Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura OCis a psychologist who is the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. For almost six decades, he has been responsible for contributions to the field of education and to many fields of psychology, including social cognitive theory, therapy, and personality psychology, and was also influential in the transition between behaviorism and cognitive psychology. He is known as the originator of social learning theory and the theoretical construct of self-efficacy, and is...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth4 December 1925
CountryCanada
Albert Bandura quotes about
Success and failure are largely self-defined in terms of personal standards. The higher the self-standards, the more likely will given attainments be viewed as failures, regardless of what others might think
People who regard themselves as highly efficacious act, think, and feel differently from those who perceive themselves as inefficacious. They produce their own future, rather than simply foretell it.
Perceived self-efficacy also shapes causal thinking. In seeking solutions to difficult problems, those who perceived themselves as highly efficacious are inclined to attribute their failures to insufficient effort, whereas those of comparable skills but lower perceived self-efficacy ascribe their failures to deficient ability
What people think, believe, and feel affects how they behave. The natural and extrinsic effects of their actions, in turn, partly determine their thought patterns and affective reactions.
People not only gain understanding through reflection, they evaluate and alter their own thinking.
People's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances.
We find that people's beliefs about their efficacy affect the sorts of choices they make in very significant ways. In particular, it affects their levels of motivation and perseverance in the face of obstacles. Most success requires persistent effort, so low self-efficacy becomes a self-limiting process. In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, strung together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life.
From the social cognitive perspective, it is mainly perceived inefficacy to cope with potentially aversive events that makes them fearsome. To the extent that people believe they can prevent, terminate, or lessen the severity of aversive events, they have little reason to be perturbed by them. But if they believe they are unable to manage threats safely, they have much cause for apprehension
As a general rule, moderate levels of arousal facilitate deployment of skills, whereas high arousal disrupts it. This is especially true of complex activities requiring intricate organization of behavior
People judge their capabilities partly by comparing their performances with those of others
Convictions that outcomes are determined by one's own actions can be either demoralizing or heartening, depending on the level of self-judged efficacy. People who regard outcomes as personally determined, but who lack the requisite skills, would experience low self-efficacy and view the activities with a sense of futility
Perceived self-efficacy and beliefs about the locus of outcome causality must be distinguished
Perceived self-efficacy in coping with potential threats leads people to approach such situations anxiously, and experience of disruptive arousal may further lower their sense of efficacy that they will be able to perform skillfully
Self efficacious children tend to attribute their successes to ability, but ability attributions affect performance indirectly through perceived self-efficacy