Albert Bandura is a Canadian psychologist who currently serves as a professor at Stanford University, his studies and training, defined by the theoretical orientation of cognitive behavioral therapy, have gained great worldwide recognition for his theory of social learning. They bring some Albert Bandura phrases that allow us to approach his way of observing and understanding society.
Albert Bandura’s work includes the aforementioned theory of social learning, as well as his publication Theory of Social Learning of Aggression. There are many other important jobs, such as reflexive empathy and self-efficacy: the exercise of control, which are very interesting. focused on society and learning.
“People’s beliefs about their abilities have a significant effect on those skills. “
This first of Albert Bandura’s phrases speaks of the power of beliefs about us, if we think we cannot learn mathematics, for example, no long as we try, our skills to properly solve math problems will be greatly diminished.
On many occasions our beliefs about how things are going or what we can do are part of our context, that is, that a member of our family, for example, once told us that we were very bad at math, we believed in it and then we put that label on our foreheads, now defining ourselves before others.
The good news is, as soon as we put them on, we can get rid of those labels.
“Psychology can’t tell someone how to live their life, but can it provide a way to make personal and social changes?
When Bandura developed his theory of social learning, he realized the importance of the work of psychologists. As he said, a psychologist doesn’t dictate what to do for his patients, he has to guide people when they need support to solve their problems.
Psychologists offer tools and exercise to patients so they can make the changes they deem appropriate to feel better, however, these professionals can never tell anyone what to do, everyone should be responsible for building their own life.
“Learning is two-way: we learn from the environment and the environment learns and changes according to our actions. “
This third sentence of Albert Bandura offers a very deep reflection on learning, according to this author, we learn from what we live in the environment, what they teach us at school, what we see at home and what the people we live with are trying. to teach us. Still, since we have knowledge, the environment can also learn if we act accordingly.
Acts are very valuable because they allow us to change, if someone in our environment showed us this from a young age and we learned that it was normal, we can always seek change by acting in different ways, by the time we stop being manipulated, we will be the ones who manipulate the environment with our way of being authentic.
“Success is judged socially by poorly defined criteria, so we tend to rely on others to ensure their success in what it does. “
Perhaps many of us feel identified with this Albert Bandura phrase, how many times have we asked for the opinion of others because we wanted to know if we were doing what we were doing?Or, even knowing, why did we want to be sure? We can ask others to give their opinion, but we can never depend on what others say or say.
The reason lies in prejudice, this phrase by Albert Bandura speaks of success and of measuring it from the point of view of others, that is a big mistake. Each person sees success differently and we can diminish our perception of our own success if we begin to see it from the point of view of others.
“Perceptions of self-efficacy predict dropout. “
Albert Bandura’s last sentence speaks of school failure, as present today as something caused by personal efficiency, is just a perception that can be built through what we said at the beginning, based on beliefs that may have in relation to us and that are not necessarily true.
A teacher who discourages absent or indifferent parents?It can make the younger ones feel incapable, so that they lose motivation to strive.
Bandura has written the book Self-Efficacy in Changing Societies in which he treats this concept from an academic, professional, family, cultural and other perspective.
All these words of Albert Bandura allow us to reflect on today’s society and what we have learned, which we have not questioned, and which can prevent us from fighting all the beliefs we carry on our shoulders.
What we learn can always be questioned, we don’t have to act through the prejudices that other people have conveyed to us, it will only make us feel lost.