Examine the major tenets of social cognitive theories of personality and relate how these theorists conceptualize people's interaction with their environment.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Social-cognitive approaches emphasize the role of learning and mental processes, while taking into account your situation and environment. The social-cognitive approaches to personality suggest that both personal and situational factors are central to personality and behavior. Albert Bandura saw humans as highly active cognitive processors with the ability to self-organize, self-reflect, and self-regulate. He coined the term self-efficacy to describe one's belief about one's own abilities. He also used reciprocal determinism to describe how an individual's thoughts, actions, and environment can interact and influence one another. Julian Rotter was another social-cognitive theorist. He also believed that cognitive factors are central to understanding personality. He developed the idea of locus of control to indicate the source from which you expect your behaviors to be rewarded or punished. Having an internal locus of control, a person would believe that, through their behavior, they can control rewards and punishments. An external locus of control would lead a person to feel powerless to control their fate, and they would grow to see little connection between their own behaviors and what happens to them in their lives.