Chapter 17: Bandura – Social Cognitive Theory – Flashcards

Bandura's social cognitive theory takes an *agentic* perspective, meaning that humans have some limited ability to control their lives. The social cognitive theory rests on a few main assumptions. The first is: *Plasticity* That is that humans have the flexibility to learn a variety of behaviours in diverse situations and these can be reinforced by observing others behaviour and observing others receiving a reward for their behaviour. Second, through a *triadic reciprocal causation model*, that includes behavioural, environmental and personal factors, people have the capacity to regulate their lives. Humans can transform transitory events into relatively consistent ways of evaluating and regulating their social-cultural environments. Without this capacity, people would merely react to sensory experiences and would lack the capacity to anticipate events, create new ideas, or use internal standards to evaluate present experiences. Chance encounters and fortuitous events are two important environmental factors that often shape one's behavior Third, Social cognitive theory takes an *agentic* perspective, meaning that humans have the capacity to exercise control over the nature and quality of their lives. People are the producers, as well as the products of their social systems. Self-efficacy is an important component of the triadic reciprocal causation model. People performance is generally enhanced when they have high *self-efficacy*; that is the confidence they have to perform those behaviours that will produce the desired behaviour in a particular situation. In addition, both *proxy agency*, where people are able to rely on others for goods and services, and *collective agncy*, shared beliefs that they can bring about change, can predict performance. Fourth: People regulate their conduct through bot external and internal factors. External includes the physical environemtns, whereas internal factors include self-observation, judgements, and self-reflection. Fifth, when people find themselves in morally ambiguous situations, they typically tend to regulate their behaviours though moral agency which is the redefining of behaviour, disregarding or distorting the consequences, dehumanising or blaming victims of their behaviour, or displacing or diffusing responsibility for their actions.

Bandura was born in Canada in 1925, but he has spent his entire professional life in the United States. He completed a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Iowa in 1951 and since then has worked almost entirely at Stanford University, where he continues to be an active researcher and speaker.

Bandura takes a broad view of learning, believing that people learn a great deal through observing others and by attending to the consequences of their own actions. Although he believes that reinforcement aids learning, he contends that people can learn in the absence of reinforcement and even of a response.

The heart of observational learning is modeling, which is more than simple imitation because it involves adding and subtracting from observed behavior. People can learn through observing without actually performing the behavior themselves. In this respect, he differs from skinner who believed that inactive behavior didn't produce learning. Additionally, Bandura did not believe that reinforcement was necessary for learning. Although reinforcement can facilitate learning, it is not a necessary condition of it. People can learn by observing a model being reinforced by another. Observational learning is much more efficient than learning through direct experience.

Modeling is the core of observational learning. Modeling involves cognitive processes and is not simply mimicry or imitation. It involves symbolically representing information and storing it for use at a future time. At least three principles influence modeling: (1) people are most likely to model high-status people, (2) people who lack skill or status are most likely to model, and (3) people tend to model behavior that they see as being rewarding to the model. Bandura recognized four processes that govern observational learning: (1) attention, or noticing what a model does; (2) representation, or symbolically representing new response patterns in memory; (3) behavior production, or producing the behavior that one observes; and (4) motivation; that is, the observer must be motivated to perform the observed behavior.

All behavior is followed by some consequence, but whether that consequence reinforces the behavior depends on the person's cognitive evaluation of the situation.

Social cognitive theory holds that human functioning is molded by the reciprocal interaction of (1) behavior; (2) personal factors, including cognition; and (3) environmental events—a model Bandura calls triadic reciprocal causation.

Bandura does not suggest that the three factors in the triadic reciprocal causation model make equal contributions to behavior. The relative influence of behavior, environment, and person depends on which factor is strongest at any particular moment.

The lives of many people have been fundamentally changed by a *chance* meeting with another person or by a *fortuitous*, unexpected event. Chance encounters and fortuitous events enter the triadic reciprocal causation paradigm at the environment point, after which they influence behavior in much the same way as do planned events.

Bandura believes that human agency is the essence of humanness; that is, humans are defined by their ability to organize, regulate, and enact behaviors that they believe will produce desirable consequences.

Human agency has four core features: (1) intentionality, or a proactive commitment to actions that may bring about desired outcomes: (2) foresight, or the ability to set goals; (3) self- reactiveness, which includes monitoring their progress toward fulfilling their choices; and (4) self-reflectiveness, which allows people can think about and evaluate their motives, values, and life goals. People's most crucial self -reflective feature is their self-efficacy.

How people behave in a particular situation depends in part on their self-efficacy, that is, their beliefs that they can or cannot exercise those behaviors necessary to bring about a desired consequence. Efficacy expectations differ from outcome expectations, which refer to people's prediction of the likely consequences of their behavior. Self-efficacy combines with environmental variables, previous behaviors, and other personal variables to predict behavior. It is acquired, enhanced, or decreased by any one or combination of four sources: (1) mastery experiences or performance, (2) social modeling, or observing someone of equal ability succeed or fail at a task; (3) social persuasion or listening to a trusted person's encouraging words; and (4) physical and emotional states, such as anxiety or fear, which usually lowers self-efficacy. High self-efficacy and a responsive environment are the best predictors of successful outcomes.

Bandura also recognizes the influence of proxy agency through which people exercise some partial control over everyday living. Successful living in the 21st century requires people to seek proxies to supply their food, deliver information, provide transportation, etc. Without the use of proxies, modern people would be forced to spend most of their time securing the necessities of survival.

Collective efficacy is the level of confidence that people have that their combined efforts will produce social change. At least four factors can lower collective efficacy. First, events in other parts of the world can leave people with a sense of helplessness; second, complex technology can decrease people's perceptions of control over their environment; third, entrenched bureaucracies discourage people from attempting to bring about social change; and fourth, the size and scope of worldwide problems contribute to people's sense of powerlessness.

By using reflective thought, humans can manipulate their environments and produce consequences of their actions, giving them some ability to regulate their own behavior. Bandura believes that behavior stems from a reciprocal influence of external and internal factors.

Two external factors contribute to self-regulation: (1) standards of evaluation and (2) external reinforcement. External factors affect self-regulation by providing people with standards for evaluating their own behavior and the means to reinforce it via healthy incentives.

Internal requirements for self-regulation include: (1) self- observation of performance: although not always accurate as we attend selectively some aspect of our own behaviour and ignore other. However, in social and achievement situation we monitor we pay attention to our own quality fo work and monitor morality of conduct. (2) judging or evaluating performance. We judge based on our own personal standards as well as evaluating based on other things as a standard of referene. Wealso depend on over all value we place on the activity when making judgements. Additionally, performance attribution or how we believe our own success is due to our own efforts. (3) and self reaction, including self-reinforcement or self-punishment. People respond positively or negatively to their behaviours depending on how these measure up to their personal standards. People create incentives for their own actions throgh self reinforcement or self punishment.

Internalized self-sanctions prevent people from violating their own moral standards either through selective activation or disengagement of internal control. *Selective activation* refers to the notion that self-regulatory influences are not automatic but operate only if activated. It also means that people react differently in different situations, depending on their evaluation of the situation. *Disengagement of internal control* means that people are capable of separating themselves from the negative consequences of their behavior. People in ambiguous moral situations—who are uncertain that their behavior is consistent with their own social and moral standards of conduct—may separate their conduct from its injurious consequences through four general techniques of disengagement of internal standards or selective activation. The first is redefining behavior or justifying otherwise reprehensible actions by cognitively restructuring them. People can use the redefinition of behavior to disengage themselves from reprehensible conduct by: (1) justifying otherwise culpable behavior on moral grounds; (2) making advantageous comparisons between their behavior and the even more reprehensible behavior of others; (3) using euphemistic labels to change the moral tone of their behavior. Second, people can disengage their behavior from its consequences by displacing or diffusing responsibility. A third set of disengagement procedures involves dehumanizing or blaming the victims. A fourth method is to distort or obscure the relationship between behavior and its injurious consequences. People can do this by minimizing, disregarding, or distorting the consequences of their behavior.

Dysfunction behavior is learned through the mutual interaction of the person (including cognitive and neurophysiological processes), the environment (including interpersonal relations), and behavioral factors (especially previous experiences with reinforcement).

People who develop depressive reactions often (1) self-observation - underestimate their successes and overestimate their failures, (2) judgemental process - set personal standards too high, or (3) self-reactions - treat themselves badly for their faults.

Phobias are learned by (1) direct contact, (2) inappropriate generalization, and (3) observational experiences. Once learned they are maintained by negative reinforcement, as the person is reinforced for avoiding fear-producing situations.

When carried to extreme, aggressive behaviors can become dysfunctional. In a study of children observing live and filmed models being aggressive, Bandura and his associates found that aggression tends to foster more aggression.

The goal of social cognitive therapy is self-regulation. Bandura noted three levels of treatment: (1) induction of change: through overt or **vicarious modeling: where people first observe the behaviour of filmed models. Then 2. introduce **covert modeling: where patients visualise others performing the behaviours and then move to **enactive mastery: where the patient performed the behaviours. This creates systemic desensitization. (2) generalization of change to other appropriate situations, and (3) maintenance of newly acquired functional behaviors. Social cognitive therapists sometimes use systematic desensitization, a technique aimed at diminishing phobias through relaxation. Cognitive mediation was the key mechanism to these approaches that lead to their effectiveness. When cognition was used to help increase self-efficacy, they were convinced they could perform a difficult task.

Bandura's concept of self-efficacy has generated a great deal of research demonstrating that people's beliefs are related to their ability to perform in a wide variety of situations, including coping with the threat of terrorism and managing Type 2 diabetes.

Psychologists have always been interested (even before 9/11/01) in both how people are drawn into terrorist culture, and how innocent people cope with the constant threat of terrorism (Ben-Zur & Zeidner, 1995; Moghaddam & Marsella, 2004; Zeidner, 2007). After 2001, this interest in terrorism increased exponentially, and some researchers began to consider how self-efficacy might help people cope with terrorism. People report feeling less personal security following a terrorist attack (Gallup, 2002). An increased sense of self-efficacy may help to offset this insecurity and negativity. Peter Fischer and colleagues wanted to investigate relationships among self-efficacy, religion, and coping with the threat of terrorism (Fischer, Greitemeyer, Kastenmuller, Jonas, & Frey, 2006). They used Allport's Religious Orientation Scale (ROS; see Chapter 13). Previous research had found that using prayer as a coping mechanism is related to an increased feeling of internal control over events (Ai, Peterson, Rodgers, & Tice, 2005), so Fischer and colleagues predicted that intrinsically religious people would experience greater self-efficacy. The results of their study found that the intrinsically religious did report greater feelings of self-efficacy, and better moods due to the increased sense of self-efficacy, but only when the salience of terrorism was high. When salience of terrorism was low, religiosity caused no difference among test subjects. The conclusion is that in the face of a threat, self-efficacy is crucial to decreasing the threat's harmful effects.

Bandura himself has written about the usefulness of his theory for encouraging people to engage in healthy behaviors that can increase overall well-being and longevity (Bandura, 1998). Recently, William Sacco and colleagues (2007) studied self- efficacy related to diabetes. Since depression is twice as prevalent in diabetics as in the general population (Anderson, Freeland, Clouse, & Lustman, 2001), and a hallmark of depression is lack of motivation, the strict adherence to diet and exercise plans required of Type 2 diabetes management is especially problematic. Sacco and his colleagues (2007) thus wanted to explore the role of self- efficacy in raising adherence to disease management plans, and in lowering negative physical and mental health symptoms. The results clearly showed that self-efficacy is important to managing chronic disease: Higher levels of self-efficacy were related to lower levels of depression, lower BMI, lower incidence and severity of diabetes symptoms, and higher levels of adherence to doctors' orders. BMI was positively correlated with depression, and adhering to doctors' orders was negatively correlated with depression. Self-efficacy was directly responsible for the relationships of depression to both BMI and adherence. Of the many parts of social-cognitive theory that have influenced psychological research, these studies on terrorism and diabetes show the far-reaching implications of the construct of self-efficacy. Bandura's theory continues to generate an impressive amount of research.

Bandura's theory receives the highest marks of any in the text largely because it was constructed through a careful balance of innovative speculation and data from rigorous research. In summary, the theory rates very high on its ability to generate research and on its internal consistency. In addition, it rates high on parsimony and on its ability to be falsified, organize knowledge, and guide the practitioner.

Bandura sees humans as being relatively fluid and flexible. People can store past experiences and then use this information to chart future actions. Bandura's theory rates near the middle on teleology versus causality and high on free choice, optimism, conscious influences, and uniqueness. As a social cognitive theory, it rates very high on social determinants of personality.

cognitively mediated

self-efficacy through self-reflection positively changed dispositional shyness

setting realistic goals and receiving feedback on performance

self-efficacy

b. performance attribution. c. a standard of reference. d. the value we place on those actions.

Human agency is an active process of exploring, manipulating, and influencing the enviornment in order to attain desired outcomes. There are four core features of human agency. Intentionality - it involves planning and acting. People continually change their plans as they become aware of the consequences of their actions. Forethought - setting goals and anticipating outcomes. People are capable of breaking free from their environmental constraints. Self-reactiveness - motivating and regulating actions. People make choices and they monitr their progress toward fulfilling their choices. Self-reflectiveness - thinking and evaluating their motivations, values and goals. People can evaluate their own actions as well as how other people's actions effect them. His concept of self-efficiacy is the most crucial self-reflective mechanism.