Bandura's Social Learning Theory: Key Concepts Explained

Introduction and Theoretical Background

The dominant models of human behavior by the late 1950s and early 1960s were based on Neo-Freudian models and B.F. Skinner's brand of operant behaviorism. However, there were theorists who rejected the mechanistic views of behaviorism and Freudian instinct-drive-based models. Perhaps the most influential of these theorists was Albert Bandura. Bandura had received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and had been exposed to the work of Robert Spears, who was studying familial influences on social behavior and identification in children. Bandura was also heavily influenced by other theorists at Iowa such as James Dollard and Neal Miller, who had merged Freudian and Hullian learning principles.

Bandura believed that learning principles were sufficient to explain and predict behavior, but he also believed that humans thought and regulated their own behavior and were not at the mercy of environmental stimuli as in Skinnerian models. Furthermore, he believed that many functions of personality and learning involve interactions with other people, and therefore any theory of personality or learning should take interpersonal factors into account.

Bandura's social learning theory is based heavily on the groundbreaking notions of Kurt Lewin (1943) and his Field Theory. Lewin's Field Theory was radical for its time given the Freudian notions of behavior that dominated the era, but by today's standards his ideas seem almost obvious. Lewin developed the famous formula B = f(P, E), which states that behavior is a function of the person and the environment. Bandura's notion of reciprocal determinism (Bandura, 1978) improves on Lewin's concept by maintaining the three factors of B, P, and E while adding reciprocal lines of influence. Thus, the person has direct influences on the environment and his or her behavior, and both can directly influence the person. Likewise, the environment and the person's behavior also directly and reciprocally influence one another (see Figure 1).

Reciprocal Determinism and the Self-System

Bandura believed that reciprocal determinism — the idea that people influence their fate by controlling environmental forces while also being influenced by them — was the basic principle of his social learning theory (Bandura, 1997b). Moreover, Bandura departed from the traditional views of behaviorists by asserting that learning could occur without a change in one's behavior and without direct reinforcement.

Despite the reciprocal influences of behavior, environment, and personal factors, Bandura understood that there must be a center to the process. He termed this center the self-system (Bandura, 1978). The self-system refers to a set of cognitive structures that affect the perception and evaluation of the person, the environment, and the actions of the self and others, as well as the regulation of one's behavior. In a sense, there are reciprocating factors within the self-system itself. The self-system engages in constant monitoring of the self and the environment. People evaluate themselves, their actions, and their goals based on their experience, and these evaluations lead to important expectations.

Bandura defined outcome expectations as estimates that one's actions will lead to specific outcomes, which are often learned. These outcome expectations are heavily influenced by internal notions of self-efficacy — one's perception of how well or poorly one can function in a given situation (Bandura, 1977a). The concepts of self-efficacy and outcome expectations are key components of behavioral change and learning. The other important expectation in Bandura's social learning theory is the belief that a person can effectively perform the behavior required to produce the desired outcome, referred to as efficacy expectations.