ALBERT BANDURA

(Social Cognitive Theory)

Biography

Born on December 4, 1925 in Mundare,

Alberta Canada
The only boy and the youngest with five
older sisters
Encouraged by his sisters to be independent
and self-reliant
Spent summer in the Yukon working on the
Alaska highway.
Family

Wife: Ginny (Virginia) Varns

Daughters: Mary and Carol

Structure
Beliefs and Expectancies
Beliefs-Thoughts about the world actually is
like
Expectancies-Beliefs that are directed to the
future

Evaluative Standards-Thoughts about what

things should be like
A criterion for judging the goodness, or worth,
of a person, thing, or event.
It often trigger emotional reaction
Self-evaluative reactions- emotional response
towards ones self
Goals
Goals-Thoughts about what one wants to
achieve in the future
A mental representation of the aim of an action
or course of actions.
Persons goals are organized in a system.
Goals are related to expectancies.

Process
Triadic Reciprocal Causation
Assumes that human action is a result of an
interaction between 3 variables:

Social-cognitive theory strongly emphasizes the

role in personality functioning of peoples beliefs
about prospective future events.
Social-cognitive theory contends that a primary
determinant of our actions and emotions is our
expectations about the future.
The Self and Self-Efficacy Beliefs

Person- cognitive factors such as memory,

anticipation, planning and judging.
Behavior- The reaction to a certain event

Perceived self-efficacy-Peoples perceptions of

their own capabilities for action in
future
situations.
Evaluative Standards

Environment-External Factors that may affect

the other variables
Chance Encounters -an unintended meeting of
persons unfamiliar to each other.

Fortuitous Events -an environmental

experience that is unexpected and
unintended.
Growth and Development
Observational Learning- allows people to
learn without performing any behavior.

Learn through observing the behavior of other

people.
Modelling -The core of Observational Learning
Several factors determine whether a person will
learn from a model in any particular situation:
1. The characteristic of the model are important
2. The characteristics of the observer affect the
likelihood of modeling.
3. The consequences of the behavior being
modeled may have an effect on the observer.

2. The consequences of our responses motivate

our anticipatory behavior
3. The consequences of responses serve to
reinforce behavior.
Human Agency
Four core features of human agency:
1. Intentionality- refers to acts a person
performs intentionally. An intention includes
planning, but it also involves actions.
2. Forethought- to set goals to anticipate likely
outcomes of their actions, and to select
behaviors that will produce desired
outcomes and avoid undesirable ones.
3. Self reactiveness- process of motivating and
regulating their own actions.
4. Self reflectiveness- can think about the
adequacy of their own thinking.

Self-Efficacy- BELIEVING YOU CAN!!

Bandura recognized four processes that govern
observational learning:
1. Attention
2. Representation
3. Behavioral Production
4. Motivation
Enactive Learning-Every response a person
makes is followed by some consequence. Some
are satisfying, some are dissatisfying, and others
are simply not cognitively attended and hence
have little effect.
The consequences of a response serve at least
three functions:
1. Response consequences inform us of the
effects of our actions

-Bandura (2001) defined self-efficacy as

peoples beliefs in their capability to exercise
some measure of control over their own
functioning & over environmental events
-People who believe that they can do something
that has the potential to alter the environment
events are more likely to act and more likely to
be successful
-Is not the expectation of our actions out
comes.
-Is not a global or generalized concept, such as
self-esteem or self-confidence.
-People can have high self efficacy in one
situation and low efficacy in another.

 The effects of vicarious experience may

even last a lifetime.
Social Persuasion
Can be acquired or weakened through social
persuasion.
Limited source
The person must believe the persuader
Sources of Self-Efficacy:
Mastery Experiences-The most influential
sources of efficacy.
6 Corollaries
Successful performance raises self efficacy
in proportion to the difficulty of the task.
Tasks successfully accomplished by oneself
are more efficacious than those completed
with the help of others.
Failure is most likely to decrease efficacy
when we know that we put forth our best
effort.
Failure under conditions of high emotional
arousal is not self-debilitating as failure
under maximal conditions
Failure prior to established a sense of
mastery is more detrimental to feelings of
personal efficacy than later failure.
Occasional failure has little effect especially
for people with a generally high expectancy
of success.
Social Modeling- Second source of efficacy
; Vicarious experience
Raised when we observe the
accomplishments of another person of equal
competence, but is lowered when we see a
peer fail.

Criticisms from a credible source have more

efficacious power than do those from a noncredible person.
It will be effective only if the activity one is
being encouraged to try is within ones
repertoire of behaviour.
Physical & Emotional States
Final source of efficacy
Strong emotion lowers performance; when
people experience fear, acute anxiety, or
high levels of stress. They are likely to have
lower efficacy expectancies.
Although self efficacy is the foundation of
human agency (Bandura, 2001) it is not the
only mode of human agency. People can
exercise control through proxy and self
efficacy.

Proxy Agency- Involves indirect control

over those social cognitions that affect
everyday living.

Collective Self-Efficacy-Peoples shared

beliefs in their collective power to produce
desired results
Bandura list several factor that can
undermine collective efficacy:

1.

Events in other parts of the world can leave

people with a sense of helplessness

2.

Complex technology can reduce peoples

collective confidence

3.

Entrenched bureaucracies discourage

change

4. The scope and magnitude of problems such

as wars, famine, overpopulation, and crime
contribute to a sense of powerlessness
Self-Regulation- capacity to motivate
themselves: to set personal goals, to plan
strategies and to evaluate their ongoing
behavior according to evaluative standards
for performance.
Thus, According to Bandura, most human
motivation is cognitively generated.
People are seen as proactive rather than as
merely reactive. Through the development
of cognitive mechanisms such as
expectancies, standards, and self evaluation
we are able to establish goals for the future
and gain control over our own destiny.

External Factors
Affects self regulation in 2 ways:
1. They provide us with a standard for
evaluating our own behavior
2. External factors influence self regulation by
providing the means for reinforcement.
Internal Factors
1. Self observation- we must be able to
monitor our own performance, even though
the attention we give to it need not be
complete or even accurate.
2. Judgmental processes- we are capable not
only of reflective self-awareness but also

judging the worth of our actions on the basis

of our goals we set for ourselves.
3. Self-Reaction- people respond positively or
negatively to their behaviors depending on
how these behaviors measure up to their
personal standards.

Self Regulation through Moral Agency

1. Redefine behavior- People justify otherwise
reprehensible actions by a cognitive
restructuring that allows them to minimize
or escape responsibility
Moral Justification- when culpable behavior
is made to seem defensible or even noble.
Palliative comparisons-Comparing a
behavior to an even greater negative action
Euphemistic Labels- Giving an immoral act
a pleasant title or name
2. Disregard or Distort the consequences of the
behavior- involves distorting or obscuring
the relationship between the behavior and its
detrimental consequences
3. Dehumanize or blame the victims- People
can obscure responsibility for their actions
by either dehumanizing their victims or
attributing blame to them
4. Displace or Diffuse responsibilityDissociating actions from their
consequences is to displace or diffuse
responsibility.

Psychopathology
Dysfunctional Behavior- can also be affected by the
Triadic Reciprocal Causation.
Depression-effect of not achieving a high personal
standard.
-result is chronic misery, feelings of worthlessness,
lack of purpose, and pervasive depression.

3 self regulatory subfunctions

1) Self Observation-minimizing accomplishments
and exaggerating past mistakes.

Visualization of performing fearsome

behaviors.
Enactive Mastery

Performing behaviors that produce

incapacitating fears.

2) Judgemental Processes-setting standards

unrealistically high so that any personal
achievements are judged as a failure.

* most effective when used in combination

3) Self Reaction-Judging and treating themselves

badly for failures and shortcomings.

Cognitive Mediation- The ability to use cognition to

increase self efficacy.

Phobias- extreme fears that disables a person to do

certain task that affect their daily lives.
-Learned by direct contact, inappropriate
generalization and personal experiences.
Aggression-Acquired through observation of
others, direct experiences with positive and negative
reinforcement, training and bizarre beliefs.
Aggressive people continue to aggress for at least
five reasons:

They enjoy inflicting injury on the victim

Avoiding or countering the aversive
consequences of aggression by other
They receive injury or harm for not behaving
aggressively
They live up to personal standards of conduct by
their aggressive behavior
They observe others receiving rewards for
aggressive acts or punishment for nonaggressive acts

PSYCHOTHERAPY
The ultimate goal of social cognitive theory is self
regulation and to change the clients self-efficacy.
Basic treatments as suggested by Albert Bandura:
Overt or Vicarious modeling

Observation of live or filmed models

performing threatening activities.
Covert or Cognitive modeling