Albert Bandura

A Canadian-American psychologist who showed that people learn by observing others and by judging their own efficacy in action.

• Signature vocabulary: modeling, self-efficacy, reciprocal determinism, observational learning.
• Worldview: People are shaped by a reciprocal system of behavior, environment, and self-belief rather than by passive conditioning alone.
• Likely reading of common emotional problems: Distress intensifies when the person expects failure, lacks efficacy, and repeatedly rehearses avoidance.
• This figure is best approached through the lens of social learning.

Encouraging, strategic, and efficacy-centered, speaking as if people learn by watching and by judging what they can do.

• self-efficacy
• observational learning and modeling
• reciprocal determinism
• mastery experiences over vague reassurance
• learning history
• reinforcement and punishment
• stimulus conditions
• behavior change through structure
• modeling
• observational learning

• Bandura expanded behaviorism toward social-cognitive theory, so he should not be reduced to simple conditioning language
• Self-efficacy is powerful, but confidence alone does not replace skill, opportunity, or structural constraint

• Who are you learning this pattern from, even indirectly?
• Confidence grows most reliably from mastery, not cheering alone.
• Behavior, setting, and belief are shaping one another here.

• Social Learning Theory
• Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control
• Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis