516 Part VI Learning-Cognitive Theories
Displace or Diffuse Responsibility
The fourth method of dissociating actions from their consequences is to displace
or diffuse responsibility (see lower box in Figure 17.2). With displacement, people
minimize the consequences of their actions by placing responsibility on an outside
source. Examples include an employee who claims that her boss is responsible for
her inefficiency and a college student who blames his professor for low grades.
A related procedure is to diffuse responsibility—to spread it so thin that no
one person is responsible. A civil servant may diffuse responsibility for her actions
throughout the entire bureaucracy with such comments as “That’s the way things
are done around here” or “That’s just policy.”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 neu-
rophysiological processes; (2) the environment, including interpersonal relations
and socioeconomic conditions; and (3) behavioral factors, including previous expe-
riences with reinforcement. Dysfunctional behavior is no exception. Bandura’s
concept of dysfunctional behavior lends itself most readily to depressive reactions,
phobias, and aggressive behaviors.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 dysfunc-
tional depression can occur in any of the three self-regulatory subfunctions: (1) self-
observation, (2) judgmental processes, and (3) self-reactions.
First, during self-observation, people can misjudge their own performance or
distort their memory of past accomplishments. Depressed people tend to exagger-
ate their past mistakes and minimize their prior accomplishments, a tendency that
perpetuates their depression.
Second, depressed people are likely to make faulty judgments. They set
their standards unrealistically high so that any personal accomplishment will be judged
as a failure. Even when they achieve success in the eyes of others, they continue to
berate their own performance. Depression is especially likely when people set goals
and personal standards much higher than their perceived efficacy to attain them.
Finally, the self-reactions of depressed individuals are quite different from
those of nondepressed persons. Depressed people not only judge themselves
harshly, but they are also inclined to treat themselves badly for their shortcomings.Phobias
Phobias are fears that are strong enough and pervasive enough to have severe
debilitating effects on one’s daily life. For example, snake phobias prevent people