Bandura was initially influenced by Robert Sears' work on familial antecedents of
social behavior and identificatory learning and gave up his research of the psychoanalytic theory. He directed his initial research to the role of social
modeling in human
motivation, thought, and action. In collaboration with Richard Walters, his first doctoral student, he engaged in studies of
social learning and
aggression. Their joint efforts illustrated the critical role of modeling in human behavior and led to a program of research into the determinants and mechanisms of
observational learning. Social learning theory posits three regulatory systems that control human behavior. • The antecedent inducements greatly influence the time and response of behavior. The stimulus that occurs
before the behavioral response must be appropriate in relation to the social context and the performers of the behavior. Social learning theory became one of the theoretical frameworks for
Entertainment-Education, a method of creating socially beneficial entertainment pioneered by
Miguel Sabido. Bandura and Sabido went on to forge a close relationship and further refine the theory and practice. His research with Walters led to his first book,
Adolescent Aggression (1959), followed by
Social Learning and Personality Development (1963), and
Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis (1973). In 1974,
Stanford University awarded him an endowed chair and he became David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology. In 1961, Bandura conducted a controversial experiment known as the
Bobo doll experiment, designed to show that similar behaviors were learned by individuals shaping their own behavior after the actions of models. The Bobo doll experiment emphasized how young individuals are influenced by the acts of adults. When the adults were praised for their aggressive behavior, the children were more likely to keep on hitting the doll. However, when the adults were punished, they consequently stopped hitting the doll as well. Bandura's results from this experiment were widely credited with helping shift the focus in academic psychology from pure
behaviorism to
cognitive psychology.
Social foundations of thought and action In 1986, Bandura published
Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory, in which he re-conceptualized individuals as self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting, and self-regulating, in opposition to the orthodox conception of humans as governed by external forces. He advanced concepts of
triadic reciprocal causation, which determined the connections between human behavior, environmental factors, and personal factors such as cognitive, affective, and biological events, and of
reciprocal determinism, governing the causal relations between such factors. Bandura's emphasis on the capacity of agents to self-organize and self-regulate would eventually give rise to his later work on
self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy While investigating the processes by which modeling alleviates
phobic disorders in
snake-phobics, he found that self-efficacy beliefs (which the phobic individuals had in their own capabilities to alleviate their phobia) mediated changes in behavior and in fear-arousal. He launched a major program of research examining the influential role of self-referent thought in psychological functioning. Although he continued to explore and write on theoretical problems relating to myriad topics, from the late 1970s, he devoted much attention to exploring the role of self-efficacy beliefs in human functioning. In 1986, he published
Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory, a book in which he offered a social cognitive theory of human functioning that accords a central role to cognitive, vicarious, self-regulatory, and self-reflective processes in human adaptation and change. This theory has roots in an agentic perspective that views people as self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting, and self-regulating, not just as reactive organisms shaped by
environmental forces or driven by inner impulses. His book,
Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control was published in 1997. These findings validate Bandura's theory and demonstrate ways in which targeting self-efficacy has predicted treatment outcomes in addictive behaviors. == Educational application ==