Peoples shared beliefs in their collective power to produce desired results is referred to as

by Saul McLeod  published 2011

In social learning theory Albert Bandura (1977) states behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.

Unlike Skinner, Bandura (1977) believes that humans are active information processors and think about the relationship between their behavior and its consequences. Observational learning could not occur unless cognitive processes were at work.

Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated during the famous bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961). Individuals that are observed are called models. In society children are surrounded by many influential models, such as parents within the family, characters on children’s TV, friends within their peer group and teachers at school.  Theses models provide examples of behavior to observe and imitate, e.g. masculine and feminine, pro and anti-social etc.

Children pay attention to some of these people (models) and encode their behavior.  At a later time they may imitate (i.e. copy) the behavior they have observed.  They may do this regardless of whether the behavior is ‘gender appropriate’ or not but there are a number of processes that make it more likely that a child will reproduce the behavior that its society deems appropriate for its sex.

First, the child is more likely to attend to and imitate those people it perceives as similar to itself. Consequently, it is more likely to imitate behavior modeled by people of the same sex.

Second, the people around the child will respond to the behavior it imitates with either reinforcement or punishment.  If a child imitates a model’s behavior and the consequences are rewarding, the child is likely to continue performing the behavior.  If parent sees a little girl consoling her teddy bear and says “what a kind girl you are”, this is rewarding for the child and makes it more likely that she will repeat the behavior.  Her behavior has been reinforced (i.e. strengthened).

Reinforcement can be external or internal and can be positive or negative.  If a child wants approval from parents or peers, this approval is an external reinforcement, but feeling happy about being approved of is an internal reinforcement.  A child will behave in a way which it believes will earn approval because it desires approval. 

Positive (or negative) reinforcement will have little impact if the reinforcement offered externally does not match with an individual's needs.  Reinforcement can be positive or negative, but the important factor is that it will usually lead to a change in a person's behavior.

Third, the child will also take into account of what happens to other people when deciding whether or not to copy someone’s actions.  This is known as vicarious reinforcement.

This relates to attachment to specific models that possess qualities seen as rewarding. Children will have a number of models with whom they identify. These may be people in their immediate world, such as parents or elder siblings, or could be fantasy characters or people in the media. The motivation to identify with a particular model is that they have a quality which the individual would like to possess.

Identification occurs with another person (the model) and involves taking on (or adopting) observed behaviors, values, beliefs and attitudes of the person with whom you are identifying.

The term identification as used by Social Learning Theory is similar to the Freudian term related to the Oedipus complex.  For example, they both involve internalizing or adopting another person’s behavior.  However, during the Oedipus complex the child can only identify with the same sex parent, whereas with Social Learning Theory the person (child or adult) can potentially identify with any other person.

Identification is different to imitation as it may involve a number of behaviors being adopted whereas imitation usually involves copying a single behavior.

Social cognitive theory rests on several basic assumptions.

First, the outstanding characteristic of humans is plasticity; that is, humans have the flexibility to learn a variety of behaviors in diverse situations.

Second, through a triadic reciprocal causation model that includes behavioral, environment, and personal factors, people have the capacity to regulate their lives.

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.

Fourth, people regulate their conduct through both external and internal factors.

External factors include people’s physical and social environments, whereas internal factors include self-observation, judgmental process, and self-reaction.

Fifth, when people find themselves in morally ambiguous situations, they typically attempt to regulate their behavior through moral agency, which includes redefining the behavior, disregarding or distorting the consequences of their behavior, dehumanizing or blaming the victims of their behavior, and displacing or diffusing responsibility for their actions.

Bandura (1986) stated that “if knowledge could be acquired only through the effects of one’s own actions, the process of cognitive and social development would be greatly retarded, not to mention exceedingly tedious”.

Observational Learning
Bandura believes that observation allows people to learn without performing any behavior. Bandura (1986, 2003) believes that observational learning is much more efficient than learning through direct experience.

Modeling
The core of observational learning is modeling. Learning through modeling involves adding and subtracting from the observed behavior and generalizing from one observation to another.

First, the characteristics of the model are important.

Second, the characteristics of the observer affect the likelihood of modeling.

Third, the consequences of the behavior being modeled may have an effect on the observer.

Processes Governing Observational Learning
Bandura (1986) recognizes four processes that govern observational learning: attention, representation, behavioral production, and motivation.

Attention
First, because we have more opportunities to observe individuals with whom we frequently associate, we are most likely to attend to these people.

Second, attractive models are more likely to be observed than unattractive ones are—popular figures on television, in sports, or in movies are often closely attended. Also, the nature of the behavior being modeled affects our attention—we observe behavior that we think is important or valuable to us.

Representation
In order for observation to lead to new response patterns, those patterns must be symbolically represented in memory. Verbal coding, however, greatly speeds the process of observational learning.

Behavioral Production
After attending to a model and retaining what we have observed, we then produce the behavior. In converting cognitive representations into appropriate actions, we must ask ourselves several questions about the behavior to be modeled. First we ask, “How can I do this?” After symbolically rehearsing the relevant responses, we try out our new behavior. While performing, we monitor ourselves with the question “What am I doing?” Finally, we evaluate our performance by asking, “Am I doing this right?” This last question is not always easy to answer, especially if it pertains to a motor skill, such as ballet dancing or platform diving, in which we cannot actually see ourselves.

Motivation
Observational learning is most effective when learners are motivated to perform the modeled behavior. Attention and representation can lead to the acquisition of learning, but performance is facilitated by motivation to enact that particular behavior.

Enactive Learning
Bandura believes that complex human behavior can be learned when people think about and evaluate the consequences of their behaviors. The consequences of a response serve at least three functions.

First, response consequences inform us of the effects of our actions.

Second, the consequences of our responses motivate our anticipatory behavior; that is, we are capable of symbolically representing future outcomes and acting accordingly.

Third, the consequences of responses serve to reinforce behavior, a function that has been firmly documented by Skinner (Chapter 15) and other reinforcement theorists. Bandura (1986), however, contends that, although reinforcement may at times be unconscious and automatic, complex behavioral patterns are greatly facilitated by cognitive intervention.

Triadic Reciprocal Causation
His social cognitive theory explains psychological functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation. This system assumes that human action is a result of an interaction among three variables—environment, behavior, and person. Because people possess and use these cognitive capacities, they have some capacity to select or to restructure their environment: That is, cognition at least partially determines which environmental events people attend to, what value they place on these events, and how they organize these events for future use.

Where B signifies behavior; E is the external environment; and P represents the person, including that person’s gender, social position, size, and physical attractiveness, but especially cognitive factors such as thought, memory, judgment, foresight, and so on.

Bandura uses the term “reciprocal” to indicate a triadic interaction of forces, not a similar or opposite counteraction. The three reciprocal factors do not need to be of equal strength or to make equal contributions.

Chance Encounters and Fortuitous Events
Although people can and do exercise a significant amount of control over their lives, they cannot predict or anticipate all possible environmental changes. Bandura is the only personality theorist to seriously consider the possible importance of these chance encounters and fortuitous events.

Bandura (1998a) defined a chance encounter as “an unintended meeting of persons unfamiliar to each other” (p. 95). A fortuitous event is an environmental experience that is unexpected and unintended.

Human Agency
Social cognitive theory takes an agentic view of personality, meaning that humans have the capacity to exercise control over their own lives (2002b). Indeed, human agency is the essence of humanness. Bandura (2001) believes that people are self-regulating, proactive, self-reflective, and self-organizing and that they have the power to influence their own actions to produce desired consequences.

Core Features of Human Agency
Intentionality refers to acts a person performs intentionally. An intention includes planning, but it also involves actions.

People also possess forethought to set goals, to anticipate likely outcomes of their actions, and to select behaviors that will produce desired outcomes and avoid undesirable ones.

People do more than plan and contemplate future behaviors. They are also capable of self-reactiveness in the process of motivating and regulating their own actions. People not only make choices but they monitor their progress toward fulfilling those choices.

Finally, people have self-reflectiveness. They are examiners of their own functioning; they can think about and evaluate their motivations, values, and the meanings of their life goals, and they can think about the adequacy of their own thinking.

What Is Self-Efficacy?
Bandura (2001) defined self-efficacy as “people’s beliefs in their capability to exercise some measure of control over their own functioning and over environmental events” (p. 10). Bandura contends that “efficacy beliefs are the foundation of human agency”.

Self-efficacy is not the expectation of our action’s outcomes. Bandura (1986, 1997) distinguished between efficacy expectations and outcome expectations. Efficacy refers to people’s confidence that they have the ability to perform certain behaviors, whereas an outcome expectancy refers to one’s prediction of the likely consequences of that behavior.

What Contributes to Self-Efficacy?
Personal efficacy is acquired, enhanced, or decreased through any one or combination of four sources: (1) mastery experiences, (2) social modeling, (3) social persuasion, and (4) physical and emotional states

Proxy Agency

Proxy involves indirect control over those social conditions that affect everyday living. Bandura (2001) noted that “no one has the time, energy, and resources to master every realm of everyday life. Successful functioning necessarily involves a blend of reliance on proxy agency in some areas of functioning”. In modern American society, people would be nearly helpless if they relied solely on personal accomplishments to regulate their lives. Most people do not have the personal capability to repair an air conditioner, a camera, or an automobile. Through proxy agency, however, they can accomplish their goal by relying on other people to repair these objects.

Collective Efficacy
The third mode of human agency is collective efficacy. Bandura (2000) defined collective efficacy as “people’s shared beliefs in their collective power to produce desired results” (p. 75). In other words, collective efficacy is the confidence people have that their combined efforts will bring about group accomplishments.

Self-Regulation
When people have high levels of self-efficacy, are confident in their reliance on proxies, and possess solid collective efficacy, they will have considerable capacity to regulate their own behavior. Bandura (1994) believes that people use both reactive and proactive strategies for self-regulation. That is, they reactively attempt to reduce the discrepancies between their accomplishments and their goal; but after they close those discrepancies, they proactively set newer and higher goals for themselves.

External Factors in Self-Regulation
External factors affect self-regulation in at least two ways.  First, they provide us with a standard for evaluating our own behavior. Second, external factors influence self-regulation by providing the means for reinforcement.

Internal Factors in Self-Regulation
External factors interact with internal or personal factors in self-regulation. Bandura (1986, 1996) recognizes three internal requirements in the ongoing exercise of self-influence: (1) self-observation, (2) judgmental processes, and (3) self-reaction.

Self-Observation
The first internal factor in self-regulation is self-observation of performance. We must be able to monitor our own performance, even though the attention we give to it need not be complete or even accurate.

Judgmental Process
Self-observation alone does not provide a sufficient basis for regulating behavior. We must also evaluate our performance. This second process, judgmental process, helps us regulate our behavior through the process of cognitive mediation.

Self-Reaction

The third and final internal factor in self-regulation is self-reaction. People respond positively or negatively to their behaviors depending on how these behaviors measure up to their personal standards.

Self-Regulation Through Moral Agency
People also regulate their actions through moral standards of conduct. Bandura (1999a) sees moral agency as having two aspects: (1) doing no harm to people and (2) proactively helping people.

Redefine the Behavior
With redefinition of behavior, people justify otherwise reprehensible actions by a cognitive restructuring that allows them to minimize or escape responsibility.

The first is moral justification, in which otherwise culpable behavior is made to seem defensible or even noble.

A second method of reducing responsibility through redefining wrongful behavior is to make advantageous or palliative comparisons between that behavior and the even greater atrocities committed by others.

A third technique in redefining behavior is the use of euphemistic labels.

Disregard or Distort the Consequences of Behavior
A second method of avoiding responsibility involves distorting or obscuring the relationship between the behavior and its detrimental consequences.

First, people can minimize the consequences of their behavior.

Second, people can disregard or ignore the consequences of their actions, as when they do not see firsthand the harmful effects of their behavior.

Finally, people can distort or misconstrue the consequences of their actions, as when a parent beats a child badly enough to cause serious bruises but explains that the child needs discipline in order to mature properly.

Dehumanize or Blame the Victims
Third, people can obscure responsibility for their actions by either dehumanizing their victims or attributing blame to them.

Displace or Diffuse Responsibility
The fourth method of dissociating actions from their consequences is to displace or diffuse responsibility (see lower box in Figure 16.2). With displacement, people minimize the consequences of their actions by placing responsibility on an outside source.

Dysfunctional Behavior
Bandura’s concept of triadic reciprocal causation assumes that behavior is learned as a result of a mutual interaction of (1) the person, including cognition and neurophysiological processes; (2) the environment, including interpersonal relations and socioeconomic conditions; and (3) behavioral factors, including previous experi ences with reinforcement.

Depression
High personal standards and goals can lead to achievement and self-satisfaction. However, when people set their goals too high, they are likely to fail. Failure frequently leads to depression, and depressed people often undervalue their own accomplishments. The result is chronic misery, feelings of worthlessness, lack of purposefulness, and pervasive depression. Bandura (1986, 1997) believes that dysfunctional depression can occur in any of the three self-regulatory subfunctions:

(1)  self-observation, (2) judgmental processes, and (3) self-reactions.

Phobias
Phobias are fears that are strong enough and pervasive enough to have severe debilitating effects on one’s daily life. Once established, phobias are maintained by consequent determinants: that is, the negative reinforcement the phobic person receives for avoiding the fear-producing situation.

Aggression
Aggressive behaviors, when carried to extremes, can also be dysfunctional. Bandura (1986) contended that aggressive behavior is acquired through observation of others, direct experiences with positive and negative reinforcements, training, or instruction, and bizarre beliefs.

Once established, people continue to aggress for at least five reasons: (1) They enjoy inflicting injury on the victim (positive reinforcement); (2) they avoid or counter the aversive consequences of aggression by others (negative reinforcement); (3) they receive injury or harm for not behaving aggressively (punishment); (4) they live up to their personal standards of conduct by their aggressive behavior (self-reinforcement); and (5) they observe others receiving rewards for aggressive acts or punishment for nonaggressive behavior.

Therapy
According to Bandura, deviant behaviors are initiated on the basis of social cognitive learning principles, and they are maintained because, in some ways, they continue to serve a purpose. The ultimate goal of social cognitive therapy is self-regulation (Bandura, 1986). To achieve this end, the therapist introduces strategies designed to induce specific behavioral changes, to generalize those changes to other situations, and to maintain those changes by preventing relapse.