496 Part VI Learning-Cognitive Theories
important component of the triadic reciprocal causation model is self-efficacy.
People’s performance is generally enhanced when they have high self-efficacy: that
is, the confidence that they can perform those behaviors that will produce desired
behaviors in a particular situation. In addition to self-efficacy, both proxy agency
and collective efficacy can predict performance. With proxy agency, people are
able to rely on others for goods and services, whereas collective efficacy refers to
people’s shared beliefs that they can bring about change.
Fourth, people regulate their conduct through both external and internal fac-
tors. 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 behav-
ior, dehumanizing or blaming the victims of their behavior, and displacing or
diffusing responsibility for their actions.Biography of Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura was born on December 4, 1925, in Mundare, a small town on the
plains of northern Alberta. He grew up the only boy in a family of five older
sisters. Both parents had emigrated from eastern European countries while still an
adolescent—his father from Poland and his mother from the Ukraine. Bandura was
encouraged by his sisters to be independent and self-reliant. He also learned self-
directiveness in the town’s tiny school, which had few teachers and little resources.
His high school had only two instructors to teach the entire curriculum. In such
an environment, learning was left to the initiative of the students, a situation that
well suited a brilliant scholar like Bandura. Other students also seemed to flourish
in this atmosphere; virtually all of Bandura’s classmates went on to attend college,
a very unusual accomplishment during the early 1940s.
After graduating from high school, Bandura spent a summer in the Yukon
working on the Alaska highway. This experience brought him into contact with a
wide variety of fellow workers, many of whom were fleeing creditors, alimony, or
their draft board. In addition, several of his coworkers manifested various degrees
of psychopathology. Although his observations of these workers kindled in him an
interest in clinical psychology, he did not decide to become a psychologist until
after he had enrolled in the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Bandura told Richard Evans (Evans, 1989) that his decision to become a
psychologist was quite accidental; that is, it was the result of a fortuitous event.
In college, Bandura commuted to school with premed and engineering students
who were early risers. Rather than do nothing during this early hour, Bandura
decided to enroll in a psychology class that happened to be offered at that time
period. He found the class fascinating and eventually decided to take a psychology
major. Bandura later came to consider fortuitous events (such as riding to school
with students who were early risers) to be important influences in people’s lives.
After graduating from British Columbia in just 3 years, Bandura looked for
a graduate program in clinical psychology that had a strong learning theory base.