Differential Contributions
Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory
Albert Bandura
Was born on December 4, 1925 at Mundare, Canada and died on
July 26, 2021 at Stanford, California, United States.
He has worked in the United States his entire professional life.
He earned his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of
Iowa in 1951 and has spent the majority of his career at Stanford
University, where he is now a researcher and speaker.
Social Cognitive Theory
 Bandura's social cognitive theory uses an agentic approach,
implying that humans have some degree of influence over their
lives.
 Unlike Skinner, Bandura
 (1) acknowledges that chance encounters and fortuitous
events frequently shape one's behavior;
 (2) emphasizes observational learning;
 (3) emphasizes the importance of cognitive factors in
learning;
 (4) Suggests that human activity is a function of behavior
and person variables, as well as the environment; and (5)
believes that reinforcement is mediated by cognition.
Learning
 Bandura adopts a comprehensive approach to learning, believing
that people learn by watching others and paying attention to the
repercussions of their own activities.
 Although he believes that reinforcement helps individuals learn, he
also believes that people can learn without reinforcement or even
a response.
Observational Learning
 Modeling, which is more than simple imitation because it involves
adding and subtracting from observed behavior, is at the heart of
observational learning.
 Modeling is influenced by at least three principles:
 (1)people are more likely to model high-status people,
 (2) people who lack skill or status are more likely to model,
and
 (3) People tend to model behavior that is rewarding to the
model.
 Bandura identified four processes that govern observational
learning:
 (1)attention, or observing what a model does;
 (2) representation, or symbolically representing new
response patterns in memory;
 (3) behavior production, or producing the observed
behavior; and
 (4) Motivation, or the observer's motivation to perform the
observed behavior.
Enactive Learning
 Every action has a corresponding result, but whether or not that
consequence reinforces the behavior is determined by the
person's cognitive assessment of the situation.
Triadic Reciprocal Causation
 Human functioning is shaped by the reciprocal interaction of
 (1)behavior,
 (2) personal variables, including cognition, and
 (3) Environmental events, according to social cognitive
theory, a paradigm Bandura calls triadic reciprocal
causation.
 The three elements in the triadic reciprocal causation model do
not make equal contributions to behavior, according to Bandura.
 The proportional impact of behavior, environment, and person is
determined by whatever element is the most powerful at any
given time.
Chance Encounters and Fortuitous Events
 Many people's lives have been drastically altered by a chance
encounter with another person or a fortuitous, unexpected
incident.
 At the environment point, chance contacts and serendipitous
occurrences join the triadic reciprocal causation paradigm, where
they influence behavior in the same manner as planned events do.
Human Agency
 Human agency, according to Bandura, is the core of humanity; that
is, humans are defined by their ability to plan, regulate, and carry
out activities that they feel will result in desired outcomes.
Core Features of Human Agency
 Human agency is defined by four characteristics:
 (1) intentionality, or a proactive commitment to actions
that may result in desired outcomes;
 (2) foresight, or the ability to set goals;
 (3) self-reactiveness, or the ability to track one's progress
toward fulfilling one's choices; and
 (4) Self-reflectiveness, which allows people to consider and
evaluate their motives, values, and life goals.
Self-Efficacy
 People's behavior in a given scenario is influenced by their self-
efficacy, or their perception that they can or cannot do the
behaviors required to achieve a desired outcome.
 Efficacy expectations are distinct from outcome expectations,
which are people's predictions of what will happen if they do
something.
 To predict behavior, self-efficacy is combined with contextual
variables, previous behaviors, and other personal variables.
 It is acquired, enhanced, or decreased by any one or a combination
of four sources:
 (1)mastery experiences or performance,
 (2) social modeling, or watching someone of equal ability
succeed or fail at a task;
 (3) social persuasion, or listening to a trusted person's
encouraging words; and
 (4) Physical and emotional states, such as anxiety or fear,
which typically lowers self-efficacy.
 The best predictors of good outcomes are high self-efficacy and a
responsive environment.
Proxy Agency
 Bandura also emphasizes the impact of proxy agency, which allows
people to exert some control over their daily lives.
 People need proxies to supply their food, deliver knowledge, and
offer transportation in the twenty-first century; without them,
modern people would be compelled to spend the majority of their
time obtaining the needs of survival.
Collective Efficacy
 Collective efficacy refers to people's belief that their collective
efforts will result in societal change.
 Collective efficacy can be harmed by at least four reasons.
 First, events in other parts of the world can make people feel
helpless; second, complex technology can make people feel less in
control of their surroundings; third, entrenched bureaucracies
discourage people from trying to effect social change; and fourth,
the size and scope of global problems contribute to people's
feelings of powerlessness.
Self-Regulation
Humans can alter their circumstances and cause repercussions of their Aggression
actions by utilizing reflective thought, giving them some control over their
 Aggressive behavior can become problematic if taken to its logical
own behavior. Bandura argues that behavior is influenced by both
conclusion.
external and internal influences in a reciprocal manner.
 Bandura and his colleagues discovered that violence tends to
External Factors in Self-Regulation breed more hostility in children who observe live and filmed
models acting hostile.
 Self-regulation is aided by two external factors:
 (1)evaluation criteria and
 (2) External reinforcement.
 External variables influence self-regulation by providing people
with benchmarks against which to judge their own actions.
Internal Factors in Self-Regulation
 (1)Self-observation of performance;
 (2) judging or evaluating performance;
 (3) And self-reaction, including self-reinforcement or self-
punishment are all internal requirements for self-regulation.
Self-Regulation through Moral Agency
 Internalized self-sanctions work by selectively activating or
disengaging internal control, preventing people from breaking
their own moral standards.
 Selective activation refers to the idea that self-regulatory
influences are not automatic and must be triggered in order to
work.
 It also implies that people react to circumstances differently
depending on their assessment of the scenario.
 Internal control disengagement refers to people's ability to
separate themselves from the negative repercussions of their
actions.
 People in ambiguous moral situations, who are unsure whether
their actions are consistent with their own social and moral
standards of conduct, can use one of four general approaches for
disengaging internal standards or selective activation to dissociate
their actions from their harmful effects.
 The first is reframing conduct, or mentally reshaping otherwise
terrible activities to justify them.
 People can use redefinition of behavior to disengage from
reprehensible behavior by:
 (1)justifying otherwise culpable behavior on moral grounds;
 (2) drawing advantageous comparisons between their
behavior and the even more reprehensible behavior of
others; and
 (3) Changing the moral tone of their behavior with
euphemistic labels.
 Second, by transferring or distributing blame, people can detach
their actions from their consequences.
 The victims are dehumanized or blamed in a third set of
disengagement techniques.
 A fourth strategy is to misrepresent or obfuscate the link between
harmful action and its consequences.
 This can be accomplished by minimizing, ignoring, or distorting the
repercussions of one's actions.

Dysfunctional Behavior
 The person (including cognitive and neurophysiological processes),
the environment (including interpersonal relations), and
behavioral factors all interact to teach dysfunction behavior
(especially previous experiences with reinforcement).
Depression
 People who develop depressive emotions frequently
 (1)undervalue their accomplishments and exaggerate their
failures,
 (2) have unrealistic personal standards, or
 (3) Punish themselves for their flaws.
Phobias
 Direct interaction, improper generalization, and observational
experiences are all ways to learn phobias.
 Negative reinforcement is used to preserve them once they've
been learnt, as the person is rewarded for avoiding fear-inducing
circumstances.