Albert Bandura Glossary
Instructor's addition: This glossary was created as a supplemental course resource and was not part of Dr. C. George Boeree's original text.
Basic Theory
- Social Learning Theory
- Bandura's early approach to explaining behavior through the interaction of learning, observation, cognitive processes, behavior, and the social environment. His theory later developed into what he called Social Cognitive Theory.
- Social Cognitive Theory
- Bandura's later and broader theory emphasizing the interaction of behavior, environmental influences, and personal factors such as thinking, expectations, beliefs, and emotions. People are not simply shaped by their environments; they also participate in shaping themselves and their environments.
- Reciprocal Determinism
- Bandura's principle that personal factors, behavior, and the environment influence one another. People are affected by their environments, but their behavior and personal characteristics also help shape those environments.
- Personal Factors
- Internal characteristics that participate in reciprocal determinism, including thoughts, beliefs, expectations, perceptions, emotions, and other cognitive processes.
- Human Agency
- The capacity of people to influence their own behavior and life circumstances intentionally. Bandura viewed people as active participants in their development rather than simply passive products of environmental forces.
- Self-Efficacy
- A person's belief in his or her ability to organize and carry out the actions needed to accomplish a particular task or deal successfully with a situation. High self-efficacy increases the likelihood that a person will attempt difficult tasks, persist when problems occur, and recover from setbacks.
- Mastery Experiences
- Successful experiences performing a task that strengthen self-efficacy. Repeated success generally increases confidence in one's ability to handle similar challenges, while repeated failure may weaken it.
- Vicarious Experiences
- Experiences in which observing another person successfully perform a task influences one's own belief about being able to perform it. The effect can be especially strong when the observer sees the model as similar to himself or herself.
- Verbal Persuasion
- Encouragement or feedback from other people that can influence a person's belief in his or her ability to perform a task. Persuasion is generally less powerful than direct successful experience, but it can strengthen effort and persistence.
- Physiological and Emotional States
- Physical and emotional reactions that people use when judging their capabilities. Anxiety, stress, fatigue, excitement, and other bodily or emotional states can affect how capable a person believes himself or herself to be.
- Outcome Expectations
- Beliefs about the likely consequences of a behavior. A person may believe that a particular action will produce a desirable result while still doubting his or her ability to perform the action successfully.
Observational Learning and Modeling
- Observational Learning
- Learning that occurs by watching the behavior of another person rather than solely through direct reinforcement or punishment.
- Modeling
- Another term Bandura used for observational learning. A person observes a model's behavior and may later reproduce that behavior.
- Model
- The person whose behavior is being observed and may later be imitated by another person.
- Bobo Doll Studies
- Bandura's well-known studies in which children observed an adult behaving aggressively toward an inflatable Bobo doll and later reproduced many of the observed behaviors. The studies demonstrated that behavior could be learned through observation without the learner first receiving direct reinforcement.
- Attention
- The first process necessary for modeling. A person must pay attention to a model before the model's behavior can be learned. Characteristics such as attractiveness, prestige, competence, similarity, and dramatic behavior can influence attention.
- Retention
- The ability to remember what has been observed. Bandura proposed that observed behavior can be stored through mental images or verbal descriptions and recalled later.
- Reproduction
- The ability to translate remembered images or descriptions into actual behavior. Observation alone does not guarantee that a person has the physical or behavioral ability to reproduce what was observed.
- Motivation
- The reason a person has for performing an observed behavior. Bandura distinguished between learning a behavior and being motivated to demonstrate what has been learned.
Motivation in Modeling
- Past Reinforcement
- Previous reinforcement for a behavior that increases the person's motivation to perform that behavior again.
- Promised Reinforcement
- An anticipated reward or incentive that motivates a person to perform a behavior.
- Vicarious Reinforcement
- Increased motivation to perform a behavior after observing another person receive reinforcement for that behavior.
- Past Punishment
- Previous punishment for a behavior that provides a reason not to perform the behavior again.
- Promised Punishment
- An anticipated punishment or threat that reduces the motivation to perform a behavior.
- Vicarious Punishment
- Reduced motivation to perform a behavior after observing another person being punished for that behavior.
Self-Regulation
- Self-Regulation
- The process of controlling and evaluating one's own behavior. Bandura described self-regulation as involving self-observation, judgment, and self-response.
- Self-Observation
- Watching and keeping track of one's own behavior.
- Judgment
- Comparing one's behavior or performance with a standard. The standard may come from social rules, personal goals, other people, or one's own previous performance.
- Self-Response
- Responding to one's own performance after comparing it with a standard. The response may involve self-reward when standards are met or self-punishment when they are not.
- Self-Concept
- A person's evaluation or perception of the self. Boeree relates Bandura's discussion of self-concept to self-esteem. Consistently meeting reasonable standards and rewarding oneself can contribute to a positive self-concept, while repeated perceived failure and self-punishment can contribute to a negative one.
- Self-Esteem
- The positive or negative evaluation a person develops toward the self. In Boeree's discussion of Bandura, self-esteem develops partly through repeated experiences of evaluating one's behavior against standards and responding to one's own successes and failures.
- Compensation
- One possible response to excessive self-punishment in which the person attempts to counter feelings of inadequacy through exaggerated feelings or displays of superiority.
- Inactivity
- One possible result of excessive self-punishment, expressed through responses such as apathy, boredom, or depression.
- Escape
- An attempt to avoid the distress associated with excessive self-punishment by withdrawing from or escaping the situation.
Self-Control Therapy
- Self-Control Therapy
- A therapeutic approach based upon Bandura's principles of self-regulation. Boeree describes its use with relatively simple habits such as smoking, overeating, and study behavior.
- Behavioral Charts
- Records used to observe and keep track of one's behavior before and during attempts to change it.
- Behavioral Diaries
- Detailed records of behavior that include information such as when and where a behavior occurs. These records can help identify environmental cues associated with the behavior.
- Environmental Planning
- Deliberately changing one's environment to remove cues that encourage unwanted behavior and to create conditions that support desired behavior.
- Self-Contracts
- Written agreements specifying behaviors, goals, rewards, and sometimes consequences. They are intended to make a person's behavioral plan explicit and measurable.
Modeling Therapy
- Modeling Therapy
- A therapeutic technique in which a client observes another person successfully coping with a problem and then learns to approach the problem by modeling that person's behavior.
- Therapeutic Model
- A person who demonstrates more effective ways of handling a situation so that the client can observe and learn the behavior.