Bandura Personality Theory

744 Words2 Pages

Roxanne Heikin
Psy 556: Personality
Dr. Spas
November 14, 2017

1. The central point of Bandura’s article is to discuss his concepts of self-efficacy and self-regulation in a broader social cognitive framework, which he labeled “human agency”. This construct refers to personal efforts to control one's functioning and life circumstances, and its core properties are intentions, forethought, self-reactions, and self-reflection. Thus, Bandura's theoretical approach conceptualizes the person as a contributor of his or her life circumstances and not merely as a product, in that, the person is proactive agent in adjustment not just an onlooker.
2. a1.) “To be an agent is to influence intentionally one’s functioning and life circumstances. In this view, personal influence is part of the causal structure. People are self-organizing, proactive, self-regulating, and self-reflecting. They are not simply onlookers of their behavior. They are contributors to their life circumstances, not just products of them...Human functioning is a product of a reciprocal interplay of …show more content…

This article has many strengths. First, Bandura’s theory contrasted with the traditional theories placing more responsibility on the individual and personal agency. Also, Bandura cautions that agentic intentions are not vague inclinations to act, but rather, they concern specific action plans and strategies for carrying out those plans. Bandura supported this dual role of self as he highlighted that motivation lay at the core of unilateral and collective achievement. Further, Bandura clearly illustrated that this is an area of research in which psychology can make unique contributions to the biopsychosocial understanding of human development, adaptation, and change. Bandura's social cognitive theory has had a major impact on clinical applications. Social modeling, self-regulation, and agentic self-beliefs are widely used to prevent and modify varied types of psychological

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