CHAPTER 14

Bandura:
Social Learning
Theory
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 introduction

Bandura's social learning theory takes an agentic perspective,

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meaning that humans have some limited ability to control their lives.
In contrast to Skinner, Bandura (1) recognizes that chance encounters
and fortuitous events often shape one's behavior; (2) places more
emphasis on observational learning; (3) stresses 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 OBJECTIVES

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Bandura: Social Learning Theory

OUTLINE

Overview of Social Learning

Human Agency
Theory

Related Research

Biography of Albert Bandura

Self-Regulation
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Critique of Bandura

Learning Dysfunctional Behavior

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Concept of Humanity

Triadic Reciprocal Causation Therapy

 Chance Encounters and Fortuitous Events Are
Important
Overview of Social
Central Human Characteristic Is Plasticity
Learning Theory
Emphasis on Vicarious Learning
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Rely on Behavioral, Environmental, and Personal
Factors

People have Capacity to Regulate Nature and

Their Lives

People Regulate through Internal and External

Factors

In Morally Ambiguous Situations, People

Regulate Selves through Moral Agency
Biography of Bandura Born in Alberta, Canada in 1925
Earned his PhD in clinical psychology in
1951 at the University of Iowa
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Published Adolescent Aggression in 1959
President of American Psychological
Association in 1974
Professor at Stanford for over 50 years
Investigates hypotheses generated by his
social cognitive theory
Learning
Social Cognitive Theory claims that humans
are flexible and capable of learning a
multitude if attitudes, skills, and behaviors
and that a good bit of those learning are
results of vicarious events and experiences.
Learning
 Observational Learning

• Processes the Govern Observational Learning

o Attention – we should give attention to the target
model.
 Factors that regulate attention
 When we have opportunities to observe
individuals with whom we frequently associate
 Attractive models are more likely to be
observed than unattractive ones
 The nature of behavior being modeled affects
our attention.

o Representation – behaviors initially observed must

be symbolically represented in memory.
 Observational Learning

• Processes the Govern Observational Learning

oBehavioral Production – After initially

observing and representing the behavior it will
be reproduced through our own behavior.

oMotivation – observational learning is most

effective when learners are motivated to perform
the modeled behavior.
 Triadic Reciprocal Determinism

Human Action Is Result of Interaction Among

Three Variables:
• Person- refers to an individual’s cognition, emotions and
personality.
• Behavior – the action or overt behaviors displayed by an individual.
• Environment – the society, nature, and environment that surrounds
an individual.

Differential Contributions
• The relative influence of behavior, environment, and
person depends on which of the triadic factors is
strongest at the moment

Chance Encounters and Fortuitous Events

• Unintended meeting of persons unfamiliar to each
other or environmental experience that is unexpected or
unintended
Human Agency
“Refers to the tendency each human has to
exercise control over them.”
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•Self-regulating
•Proactive
•Self-reflective
•Self-organizing
Human Agency
Core Features of Human Agency:

[Link]
Intentionality

2. Forethought

3. Self-Reactiveness

4. Self-Reflectiveness
Self-Efficacy
 Influence of Responsive and Unresponsive Environment

•Low Efficacy and Responsive Environment =

depression

•High Efficacy and Unresponsive Environment =

intensified actions to change the environment.

•High Efficacy and Responsive Environment =

success

•Low Efficacy and Unresponsive Environment =

apathy
Proxy Agency

The ability of an individual or a group of

individuals to accomplish a certain task by
relying unto other people.

•Positive Effects – increase efficacy if

monitored efficiently

•Negative Effects – decrease efficacy if

he/she tend to rely on the proxy
 Collective Efficacy

Defined as the people’s shared beliefs in their

collective power to produce desired results..
•Measures of Collective Efficacy
• Combine individual capabilities
• Group’s ability to bring about a desired
outcome.

•Challenges to Collective Efficacy

• A transnational world
• Technological advancement
• Layers of bureaucracy
• Tremendous human problems
 Self-Regulation

• Reactive – people tend to attempt to reduce the

discrepancies between their accomplishments and
their goal.

• Proactive – after they have reduced the

discrepancies they set new goals for themselves.

• Processes Contribute to Self-regulation

o Limited ability to manipulate the external
factors that feed into the reciprocal interactive
paradigm.
o People are capable of monitoring their own
behavior and evaluate in terms of proximate
and distant goals.
 Self-Regulation

• External Factors that affect self-regulation.

o Provide standards of evaluating our own behavior
o Provide means for reinforcement

• Internal Factors that affect self-regulation

o Self-Observation – an individual to monitors his own
behavior.
o Judgmental Processes – regulates behavior through
cognitive mediation.
 Personal Standards
 Standard Of Reference
 Value of the Activity
 Performance Attribution
o Self-Reaction – When people react positively or
negatively to their behavior
 Self-Regulation

• Moral Agency - people regulate their actions through

moral standards of conduct.
o Two Aspects
 People doing no harm to people
 People proactively helping people

o Selective Activation – it operates when an

individual decided to activate their moral agency.

o Disengagement of Internal Control - people can

separate themselves from the consequences of their
behavior.
 Disengagement of Internal Control

• Redefine or reconstruct the nature of the behavior itself

o Moral Justification
o Palliative Comparisons
o Euphemistic Labels

• Minimize, ignore, or distort the consequences of their behavior

o Minimize the consequences of their behavior
o Disregard or ignore the consequences of their action
o Distort or misconstrue the consequences of their actions

• Blame or dehumanize the victim

o When an individual insults another and make it appear that he/she
deserves such treatments.
• Displace or diffuse responsibilities
o Displace
o Diffuse
 Dysfunctional Behavior

Phobias Aggression
Depression • Fears that have severe debilitating • Learned through:
• Occurs in any of three self-regulatory effects on one’s daily life o Observation of others
subfunctions: • Learned in three ways: o Direct experiences with positive
o Self-observation o Direct contact and negative reinforcements
o Judgmental processes o Inappropriate generalization o Training or instruction
o Self-reactions o Observational experiences o Bizarre beliefs
 Therapy

• Deviant behaviors are socially learned

and then maintained because they serve a
function

• The ultimate goal of social cognitive

therapy is self-regulation

• Three steps in successful therapy:

1. Instigate some change in behavior
2. Covert or cognitive modeling
3. Enactive mastery
o Systematic desensitization
 Related Research

Self-Efficacy and Terrorism

• Fischer et al. (2009)
o Religion, self-efficacy, and coping with threats of
terrorism
o When threat is salient only, self-efficacy and
intrinsic religiosity are crucial in lessening the
detrimental impact of the threat

Self-Efficacy and Diabetes

• Sacco et al. (2007)
o In diabetic patients, greater self-efficacy increases
adherence to doctors’ orders and sense of control
over disease, lowers BMI, decreases depression and
number and severity of diabetes symptoms
o The relationships between self-efficacy and
adherence, BMI, diabetes symptoms, and depression
are reciprocal
 Critique of Bandura

• Research Generation (VERY HIGH)

o Generated thousands of research.
• Falsifiability (HIGH)
o His theory suggested different areas of possible research that could
lead to falsification.
• Organization and Explanation of Data (HIGH)
o The triadic reciprocal causation is a comprehensive concept that is
organized in a paradigm.
• Guidance for Practitioners (HIGH)
o As it provides useful and specific guidelines for teachers, counselors,
and parents.
• Internal Consistency (HIGH)
o His theory was carefully couched and rigorously written.
• Parsimony (HIGH)
o Simple and straight forward theory.
 Free Choice over Determinism

Concept of Humanity Optimism over Pessimism

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Equal Emphasis on Teleology and
Causality

Conscious over Unconscious

Social Factors over Biology

Uniqueness over Similarity

OBSERVATIONAL AND ENACTIVE LEARNING

THANK YOU!