Albert Bandura was one of the most influential psychologists of all time, whose work bridged the gap between behaviorism and cognitive psychology. His theories have had a profound impact on education, therapy, public health, and our understanding of human motivation and learning.

On Self-Efficacy

  1. "Self-efficacy is the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations."
    • Source: Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)
    • Learning: This is the foundational definition. Self-efficacy isn't about your actual skills, but your belief in your ability to use them.
  2. "People with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided."
    • Source: Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)
    • Link: APA PsycNet
  3. "In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life."
  4. "The most effective way of developing a strong sense of efficacy is through mastery experiences."
    • Source: Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)
    • Learning: The best way to build confidence is by succeeding at challenging tasks. This is the most powerful source of self-efficacy.
  5. Learning: The Four Sources of Self-Efficacy. Bandura identified four ways to build self-efficacy:
    • 1. Mastery Experiences: Successfully completing a task.
    • 2. Vicarious Experiences: Watching similar others succeed.
    • 3. Verbal Persuasion: Receiving encouragement from others.
    • 4. Emotional and Physiological States: Interpreting your physical feelings (e.g., butterflies) as excitement rather than fear.
    • Source: Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory (1986)
  6. "Self-belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self-disbelief assuredly spawns failure."
    • Source: Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)
  7. "By sticking it out through tough times, people emerge from adversity with a stronger sense of efficacy."
    • Source: Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)
    • Learning: Overcoming obstacles through perseverance is a powerful way to prove to yourself that you are capable.
  8. "People's beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities."
    • Source: A core tenet of his work.
  9. "If efficacy beliefs are lacking, people tend to behave ineffectually, even though they know what to do."
    • Source: Social Foundations of Thought and Action (1986)
  10. "A strong sense of efficacy enhances human accomplishment and personal well-being in many ways."
    • Source: Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)

On Social Cognitive Theory & Observational Learning

  1. "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do."
    • Source: Social Learning Theory (1977)
    • Learning: This is the central argument for observational learning. We learn most of what we know by watching others, not through direct trial and error.
  2. "Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action."
    • Source: Social Learning Theory (1977)
  3. Learning: The Bobo Doll Experiment. Bandura's most famous experiment showed that children who watched an adult act aggressively toward a Bobo doll were far more likely to imitate that aggression. This demonstrated that learning can occur without direct reinforcement.
    • Source: "Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models." (1961 journal article)
    • Link: Simply Psychology
  4. Learning: The Four Steps of Observational Learning. For observational learning to be successful, a person must:
    • 1. Attention: Notice or pay attention to the model's behavior.
    • 2. Retention: Remember the behavior they observed.
    • 3. Reproduction: Have the ability to replicate the behavior.
    • 4. Motivation: Want to demonstrate the behavior.
    • Source: Social Learning Theory (1977)
  5. "The human mind is generative, creative, proactive, and reflective, not just reactive."
    • Source: A statement challenging the purely behaviorist view of the human mind.
  6. "People are not just products of their environment. They are also producers of their environment."
    • Source: A summary of his concept of Triadic Reciprocal Causation.
  7. Learning: Triadic Reciprocal Causation. This is the core of Social Cognitive Theory. It states that a person's development is a result of the continuous interaction between three factors: Person (their thoughts, beliefs, personality), Behavior (their actions), and Environment (their external surroundings and social factors). Each factor influences and is influenced by the others.
    • Source: Social Foundations of Thought and Action (1986)
  8. "Psychology cannot tell people how they ought to live their lives. It can, however, provide them with the means for effecting personal and social change."
    • Source: Social Learning Theory (1977)
  9. "Accomplishment is socially judged by ill-defined criteria so that one has to rely on others to find out how one is doing."
    • Source: Social Foundations of Thought and Action (1986)

On Human Agency and Control

  1. "To be an agent is to influence one's own functioning and life circumstances intentionally."
    • Source: "Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective" (2001 article)
    • Learning: This is the heart of his "agentic perspective"—the view that humans are active agents in their own lives, not passive recipients of environmental influence.
  2. "People are self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting and self-regulating, not just reactive organisms shaped by environmental forces."
    • Source: "Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective" (2001 article)
    • Link: Annual Reviews
  3. "What people think, believe, and feel affects how they behave."
    • Source: A simple summary of the cognitive part of his theory.
  4. "There are countless studies on the negative spillover of job pressures on family life, but few on how job satisfaction enhances the quality of family life."
    • Source: A critique of psychology's historical focus on pathology over well-being.
  5. "The shifting standard of romantic attraction is a reminder that beauty is partly in the eye of the beholder."
    • Source: An example of how social standards influence our personal beliefs.

On Moral Disengagement

  1. "Moral disengagement is the process of convincing the self that ethical standards do not apply to oneself in a particular context."
    • Source: Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves (2016)
    • Learning: This theory explains how ordinary, good people can do harmful things by switching off their moral self-regulation.
  2. Learning: Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement. People justify harmful actions by:
    • Moral Justification: Portraying the action as serving a worthy purpose.
    • Euphemistic Labeling: Using sanitized language to disguise the harm.
    • Advantageous Comparison: Comparing the action to something far worse.
    • Displacement of Responsibility: Blaming one's actions on an authority figure.
    • Diffusion of Responsibility: Spreading the blame across a group.
    • Disregarding or Distorting Consequences: Ignoring or minimizing the harm.
    • Dehumanization: Stripping the victim of human qualities.
    • Attribution of Blame: Seeing the victim as deserving of the harm.
    • Source: Moral Disengagement (2016)
  3. "It is easier to do bad things to people if you see them as 'the other' or less than human."
    • Source: A summary of the concept of dehumanization.
  4. "The power of a situation can be enormous, but people are not passive puppets. They can and do resist."
    • Source: A counterpoint to theories that overemphasize situational control (like the Stanford Prison Experiment).

Additional Key Quotes and Learnings

  1. "Most of the images of reality on which we base our actions are really based on vicarious experience."
  2. "Status is not a license to abuse. It is a responsibility to protect."
  3. "The content of most textbooks is perishable, but the tools of self-directedness serve one well over time."
  4. "People who believe they have the power to exercise some measure of control over their lives are healthier, more effective and more successful than those who lack the conviction."
  5. "Humans are not simply reactors to external stimuli. They are active agents in their own development."
  6. "Self-development is a lifelong process."
  7. "A theory that denies that thoughts can regulate actions does not lend itself readily to the explanation of complex human behavior."
  8. "The capacity to exercise control over the nature and quality of one's life is the essence of humanness."
  9. "Information is not a magic bullet. It must be translated into skills and self-beliefs."
  10. "People will not try to do things they believe they cannot do."
  11. "Symbolizing is the capacity to give meaning, form, and continuity to our experiences."
  12. "Forethought is the capacity to motivate and guide our actions by anticipating future outcomes."
  13. "Self-regulation is the capacity to control our own thoughts, feelings, and actions."
  14. "Self-reflection is the capacity to examine our own thoughts and experiences and to make sense of them."
  15. "The mass media play a significant role in shaping our beliefs, values, and behaviors."
  16. "We are all partial authors of our own destinies."
  17. "A resilient sense of efficacy enables individuals to persevere in the face of adversity."
  18. "Collective efficacy is a group's shared belief in its conjoint capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainments."
  19. "People gain a sense of self from their actions."
  20. "The motivational power of goals is determined by the discrepancy between one's current performance and the goal."
  21. "Success breeds success." - On the power of mastery experiences.
  22. "Human behavior has been conceptualized in terms of a triadic reciprocality in which behavior, cognitive and other personal factors, and environmental events all operate as interacting determinants of each other."