In this engaging interview, the founder of social cognitive theory and the theory of self-efficacy reveals his early fascination with the wide-ranging effects of behavior modification. The “spillover” effect from one behavior to other areas of functioning made it possible to radically improve people’s lives with relatively small changes in behavior. Believing that there must be more instances of this phenomenon, he set out to find them, compiling and distilling what he learned into his first article on the uses of learning theory for therapy.
In this conversation with Toni Zeiss, Bandura also examines the contributions of behavioral insight for psychotherapy, including the significance of social environments in shaping personality and behavior, the ability to conduct more rigorous clinical research, and the extended purview of therapy to include prevention work. He argues that while important, these contributions were not adequate, as “I was also marshaling a lot of evidence that these conditioning processes were, in fact, cognitively mediated.” By then outlining the conceptual model and process of guided mastery, Bandura provides a very useful clinical tool that therapists of any orientation can easily integrate in their practice.
Not only was he instrumental in developing groundbreaking theories about how we learn, Bandura also worked to apply his theories to pressing social issues on a global scale. Before social justice became widely acknowledged as a critical aspect of applied psychology, Bandura was involved in a project broadcasting soap operas in developing nations in which women were portrayed exercising control over their reproductive health. From his famous Bobo doll experiment all the way through his recent work in societal change processes, Bandura describes the evolution of his theories and their application through vivid stories of his breakthrough moments.
