The Social-Cognitive
Perspective of Personality
From the unconscious to traits
to the effects of thoughts and
the environment on personality
Social-Cognitive Perspective
Social Learning Theory
• People gain personality by watching others
(it is learned) and being either reinforced or
punished
– Albert Bandura
– In other words… Monkey See – Monkey Do
Social-Cognitive theorists believed however that it was more
than the environment that impacted personality
• Reciprocal Determinism
– the interaction between a person’s behavior, cognitions
(the way you think about the world) and the environment
to create your personality
• Bandura also focused on the importance of SelfEfficacy
– the belief that you are capable
of performing in a certain
reach your goals
– i.e. = you believe you can do things
manner to
Cognition
High SE = confidence in abilities
Low SE = less confidence in abilities
Behavior
Environment
How Reciprocal Determinism Can Work
The TV you watch, friends you hang with, music
you listen to were all chosen by you (your
personal characteristics)
People’s characteristics influence the kind of
environment in which they find themselves.
Those environments, in turn, influence and
modify people’s personal characteristics.
Personal Control
(also called locus of control)
Our sense of controlling our
environment rather than the
environment controlling us
Two Types:
Internal Locus of Control
And
External Locus of Control
Internal Locus of Control
• The perception that one controls one’s
own fate and environmental influences
External Locus of Control
• The perception that chance or outside
forces beyond one’s personal control
determine one’s fate.
Learned Helplessness
• Hopeless feeling when an animal or
human can’t avoid repeated bad events
• People often perceive control as external
and may often eventually give up