The Social-Cognitive Perspective
Albert Bandura agreed with Skinner that personality is shaped by learning. But Bandura argued that learning isn’t just “stimulus and response.” People also think, interpret, plan, and reflect—and those mental processes shape what they learn and how they act. Bandura’s social-cognitive theory explains personality as the ongoing interaction of:
- what you think and believe (cognitive/personal factors),
- what you do (behavior),
- and what’s happening around you (environment/context).
Three core ideas in this approach are reciprocal determinism, observational learning, and self-efficacy.
Reciprocal Determinism
reciprocal determinism
In contrast to Skinner’s idea that the environment alone determines behavior, Bandura (1990) proposed the concept of reciprocal determinism, in which cognitive processes, behavior, and context all interact, each factor influencing and being influenced by the others simultaneously.
- Cognitive processes refer to all characteristics previously learned, including beliefs, expectations, and personality characteristics.
- Behavior refers to anything that we do that may be rewarded or punished.
- The context in which the behavior occurs refers to the environment or situation, which includes rewarding/punishing stimuli.
For example, Will believes he’s bad at math (cognitive factor). Because of this belief, he avoids challenging math problems and doesn’t ask questions in class (behavior). His teacher interprets his silence as understanding and doesn’t offer extra help (environment). Will continues to struggle, which reinforces his belief that he’s bad at math. His personality trait of “not being a math person” is maintained by this cycle—but it could be changed by intervening at any point.
Observational Learning
Bandura’s key contribution to learning theory was the idea that much learning is done by observing someone else’s behavior and its consequences, which Bandura called observational learning. He felt that this type of learning also plays a part in the development of our personality. Just as we learn individual behaviors, we learn new behavior patterns when we see them performed by other people or models. Bandura suggested that whether we choose to imitate a model’s behavior depends on whether we see the model reinforced or punished.
Research continues to find that both in-person and media-based models can shape prosocial and antisocial behavior. For example, if a student sees a popular creator get praise for humiliating “cringe” classmates online, they may learn that cruelty earns attention (context), feel tempted to join in (cognition), and start posting similar content (behavior). But if their friend group calls it out and platforms enforce consequences, that same student may learn that empathy is rewarded and cruelty backfires.
Self-Efficacy
Bandura (1977, 1995) emphasized the concept of self-efficacy as something that affects learning and personality development.
self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is our level of confidence in our own abilities, developed through our social experiences. Self-efficacy affects how we approach challenges and reach goals. In observational learning, self-efficacy is a cognitive factor that affects which behaviors we choose to imitate as well as our success in performing those behaviors.
People who have high self-efficacy believe that their goals are within reach, have a positive view of challenges, see them as tasks to be mastered, develop a deep interest in and a strong commitment to the activities in which they are involved, and quickly recover from setbacks.
Conversely, people with low self-efficacy avoid challenging tasks because they doubt their ability to be successful, tend to focus on failure and negative outcomes and lose confidence in their abilities if they experience setbacks.
Feelings of self-efficacy can be specific to certain situations. For instance, a student might feel confident in their ability in English class but much less so in their French class.
Julian Rotter and Locus of Control
Julian Rotter (1966) proposed the concept of locus of control, another cognitive factor that affects learning and personality development.
locus of control
Locus of control refers to our beliefs about the power we have over our lives. In Rotter’s view, people possess either an internal or an external locus of control. Those with an internal locus of control (“internals”) tend to believe that most of their outcomes are the direct result of their own efforts. Those with an external locus of control (“externals”) tend to believe that outcomes are outside of their control.
For example, say you didn’t spend much time studying for your psychology test and went out to dinner with friends instead. When you receive your test score, you see that you earned a D.
If you possess an internal locus of control, you would most likely admit that you failed because you didn’t spend enough time studying and decide to study more for the next test. On the other hand, if you possess an external locus of control, you might conclude that the test was too hard and not bother studying for the next test because you figure you will fail it anyway.
Researchers have found that people with an internal locus of control perform better academically, achieve more in their careers, are more independent, are healthier, are better able to cope, and are less depressed than people who have an external locus of control (Benassi, Sweeney, & Durfour, 1988; Lefcourt, 1982; Maltby, Day, & Macaskill, 2007; Whyte, 1977, 1978, 1980).