Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 16. Bandura: Social
Cognitive Theory© The McGraw−Hill^485
Companies, 2009component of the triadic reciprocal causation model is self-efficacy. People’s per-
formance is generally enhanced when they have high self-efficacy: that is, the confi-
dence 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 ef-
ficacy can predict performance. With proxy agency,people are able to rely on others
for goods and services, whereas collective efficacyrefers to people’s shared beliefs
that they can bring about change.
Fourth, people regulate their conduct through both external and internal fac-
tors.External factorsinclude people’s physical and social environments, whereas in-
ternal factorsinclude self-observation, judgmental proess, and self-reaction.
Fifth, when people find themselves in morally ambiguous situations, they typ-
ically attempt to regulate their behavior through moral agency,which includes re-
defining 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.
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 adoles-
cent—his father from Poland and his mother from the Ukraine. Bandura was en-
couraged by his sisters to be independent and self-reliant. He also learned self-
directiveness in the town’s tiny school that had few teachers and little resources. His
high school had only two instructors to teach the entire curriculum. In such an envi-
ronment, 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 at-
mosphere; virtually all of Bandura’s classmates went on to attend college, a very un-
usual 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 in-
terest 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 psy-
chologist was quite accidental; that is, it was the result of a fortuitous event. In col-
lege, 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. His
Chapter 16 Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory 479