Bandura

Human Agency

The capacity of individuals to intentionally exercise control over their own functioning and environmental events, positioning people as active producers as well as products of social systems.

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) Premise

The agentic perspective in psychology asserting that human functioning is shaped by direct personal action, self-regulatory processes, and reflective thought rather than purely reactive biological or environmental forces.

Triadic Reciprocal Causation (TRC)

Bandura's model stating that human functioning is determined by the continuous, bidirectional interplay of Internal Personal factors (P), Behavioral patterns (B), and Environmental influences (E).

P Factor in TRC

Internal Personal Factors, encompassing cognitive processes, affective states, biological properties, self-perceptions, and personal goals.

B Factor in TRC

Behavioral Patterns, representing executed actions, choices, habituated responses, and performance output.

E Factor in TRC

Environmental Influences, including physical surroundings, sociostructural conditions, cultural climate, and social reactions.

Sociostructural Operation in TRC

Economic, institutional, and social structures do not act as disembodied direct forces; rather, they operate through psychological mechanisms within the self-system to affect behavior.

Four Features of Human Agency

The interrelated psychological mechanisms through which agency is actively exercised: Intentionality, Forethought, Self-Reactiveness, and Self-Reflectiveness.

Intentionality

The feature of agency involving proactive representations of future action plans, strategies, and commitments to bring about specific intended outcomes.

Forethought

The temporal extension of agency wherein projected future goals, outcome expectations, and prospective scenarios are represented cognitively in the present to motivate and guide action.

Self-Reactiveness

The self-regulatory process connecting thought to action through self-monitoring, setting performance standards, and applying corrective self-sanctions and self-evaluations.

Self-Reflectiveness

The metacognitive capability to evaluate one's own thinking, values, personal efficacy, and the adequacy of one's functioning to adjust actions accordingly.

Metacognition

The capability of thinking about one's own thinking processes; serves as the foundational mechanism for Bandura's concept of self-reflectiveness.

Self-Efficacy Beliefs

An individual's belief in their capability to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainments and exercise control over life events.

Foundational Role of Self-Efficacy

The core psychological belief that unless people believe they can produce desired effects through their actions, they have little incentive to act or persevere through difficulty.

Enactive Mastery Experiences

The most influential source of self-efficacy, built through authentic personal successes where obstacles and failures are overcome via sustained effort.

Vicarious Experiences (Modeling)

A source of self-efficacy where observing similar peers succeed through sustained effort raises the observer's belief in their own capabilities.

Social Persuasion

A source of self-efficacy where verbal encouragement and realistic feedback from significant others strengthen beliefs in one's capability to succeed.

Somatic and Affective States

A source of self-efficacy where individuals judge their capability by interpreting physical arousal, stress levels, fatigue, and emotional states.

Direct Personal Agency

Individual exercise of personal control over one's own cognitive processes, motivation, affect, choices, and immediate physical/social environment.

Proxy Agency

A socially mediated mode of agency where individuals rely on third parties who possess resources, expertise, or power to act on their behalf to secure desired outcomes.

Proxy Agency Risk

Heavy reliance on proxy agency can surrender personal control, reduce self-efficacy, and leave individuals dependent on the skills and motives of intermediaries.

Collective Agency / Collective Efficacy

People's shared belief in their joint power to organize and execute the coordinated courses of action required to produce desired social and structural results.

Chance Encounter

An unintended, unexpected meeting of persons unfamiliar with each other that acts as a powerful environmental force altering life paths.

Fortuitous Event

An unexpected and unintended environmental occurrence or experience that shifts an individual's career, personal, or developmental trajectory.

Intersection of Causal Chains in Fortuity

The phenomenon where two independent, deterministic causal chains unexpectedly join in time and space to create a fortuitous event.

Agentic Management of Fortuity

The proactive preparation, skill cultivation, and self-regulatory readiness required to capitalize on positive chance events and extricate oneself from harmful traps.

Biopsychosocial Coevolution

The evolutionary view that biological potentiality provides the foundational machinery, while cultural innovations and agentic action drive human adaptation and evolution.

Plasticity & Neurostructural Coevolution

The functional malleability of human behavior and brain architecture, where agentic learning, mental exercise, and environmental experience shape brain structure.

Underminer 1: Technological Complexity

Modern technical systems and electronic networks that people can neither fully comprehend nor feel capable of influencing, creating powerlessness.

Underminer 2: Globalization & Regional Pacts

Distant economic unions and transnational forces that regulate local economic lives while eroding local community autonomy and self-determination.

Underminer 3: Vested Interests & Inertia

Institutional resistance by beneficiaries of current practices, combined with long delays between civic action and visible social results.

Underminer 4: Social Fragmentation & Factionalism

Pluralism taking the form of militant, single-issue interest groups whose conflicting demands immobilize broader civic action.

Underminer 5: Magnitude of Global Problems

Massive, overwhelming challenges (e.g., climate change, economic collapse) that induce a sense of paralysis and helplessness in ordinary citizens.