Albert Bandura: Originator of Social Cognitive Theory

Albert Bandura, an American psychologist born in Canada and originator of social cognitive theory is no doubt best known for his modeling study on aggression, referred to as the ‘Bobo doll experiment, which indicates that children can learn behavior through the observation of adults.

After passing high school in 1946, Bandura attended a bachelor’s degree at the University of British Columbia and in 1949 graduated with the Bolocon Award in psychology, annually awarded to the outstanding student in psychology. He then did graduate work at the University of Iowa, where he received a master's degree in psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology.

Bandura was the first one to describe that self-efficacy meaning the belief in one’s own capabilities, has an effect on what individuals choose to do, the amount of effort they put into doing it, and the way they feel as they are doing it. Bandura also discovered that learning occurs through those beliefs and through social modeling which he originated social cognitive theory, which captivates that a person’s environment cognition, and behaviour all interact to control how that person functions as opposed to one of those factors playing a dominant role.

In 1961, bandura executed his famous Bobo doll experiment research in which a researcher physically and verbally abused a clown-faced inflatable toy in front of Preschool-age children, which showed that the children later mimicked the behaviour of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion. Similar experiments again conducted by showing violence on videotape yielded the same results.

While most psychology textbooks place Bandura’s theory with those of the behaviorists, Bandura himself noted that he ‘’___never really fit that behavioral orthodoxy.

Even in the earliest work, Bandura argued that reducing behaviour to a stimuli-response cycle was too simplistic, while in his work, he used terminologies such as conditioning and reinforcement. Bandura explained,___ I conceptualized these phenomena as operating through a cognitive process.

Bandura’s work is considered part of the cognitive revolution in psychology that began in the late 1960s. His theory has a massive impact on personality psychology, cognitive psychology, education, and psychotherapy.

Today, bandura is considered one of the most influential psychologists of all time. In 2014, Bandura received the award of National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama.