The Founding Foundations Of The Social Cognitive Theory

It explains behaviors as well as makes predictions about future behaviors. The First theory is the Psychoanalytic theories which view development as unconscious and points out childhood experiences on the development of personality. For example, the Sigmund Fred's Psychosexual Theory says that personality is molded by our capability to content bodily urges throughout childhood (nature) while Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Theory says personality is molded by our capability to make social crisis decisions throughout the lifespan

He also recognizes that character traits within a person can influence behavior, but does not believe traits alone can explain behavior and learning. Instead, Bandura expanded upon these theories and developed the concept of reciprocal determinism, which posits that the person, their environment, and behavior all influence one another. Bandura argued that personal factors affect behavior, which alters the environment, and that environment is not only a cause of behavior, but also an effect of behavior, and these all operate “as interlocking determinants of each other” (Bandura, 1978, p. 346). Therefore, if we are going to attempt to understand human behavior, all of these factors and their mutual influences must be recognized. (Cloninger, 2007, p.353).

The study of human development is essential for the reason that is provides us with the answers we seek by enabling us to understand, explain, predict, and even control behavior (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2010). Having stated that, a theory greatly contributes to our understanding and analysis of our findings. Theories do so by providing a scheme that helps

The theory assumes that a human’s environment or external stimuli determine his or her behavior, and there is little difference between the learning process of humans and that of other animals.

The third theory is the Trait-centred views, this is where they believe that people have certain traits which determines how someone should behave. They believe there are two main parts to your personality and these are an introversion-extroversion dimension and a stable-neurotic dimension. Introverts are people that will prefer to do a task that is not exciting meaning that they would rather do a task that is focused on concentration. Extroverts are people that like excitement, they get bored easily and cant focus for too long and like to switch it up a bit. Stable people are people who are always easy going where as neurotic people are restless and anxious.

The theory explains how individuals learn new behaviours by experiencing pleasurable( outcomes and not responding to external stimuli if the outcome is not pleasurable. (

The social cognitive theory was developed by Albert Bandura. According to Schunk (2016), Bandura developed the theory of observational learning to show how to acquire and perform diverse skills, behaviors, and strategies (p.118). Principles of the social cognitive theory are used to learn cognitive, motor,

Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory explains psychological functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation. Triadic reciprocal causation is a system assuming human action as a result of an interaction with the environment, behavior, and a person. Bandura explains "person" as being a cognitive factor such as memory, anticipation, and planning. It is because of these cognitive capacities that some people can select or restructure their environment.

The behavioural theory states that personality is as a result of the interaction between an individual and the environment (i.e. the society and the individual). It is focus on observable and measurable behaviour rather than mental or emotional behaviours and different theories focus on one type of behaviour over the other. On the contrary, the biological approach seeks to explain behaviour as a result of interactions within the body. It is based on assumptions such as how the brain psychology can influence behaviour and also how behaviour can be inherited

Behavioural psychology posits that a person's behaviour is learned and maintained by its consequences, or

Our individual behaviours are learnt and shaped by myriad social forces, institutes and processes, and rely on observed

Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory is a theory that includes development theories in order to understand how children learn. Bandura’s theory is based on how people can learn by observing others, how internal mental states influence people, and how learning something does not change one’s behavior every time. Bandura was able to find out that people learn by three observational models. The first model is the live model which includes observing how someone demonstrates the behavior, the verbal instruction model which learning occurs through auditory directions, and the symbolic model where modeling occurs through media sources such as internet, movies, and books.

The Behavioural approach (also called the learning theory) focuses on the belief that our environment, e.g. people, experiences and learning, influences the development and behaviour of an individual whilst thinking the internal functions, such as thoughts and cognition, are impossible to observe, so they are not apart of the scientific approach to psychology. This theory is also based on the concept of ‘explaining behaviour through observation. Behaviourists assume individuals are born as a blank state (tabula rasa), meaning they do not think biology and cognitive functions influence our behaviour, only our environment does. A large idea that the theory hold is that behaviour can be broken down into stimulus-response units. Stimuli are anything environmental that triggers an individuals’ senses, for example, a student being asked to complete an assignment (stimulus) would respond by completing the assignment. Stimulus-response theories form the basis of classical or operant conditioning, which suggests animals and humans can learn through the relation of a response to any certain stimuli.

Social learning theory dates back to the early 1960’s, which integrates behavioral and cognitive theories of learning. By integrating the two theories it helped to provide a comprehensive model of learning experiences that occurs in one’s life. The social theory heavily relies on the observation, also known as modeling behaviors. Modeling can be achieved in several different ways such as, a live model, which entails the watching an actual person behavior. Verbal instruction is another method of modeling that involves instructions is told to one, in how to engage in certain behaviors. Lastly is symbolic modeling. Symbolic modeling involves stimuli such as media outlets that one models after.

In 1954 Julian B. Rotter developed the Social Learning Theory that gravitated away from Freud’s psychoanalysis and Skinner’s behaviorism that focused on behavior rather than intrinsic thought. They were the most popular theories during that time, focusing on experimental methods, emphasizing variables that are observable, measurable, and manipulatable, avoiding “whatever is subjective, internal,