revolution cognitivized the mecha-
nisms of inputmfor instance, perception,
memory, thought, imagery, and problem
solving (Gardner, 1985). A second cog-
nitive revolution in psychology is occur-
ring in the work of the social learning the-
orists. It is cognitivizing the mechanisms
of outputmfor instance, learning, moti-
vation, and personality. In their magisterial
account of theories of learning, Bower and
Hilgard (1981) suggested that "social
learning theory may provide a basis of
consensus for much of the learning re-
search in the next decade" (p. 472). Re-
ferring in particular to the work of Albert
Bandura, they argued that social learning
theory "provides the best integrative sum-
mary of what modem learning theory has
to contribute to the solution of practical
problems" (p. 472). They also maintained
that it offers a "framework within which
to place information processing theories
of language comprehension, memory, im-
agery and problem solving" (p. 472). The
recent article by Albert Bandura (Sep-
tember 1989) on human agency from the
perspective of his cognitive social theory
confirms the assessment of Bower and
Hilgard and is indicative of the empirical
and theoretical success of the second cog-
nitive revolution in psychology.
Philosophical psychology has in re,
cent years undergone a revolution of its
own. That revolution is part of a larger sea
change in philosophy that has come to be
called naturalism. Naturalistic philoso-
phers contend that solutions to philosoph-
ical problems require the use of the best
empirical and theoretical results avmlable.
Bandura's work should, among other con-
tributions, be helpful for philosophers at-
tempting to work out naturalistic theories
of human learning action, freedom, moral
agency, and a unified conception of the
self as agent. In this comment, I focus on
one issue of perduring philosophical im-
p o r t a n c e - t h a t of reductionism.
Bandura (1989) characterized hu-
man agency as emergent and interactive.
He compared his account with the views
of human agency as autonomous and
mechanistic. The former, he contended,
lead to dualistic positions in which human
agency is unaffected by the world about
it, and the latter to various reductionistic
accounts. Reductionists may acknowledge
only some elements of a psychological level
of explanation as, for instance, behaviorists
or neobehaviorists do, or may eliminate
the psychological level of explanation en-
tirely. These latter are often called elimi-
native materialists. Bandura contended
that his account of human agency dis-
credits both dualistic and eliminative ma-
15 3
terialists positions, but it was the latter to
which he directed his attention.
Bandura (1989) adopted a position
of ontological reductionism and episte-
mological and methodological nonreduc-
tionism. That is to say, as an ontological
reduetionist he contended that "thoughts
are higher brain processes" and that
"[i]deational and neural terminology are
simply different ways of representing the
same cerebral processes" (p. 1181). But
as an epistemological and methodological
nonreductionist, he argued that the psy-
chological laws governing human agency
are distinct from the biological and neu-
rophysiological regularities governing ce-
rebral activities. Knowing the latter will
not allow one to derive the former. Even
though the laws governing cerebral systems
set limits on the psychological, the psy-
chological remains a distinct realm. Thus,
psychology remains an autonomous sci-
ence.
Although this mixture of reduction-
ism and nonreductionism is not uncom-
mon, I believe that a consistently nonred-
uctionistic position better represents the
account of emergent interactive agency for
which Bandura and other social cognitive
theorists have provided ample evidence.
The rejection of psychophysical dualism
does not require ontological monism.
Materialism, as contrasted with theories
that postulate nonmaterial, spiritual real-
ities, can be either ontologically monistic
or pluralistic. Eliminative materialists are
monistic if they postulate that there is only
one level of reality, for instance, the level
of the basic particles of physics. But such
Spartan ontological positions are about as
scarce these days as dualistic positions.
Eliminative materialists, I believe, are
better understood to be advocating that
Occam's razor be applied to the psycho-
logical level, leaving a number of other
levels unscathed, for instance those of sys-
tems of neurons, cells, molecules, and
atoms.
Thus, on this interpretation of on-
tological reductionism, not even elimi-
native materialists are monists; they need
not identify systems of neurons nor their
properties and processes with those of in-
dividual neurons, nor the properties and
processes of the latter with those of their
constituent parts or molecules. Yet despite
their introduction of levels and ontological
pluralism, eliminative materialists remain
materialists. They deny the existence of
spiritual entities and processes. Conse-
quently, it seems to me that Bandura's
(1989) position is better interpreted as in-
eluding other levels of material reality be-
yond the neurobiological one allowed by
eliminative materialists, those of the psy-
154
chological. More specifically, it includes a
certain level of psychological processes and
mechanisms that identify and specify not
merely generic cognitive capacities, but
self-referential cognitive capacities. The
motivation for postulating this ontological
level of psychological functioning is exactly
the same as for hypothesizing a neuro-
biological level, the discovery of regulari-
ties that are predictive and explanatory of
observations and lead to the formation of
theories explanatory of these regularities.
Indeed, I am not so sure that Bandura
(1989) intended to adhere to the kind of
ontological reductionism that his brief re-
view of his position seemed to imply. For
the major thrust of his account of the im-
portant functions of the self-system is to
show its effects on both lower level psy-
chological systems, like first-order cogni-
tions and affect, and on neurophysiological
and bodily functioning. So understood, his
position would then be similar to that of
Campbell (1974) and of Sperry (1980),
both of whom have argued for "top-down
causality" and an ontologically nonreduc-
tionistic account of human agency. More-
over, both of Bandura's characterizations
of agency as interactive and emergent take
on their full meaning in the context of on-
tological nonreductionism, which postu-
lates emergent ontological levels and in-
teraction between these levels. Thus, al-
though Bandura's explicit position seems
to be ontologically reductionistlc in virtue
of his identification of neuronal and idea-
tional processes, I believe that he is better
interpreted as holding not only a nonred-
uctionist epistemological and method-
ological position but also a nonreduction-
istic, emergentist ontological account of
human agency.
This leads to a final point in connec-
tion with the issue of reductionism. With
the continued advance of scientific under-
standing, the question arises concerning
the status of our ordinary everyday un-
derstandings of ourselves. Given our sci-
entific accounts, how are we to understand
our everyday accounts of who we are and
what makes us do what we do? The ques-
tion about the standing of our ordinary
knowledge of ourselves has come to be
called in philosophical circles the issue of
the status of folk psychology (Graham,
1987; Graham & Horgan, 1988). Folk
psychology is usually characterized as of-
fering an explanation of why and how we
do what we do in terms of mental states
like beliefs and desires. These states are
characterized by the property of inten-
tionality--that is, they are "about some-
thing." Desires, for instance, may be about
succeeding in one's career and having be-
liefs about ways to do so. More technically,
F e b r u a r y 1991 • A m e r i c a n Psychologist
these intentional mental states are such
because they each have a meaning or ex-
press a propositional attitude. (Notice that
intentional in this technical meaning does
not mean "done deliberately.")
With the development of scientific
psychology, the question arises of whether
folk psychology will go the way of folk
physics and chemistry. For instance, we
no longer believe that all motion requires
a force (or, at least, as good Newtonians
we ought not!). Nor do we think that our
periodic chart contains only the four ele-
ments of earth, air, fire, and water. Will
there also come a time when we will no
longer, at least in scientific and philosoph-
ical circles, make use of explanations of
human actions in terms of such inten-
tional states as beliefs and desires? Elim-
inative materialists (P. M. Churchland,
1988; P. S. Churchland, 1986) argued for
such a bright future. Others (Bechtel,
1988; Graham & Horgan, 1988) resist the
possibility of such dark days. According
to the latter, folk psychology in some form
is here to stay. In fact, as one might sup-
pose, there are a number of different po-
sitions that one can take on this question.
My contention is that Bandura's (1989)
emergent interactive account of human
agency, to the extent that it seems to use
folk psychological conceptions, including
characterizations of mental states as in-
tentional, provides some important evi-
dence against such eliminative material-
ism' positions, even though it itself may
require us to modify some of our folk psy-
chology (Rottschaefer, 1985).
Even if one supposes that some kind
of nonintentionalistic theory of cogni-
t i o n - f o r example, a relative of recently
proposed parallel processing or connec-
tionist models---turns out to be superior
to currently proposed intentionalistic the-
ories, one need not, I think, resign oneself
to an eliminativist netherworld in which
folk psychology and its intentionalistic
scientific cousins, like social cognitive the-
ories, are judged false and are pitched into
the theoretical dust bin. Several sugges-
tions have been made that would allow for
the retention of folk psychology and its
scientific offshoots. Bechtel (1988) has
pointed out that theories formulated in
folk psychological terms might still be the
best nonscientific descriptions of such
phenomena as agency and would then be-
come explananda for genuinely scientific
psychological explanations, deriving ex
hypothesi from our nonintentionalistic
cognitive psychology of the future. Alter-
natively, Graham and Horgan (1988) have
argued that intentionistic theories may
turn out to be both nonscientific and non-
absorbable into science and yet true and
genuinely referential. However, I believe
that the work of Bandura and other social
cognitive theorists allows for a stronger
conclusion. Intentionalistic psychological
theories may themselves provide a level of
scientific discourse that is both explana-
tory and predictive of human agency. At
the same time this level of discourse may
itself be the object of explanation and pre-
diction at another level by a noninten-
tionalistic cognitive psychology of the
connectionist sort. Besides avoiding elim-
ination of intentional states, such a rela-
tionship between levels would imply nei-
ther reduction in the sense of ontological
identification nor epistemological and
methodological superfluousness.
In conclusion, I believe that Bandura
and other social cognitive theorists have
given strong support to the claim that there
is an ongoing cognitive revolution with re-
gard to explaining human agency. More-
over, this revolution is providing significant
support to naturalistically inclined phi-
losophers in the investigation of important
philosophical problems in philosophical
psychology.
' from social learning theory (1977b) to so-
REFERENCES
Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social
cognitive theory. American Psychologist, 44,
1175-1184.
Bechtel, W. (1988). Perspectives on mental
models. Behaviorism, 16, 137-148.
Bower,G. H., & Hilgard, E. R. (1981). Theories
of learning (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Campbell, D. T. (1974). Downward causation
in hierarchically organized biologicalsystems.
In E J. Ayala& T. Dobzhansky (Eds.), Studies
in the philosophy of biology (pp. 139-161).
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Churchland, P. M. (1988). Matter and con-
sciousness (rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Churchland, P. S. (1986). Neurophilosophy
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gardner, H. (1985). The mind's new science: A
history of the cognitive revolution. New York:
Basic Books.
Graham, G. (1987). The origins of folk psy-
chology. Inquiry, 30, 357-379,
Graham, G., & Horgan, T. (1988). How to be
realistic about folk psychology.Philosophical
Psychology, 1, 69-81.
Rottschaefer, W. (1985). Avoiding conceptual
self-annihilation:Some implications of Albert
Bandura's theory of the self-system for folk
psychology.New Ideas in Psychology, 2, 265-
282.
Sperry, R. W. (1980). Mind-brain interaction:
Mentalism, yes; dualism, no. Neuroscience,
5, 195-206. (Reprinted in R. W. Sperry, 1985,
Science and moral priority. New York:Geen-
wood/Praeger)
F e b r u a r y 1991 • A m e r i c a n Psychologist
Efficacy, "Skills,"
Reinforcement, and
Choice Behavior
Kevin J. Corcoran
Southern Illinois University
Much of Bandura's (September 1989) ar-
ticle, "Human Agency in Social Cognitive
Theory," focused on his now familiar
construct of self-efficacy. Scores of studies
have focused on the role of efficacy ex-
pectations as an agent in behavior change
since the publication of Bandura's initial
article outlining the framework for
the construct of self-efficacy (Bandura,
1977a). Bandura's current work attempts
to highlight the utility of efficacy expec-
tations as determinants of motivation, ac-
tion, and affect. However, there are several
portions of this presentation, and the con-
struct of self-efficacy, that warrant closer
examination and evaluation, particularly
in light of Bandura's apparent shift from
a cognitive-behavioral model to a largely
cognitively based approach to motivation
and behavior--a shift further evidenced
by the change in the name of his theory
cial cognitive theory (1986b).
Bandura (1989) highlighted the
power of firmly held efficacy beliefs in his
description of authors, artists, musicians,
and a psychologist who persisted in the
face of multiple rejections or failures. For
example, Bandura reported, "Joyce's
book, the Dubliners, was rejected by 22
publishers" (p. 1176). Later Bandura
noted, "It is widely believed that misjudg-
ment produces dysfunction. Certainly,
gross [italics added] miscalculation can
create problems. However, optimistic self-
appraisals of capability that are not unduly
[italics added] disparate from what is pos-
sible can be advantageous" (p. 1177). It is
easy to judge after the fact what a "gross
miscalculation" is, or what "unduly dis-
parate" is, but what are the operational
definitions of those terms? A close reading
reveals that Bandura has provided none.
Would 23 rejections have been enough to
label Joyce "maladjusted," or that his be-
havior was "unduly disparate" from what
was possible? Epstein (1988, 1989) sug-
gested that constructive (as opposed to de-
structive) thinking is related to mildly op-
timistic attitudes, not the unresponsive
naive optimism that may occasionally re-
sult in success (like those outlined by Ban-
dura). Catanzaro (1989) found that psy-
chological adjustment was generally as-
sociated with a reduction in goals
following failure. The backwaters of art,
literature, and science--not to mention
the back wards of psychiatric hospitals--
are filled with individuals who believed
their skills to be greater than that recog-
nized by others (and did not believe that
discrepancy to be "unduly disparate").
Bandura appeared to reify these famous
examples of persistence (or, to use his
terms, "firmly held efficacy beliefs"), in
the face of apparent artistic or scientific
failure, into a motivational model of self-
efficacy.
Although not explicitly defining the
term self-efficacy, the implicit definition
Bandura (1989) used in this article is,
"people's beliefs about their capabilities
to exercise control over events that affect
their lives" (p. 1175). Previously, Bandura
(1977a) had defined self-efficacy expec-
tations as "the conviction that one can
successfully execute the behavior required
to p r o d u c e . . . [certain] outcomes" (p.
193). Unfortunately, this change in lan-
guage has brought with it a subtle change
in conceptualization, emphasizing the
cognitive aspects of the construct. If effi-
cacy beliefs pertain to exercising control
over events, the conceptual distinction be-
tween self-efficacy and locus of control
(Rotter, 1966)---a distinction that Bandura
(1977a) attempted to highlight--becomes
even more muddled. Rotter (1966) stated
that the internal-external dimensions refer
to individual's beliefs concerning their
ability to exercise control over their en-
vironment in important life situations.
Numerous research reports in many do-
mains over the past 30 years have dem-
onstrated that internals are more likely to
seek information, act on that information,
and overcome failures and setbacks in an
effort to "control and manipulate their
environment" (Phares, 1976, p. 60). Ban-
dura's change in implicit definition has
moved self-efficacy from "Am I able to do
this?" to "Can I control events (the envi-
ronment)?", a definition that is indistin-
guishable from those presented for the
construct of locus of control by Rotter and
Phares, and consistently used in the lit-
erature for the past 25 years. This move
in the direction of self-efficacy as locus of
control continues, "many activities involve
inferential judgments about conditional
relations between events in probabilistic
environments. Discernment of predictive
rules requires cognitive processing of
multidimensional information that con-
rains many ambiguities and uncertainties"
(Bandura, 1989, p. 1176). "Conditional
relations between events" would seem to
logically lead to a discussion of behavior-
reinforcement contingencies, skill versus
chance situations, and locus of control. In
fact, judgments about conditional rela-
tionships between events are the essence
of locus of control; however, Bandura has
missed these connections (perhaps because
155