Albert Bandura and Walter Mischel

Attentional processes.

Processes that determine what is attended to and therefore what is learned through observation.

Behavior-outcome expectancy.

Belief that acting a certain way in a certain situation will have a certain consequence.

Chance encounter.

An unintended or fortuitous, meeting of persons that has the potential to alter significantly the lives of those involved.

Cognitive social person variables.

Those variables thought by Mischel to determine how a person selects, perceives, interprets, and uses the stimuli confronting him or her. See also Competencies; Encoding strate-gies; Expectancies; Subjective values; Self-regulatory systems and plans.

Competencies.

Cognitive social person variable that describes what a person knows and what he or she is capable of doing.

Consistency paradox.

According to Mischel, the persistent belief that human behavior is more consistent than is indicated by experimental evidence.

Delay of gratification.

Postponement of a small, immediate reinforcer in order to obtain a larger, more distant reinforcer.

Delayed modeling.

Refers to the fact that there is often a long delay between when something is learned observationally and when that learning is translated into behavior.

Dysfunctional expectancies.

Expectancies that do not result in effective interactions with the environment. Such expectancies can result from inaccurate modeling, from overgeneralization of nonrepresentational personal experience, or from distorted perceived self-efficacy.

Encoding strategies.

Cognitive social person variable that determines which aspects of the environment are selected for attention and how those aspects are interpreted by the individual.

Expectancies.

Cognitive social person variable that determines how individuals anticipate events in their lives. See also Behavior-outcome expectancy, Self-efficacy expectancy, and Stimulus-outcome expectancy.

Extrinsic reinforcement.

Reinforcement that results from sources outside of the person.

Freedom.

Within social-cognitive theory, freedom is determined by the number of options available to people and their right to exercise them.

Human agency.

Conscious planning and intentional execution of actions that influence future events.

Interactionist.

Any theorist who contends it is the interaction of person variables and situation variables that determines behavior at any given moment.

Intrinsic reinforcement.

Self-reinforcement.

Model.

Anything that conveys information to an observer.

Moral conduct.

Behavior that is in accordance with internalized moral principles. When a person acts in accordance with internalized moral principles, he or she experiences self-praise. If not, the person experiences self-contempt.

Motivational processes. Those processes that determine the circumstances under which learning is translated into behavior. Such a translation will not occur unless the person has an adequate incentive.

Motor reproduction processes.

Those processes that determine what behavior a person is physically capable of performing.

Observational learning.

Learning that results from attending to something. Such learning is said to occur independently of reinforcement.

Participant modeling.

Type of modeling that requires the observer to participate in the modeling experience. Typically, both the model and the observer engage in activities together that are anxiety-provoking to the observer. This type of modeling is generally found to be the most effective.

Perceived self-efficacy.

What a person believes he or she is capable of doing

Performance standards.

Those standards that must be met or exceeded before one experiences self-reinforcement. If a person's performance does not meet or exceed a performance standard, he or she experiences self-punishment.

Person variables.

Variables contained with in the person that determine how he or she responds to a situation.

Personality coefficient.

Mischel's quantification of the amount of consistency found in human behavior. He found that the correlation of behavior across time, across similar situations, and between personality questionnaires and behavior was about 0.30. This weak correlation suggested that human behavior was not nearly as consistent as it had been widely assumed to be.

Psychotherapy.

Within social-cognitive theory, any procedure that corrects dysfunctional expectancies. Typically, the procedure used is some type of modeling.

Reciprocal determinism.

Contention that person variables, situation variables, and behavior constantly interact with one another. For example, the person influences the environment, the environment influences the person, and the consequences of one's behavior change both the person and the environment.

Reinforcement.

Within social-cognitive theory, reinforcement (either direct or vicarious) provides information concerning what behavior will be effective in a given situation. Also, reinforcement provides an incentive for translating learning into performance. See also Vicarious reinforcement.

Retentional processes.

Those processes that determine how experiences are encoded into memory for possible future use.

Self-control.

Ability to tolerate a delay in gratification.

Self-efficacy.

What a person is actually capable of doing.

Self-efficacy expectancy.

Expectancy one has concerning one's ability to engage in effective behavior. See also Perceived self-efficacy and Self-efficacy.

Self-exonerating mechanisms.

Cognitive mechanisms a person can employ to escape the self-contempt that ordinarily results when a person acts contrary to an internalized moral principle.

Self-regulated behavior.

Behavior governed by intrinsic reinforcement and punishment. Self-regulated behavior is often directed at some major future goal that is approached through a series of subgoals. Once goals are set, an individual organizes his or her life so as to increase the probability of their attainment. Also, much of a person's self-directed behavior is determined by his or her perceived self-efficacy. See also Delay of gratification and Moral conduct.

Self-regulatory systems and plans.

Cognitive social learning person variable that determines the circumstances under which an individual experiences self-reinforcement and self-punishment. This variable also determines the setting of future goals and the formulation of plans (strategies) used in attaining those goals.

Situation variables.

Variables in the environment that provide the setting in which person variables manifest themselves.

Social-cognitive theory.

Name given to Bandura and Mischel's theory because of its emphasis on the social and cognitive origins of human behavior.

Stimulus outcome expectancy.

Belief that one environmental event will be followed by another specific event that has been consistently associated with the first event in the past.

Subjective values.

Cognitive social person variable that determines under what circumstances a person will translate what has been learned into behavior. Subjective values determine what is worth having or aspiring for, and what is not.

Symbolic modeling.

Modeling involving something other than a live human, for in-stance, a film, television, instructions, reading material, or a demonstration.

Systematic desensitization.

Therapeutic procedure whereby a client is asked to imagine a series of interrelated anxiety-provoking scenes until they no longer cause anxiety.

Vicarious punishment.

Punishment that comes from observing the negative consequences of another person's behavior.

Vicarious reinforcement.

Reinforcement that comes from observing the positive consequences of another person's behavior.