SAS 1 - Albert Bandura's Agentic Perspective of Understanding the Self

Albert Bandura

• professor from Stanford University

• developed the Social Cognitive Theory

Basic Assumptions of Social Cognitive Theory

• Social Cognitive Theory takes an Agentic View of the Human Person

• Humans have the Flexibility to Learn Behaviors in Diverse Situations, Particularly through Observational Learning

• People have the Capacity to Regulate their Lives through the Triadic Reciprocal Causation

• People Regulated their Conduct through both Internal and External Factors

• When People Find Themselves in Ambiguous Situations, They Typically Attempt to Regulate their Behavior through Moral Agency

Social Cognitive Theory takes an Agentic View of the Human Person

people are self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting, and self-regulating, not just reactive organisms shaped and shephered by external events

Human Agency

• self-efficacy

• collective efficacy

• proxy efficacy

Self-efficacy

people’s beliefs in their own capabilities to exercise some measure of control over their functioning and environmental events

Collective Efficacy

a group’s shared belief in its conjoint capability to organize and execute courses of action required to produce given levels of attainment

Proxy Efficacy

getting people who have expertise or power to act on their behalf to get the outcomes they desire

Sources of Efficacy

• Mastery Experiences

• Vicarious

• Social Persuasion

Mastery Experiences

achieved by tackling problems in successive attainable steps

Vicarious Experiences

when we see other people like ourselves succeed by sustained effort, we come to believe that we, too, have the capacity to succeed

Social Persuasion

if people are persuaded that they have what it takes to succeed, they exert more effort and are more persevering than if they harbor self-doubts and dwell on personal deficiencies when problems arise

Observational Learning

a relatively permanent change in behavior due to the experience of observing a model

Processes in Observational Learning

• Attention

• Retention

• Behavioral Production

• Motivation

Attention

the model performing the behavior should be noticed

Retention

the behavior performed by the model should be remembered

Behavioral Production

the learner must be able to convert the retained information into action

Motivation

the learner must have the will power to perform the behavior

The Bobo Doll Experiment

• this is an example of observational learning

• demonstrated that children learn aggressive behavior through observation and imitation

• involved preschool children observing adults interact with an inflatable clown doll, known as a Bobo doll, in aggressive or non-aggressive ways

People have the Capacity to Regulate their Lives through the Triadic Reciprocal Causation

people’s behaviors and thoughts affect and are effected by the social context

Bandura’s Triadic Reciprocal Causation

Behavior ←→ Personal Factors ←→ Environmental Factors ←→ Behavior

External Factors in Regulating our Behaviors

• feedback from parents

• reinforcements for good behavior

• praises and encouragements from professors and friends

Internal Factors in Regulating our Behaviors

• self-observation

• judgmental process

• self-reaction

Self-Observation

monitoring our own performance or personal standards

Judgmental Process

comparing our performance to others

Self-Reaction

responding positively or negatively to our behaviors depending on how they measure to our personal standards

When People Find Themselves in Ambiguous Situations, They Typically Attempt to Regulate their Behavior through Moral Agency

redefining behavior, disregarding or distorting the consequences of behavior, dehumanization, victim-blaming, and displacement or diffusion or responsibility

Fortuitous Events

an environmental experience that is unexpected and unintended

Chance Encounter

an unintended meeting of persons unfamiliar to each other