Self Efficacy
• Bandura has reconceptualized reinforcement
in his more recent writings.
– He now says that the individual is controlled
by reinforcements only to the extent that
he or she is aware of them, values their
significance in his or her life, and
anticipates their eventual application.
– Self efficacy simply refers to an individual’s belief
in his or her ability to carry out a particular
course of action.
Self-Regulation
• In a further departure from behaviorism,
Bandura incorporated self-regulation –
an act of consciously not responding
to stimulation.
• Bandura sees self-regulation as a cognitive
component of our personality. In fact,
social learning and self-regulation are
treated as the major forces (“causes”) of
personality trait manifestation.
• Three underlying components of selfregulation, as follows:
Self-Regulation
• Self-observation – Know Thyself! Selfregulation requires the act of looking at
yourself honestly and knowing the intentions
and consequences your actual behaviors.
This includes patterns of self-reinforcement.
• Judgment – We tend to compare ourselves
to a standard. The standard could be some
external standard (such as expectations and
traditions) or arbitrary “personal” standards.
The comparison could also be made with a
competitive and active standard (siblings,
neighbors, prior best).
Self-Regulation
• Self-response – Positive responses
usually follow from doing well compared
to a standard, and negative responses
from not doing well.
• Negative responses can include selfpunishment.
• Bandura has elaborated extensively on the
underlying comments on self-punishment,
but first, the fancy chart …
Self-Regulation Chart
SELF-OBSERVATION
Performance Dimensions
Quality
Rate
Quantity
Originality
Sociability
Morality
Deviancy
Regularity
Proximity
Accuracy
JUDGMENTAL PROCESS
Personal Standards
Challenge
Explicitness
Proximity
Generality
Referential Performances
Standard Norms
Social Comparison
Personal Comparison
Collective Comparison
Valuation of Activity
Regarded Highly
Neutral
Devalued
FIGURE 5. Subprocesses involved in the selfregulation of behavior by internal standard an self
incentives.
Performance Attribution
Personal Locus
External Locus
SELF-REACTION
Evaluative Self-Reactions
Positive
Negative
Tangible Self-Reactions
Rewarding
Punishing
No Self-Reaction
Self-Punishment:
A closer Look
• Early behavioral research studies showed
that punishment is not a reliable means of
reinforcement. Bandura found the same to
be true of self-punishment.
• Excessive self-punishment can lead to:
– Compensation – delusions of grandeur
(related to aggressive personalities)
– Inactivity – apathy and depression (related to
compliant personalities)
– Escape – drugs, fantasies, suicide (related to
avoidant personalities)
Self-Punishment (cont.)
• Bandura’s recommendation for correcting
excessive self-punishment is based on the
three components of self-regulation.
– Self-observation – a more accurate picture of
your behavior (know thyself really well).
– Judgments – high standards lead to much
failure, low standards are unrewarding.
– Self-response – avoid self-punishments, seek
self-rewards.
Cognitive Therapy
• As his discussions of self-punishment suggests,
Bandura’s work bolstered clinical applications of
cognitive psychology.
• Modeling therapy – people with a psychological
disorder can be given a model who deals with
relevant problems in an effective manner.
• Under Bandura’s guidance, people with a fear of
snakes watched a model pretend to be afraid of
snakes, but slowly approach a snake. They knew
the model was just an actor, but most could
successfully imitate the model on their first try.
Cognitive Therapy
• Self-control therapy – a technique which is
based on the ideas of self-regulation. It is most
successful with changing habits.
– Behavioral charts/diaries – creating a method
of formal self-observation.
– Environmental planning – removing cues of
bad habits, creating positive cues/areas.
– Self-contracts – specific plans for self-rewards
and acceptable self-punishments. Works even
better if you use a witness. Success of Weight
Watchers?
Anger Management
• Anger management was made popular by
the movie with the same title starring
Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson.
• Theoretically, anger management is just a
specific application of self regulation.
• But, it does serve to illustrate to farreaching clinical and social application of
Social learning theory.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGV46SUcWs&NR=1
Bandura’s Influence
• Bandura’a paradigm has enormous appeal
because it allows for examination of the
effects internal, cognitive processes with the
experimental rigor of a behaviorist.
• Social cognition has strong roots in Bandura’s
work.
• Bandura gave an experimental paradigm to
personality researchers. Before Bandura,
personality was closely linked to psychoanalysts and their counterparts in existential
philosophy.