Chapter 16: Bandura – Social Cognitive Theory: Comprehensive Study Notes

Overview of Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory

• Albert Bandura’s theory explains human functioning through the reciprocal interaction of

  • Behavior (B)

  • Environment (E)

  • Person (P – chiefly cognitive factors)

  • Expressed symbolically as B \leftrightarrow E \leftrightarrow P (triadic reciprocal causation).

• Central assumption: HUMANS = plastic, flexible learners; can acquire behavior directly and vicariously.

• Emphasizes:

  • Observational (vicarious) learning & indirect reinforcement

  • Agentic perspective → people are producers and products of social systems

  • Importance of chance encounters & fortuitous events in life trajectories

Biography of Albert Bandura

• Born Dec 4 1925, Mundare, Alberta; only son among five sisters.

• Parents: Polish father, Ukrainian mother; encouraged independence.

• Sparse school resources → self-directed learning style.

• Summer job on Alaska Highway exposed him to psychopathology → sparked interest in clinical psychology.

• “Fortuitous” enrollment in early-morning psychology class at Univ. of British Columbia led to career choice.

• Graduate work at Univ. of Iowa (MA 1951, PhD 1952) – strong learning-theory tradition.

• 1953 → Stanford faculty; prolific publications:

  • Adolescents & aggression (with Richard Walters, 1959)

  • Social Learning Theory (1977)

  • Social Foundations of Thought and Action (1986)

  • Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)

• Held APA presidency (1974) & myriad honors (Guggenheim, William James Award, etc.).

Learning Mechanisms

1. Observational Learning (Modeling)

• People learn without emitting behavior or receiving direct reinforcement.

• Core is modeling = cognitive process of encoding & later reproducing observed actions (≠ mere mimicry).

• Likelihood of modeling rises when:

  • Model is high-status, competent, powerful, attractive.

  • Observer is low-status, novice, child, or lacks skill.

  • Observed consequences are valued (vicarious reinforcement/punishment).

• Four governing sub-processes:

  1. Attention – frequency of contact, attractiveness of model, perceived relevance of act.

  2. Representation – imaginal & verbal coding, rehearsal, symbolism.

  3. Behavioral Production – translating codes into action; self-monitoring via “How?/What?/Am I doing this right?”.

  4. Motivation – external, vicarious, or self-produced incentives needed for performance.

2. Enactive Learning

• Perform behavior → observe consequences → three functions:

  1. Informative (feedback for future acts)

  2. Motivational (anticipatory forethought)

  3. Reinforcing (strengthen habit; facilitated by cognition)

Triadic Reciprocal Causation in Depth

• No single factor has unilateral control; strength of each link varies by context.

• Example: Father refusing daughter’s 2nd brownie – cognition mediates environmental demand & behavior.

• Chance encounters/fortuitous events enter the system at E; their influence depends on subsequent P & B interactions.

  • Bandura met future wife Ginny Varns after golf-course delay – vivid illustration.

  • Quote: “Chance favors only the prepared mind” (Pasteur).

Human Agency

• Four core features:

  1. Intentionality – proactive commitments, plans + actions.

  2. Forethought – goal setting, outcome anticipation, escape from immediate environmental control.

  3. Self-reactiveness – motivation, self-regulation, performance monitoring.

  4. Self-reflectiveness – evaluation of motives, values, thinking; centerpiece = self-efficacy.

Self-Efficacy

• Definition: belief in one’s capabilities to organize & execute actions needed for desired outcomes.

• Distinct from outcome expectancy (prediction of consequences) & from global self-esteem.

• Efficacy × Environment matrix yields four scenarios:

  • High E + responsive env. → success.

  • Low E + responsive env. → depression.

  • High E + unresponsive env. → activism or environment change.

  • Low E + unresponsive env. → apathy/helplessness.

• Four principal sources:

  1. Mastery experiences (most powerful)

  • Corollaries: task difficulty, solo vs. aided performance, effort, emotional arousal, timing of failures, occasional failure tolerance.

  1. Social modeling – vicarious successes/failures by similar others.

  2. Social persuasion – credible encouragement/criticism, effective when tasks are realistic & paired with performance.

  3. Physical & emotional states – fatigue, fear ↓ E; moderate arousal can facilitate simple tasks.

Proxy & Collective Efficacy

• Proxy agency – indirect control via others’ resources/skills (e.g., hiring mechanics, lobbying officials). Excessive reliance can weaken personal/collective efficacy.

• Collective efficacy – shared belief in group’s capability for change.

  • Measured by aggregating personal E or perceived group power.

  • Undermined by globalization, complex technology, bureaucracy, and magnitude of world problems, yet essential for social progress.

Self-Regulation

• People regulate actions proactively & reactively, striving for ever-higher goals (disequilibrium as motivator).

External Factors

• Provide evaluation standards & extrinsic reinforcement (pay, praise, sub-goal rewards).

Internal Factors

1. Self-observation – selective monitoring based on interests & self-concept.

2. Judgmental process – compare behavior to

   • personal standards

   • referential comparisons (others, norms, past self)

   • value of activity

   • performance attributions (internal vs. external causes).

3. Self-reaction – self-reward (pride, satisfaction) or self-punishment (criticism, guilt).

Moral Agency

• Two facets: avoid harming + proactively help.

• Selective activation/disengagement allows violation of moral standards via:

  • Redefining behavior (moral justification, advantageous comparison, euphemistic labeling).

  • Disregarding/distorting consequences (minimizing, ignoring, misconstruing).

  • Dehumanizing/blaming victims.

  • Displacing/diffusing responsibility ("just following orders", bureaucratic spread).

Dysfunctional Behavior

• Emerges from P × B × E reciprocity.

Depression

• Arises when goals exceed perceived efficacy → harsh self-judgments + self-punishment.

Phobias

• Learned via direct, generalized, or vicarious experience.

• Maintained by avoidance (negative reinforcement) & media-amplified fears.

Aggression

• Learned through observation, reinforcement, instruction, bizarre beliefs.

• Bobo Doll studies (Bandura, Ross & Ross 1963)

  • Live, filmed, or cartoon aggressive models → children doubled aggressive acts vs. controls.

  • Specific topography of aggression imitated.

Therapeutic Applications

• Goal: durable self-regulation.

• Levels of change: induce → generalize → maintain.

• Techniques (often combined):

  • Overt/vicarious modeling

  • Covert (cognitive) modeling

  • Enactive mastery (gradual performance)

  • Systematic desensitization (relaxation + anxiety hierarchy)

• Core mechanism: enhancement of self-efficacy via cognitive mediation.

Illustrative Research Extensions

• Coping with terrorism (Fischer et al., 2006):

  • Under high terror salience, intrinsically religious Germans showed ↑ self-efficacy & better mood; self-efficacy mediated mood benefits.

• Managing Type 2 Diabetes (Sacco et al., 2007):

  • Higher diabetes-specific self-efficacy → ↑ adherence, ↓ BMI, ↓ symptom severity, ↓ depression.

  • Self-efficacy mediated links between BMI/adherence and depression.

Critical Evaluation of the Theory

• Research generation: extremely high (thousands of studies).

• Falsifiability: clear hypotheses (e.g., efficacy–effort link) invite disconfirmation.

• Organization of knowledge: integrates learning, cognition, motivation.

• Guidance for practice: concrete methods for education, therapy, social change.

• Internal consistency & parsimony: precise language, avoids unnecessary constructs.

Bandura’s View of Human Nature

• Plasticity/Flexibility: hallmark of humanity; symbolic capacity enables foresight and planful action.

• Freedom vs. Determinism: moderate → reciprocal causation allows personal agency within environmental constraints.

• Conscious vs. Unconscious: emphasis on conscious self-regulation; automaticity arises after learning.

• Social vs. Biological: social factors predominate but biology acknowledged (P variable).

• Uniqueness vs. Similarity: vast individual differences yet shared learning processes.

• Teleology: present-focused cognition about future consequences directs action.

Consolidated Key Terms (quick reference)

• Observational Learning

• Modeling

• Enactive Learning

• Triadic Reciprocal Causation

• Chance Encounter / Fortuitous Event

• Human Agency (Intentionality, Forethought, Self-reactiveness, Self-reflectiveness)

• Self-Efficacy vs. Outcome Expectancy

• Proxy Agency

• Collective Efficacy

• External & Internal Self-Regulation Factors

• Moral Agency (Selective Activation / Disengagement)

• Dysfunctional Behaviors (Depression, Phobia, Aggression)

• Social Cognitive Therapy (Modeling, Desensitization, Enactive Mastery)