Social-Cognitive Theory

Albert Bandura's social-cognitive theory (SCT) is the result of a revision and expansion of his social learning theory and advocates a model of triadic reciprocal determinism to explain a person's behavior in a particular context. That is, (1) external environment, (2) behavior, [Page 983]and (3) cognitive/biological/other personal factors all influence each other bidirectionally. Bandura notes that this is a change from previous models that advocate unidirectional causation of behavior being influenced by internal dispositions and/or environmental variables and that SCT does not dictate that the different sources of influence are of equal strength nor does all the influence necessarily take place simultaneously. In summary, (1) internal dispositions (biology, cognition, emotion, etc.) may influence behavior, and behavior may influence internal dispositions; (2) internal dispositions may influence environmental events/reactions, and environmental events may influence internal dispositions; and (3) behavior may influence environmental events, and environmental events may influence behavior. SCT has been applied to study a wide range of public health issues, including medication compliance, alcohol abuse, and immunization behavior, and many public health interventions are based on SCT or selected aspects of it.

SCT recognizes the importance of modeling as an influence on human behavior: It explains how individuals may acquire attitudes from people in the media, as well as from those in their social network. Direct modeling refers to observing and possibly imitating people in our networks engaged in certain favorable or unfavorable behaviors, such as watching a father fasten his seat belt as soon as he enters the car. Symbolic modeling refers to observing and possibly imitating such behaviors portrayed in the media, such as seeing one's favorite film star smoke cigarettes in movies and magazine photos. Symbolic modeling forms the basis for many public health campaigns in which a celebrity spokesperson endorses or is seen performing a health behavior (such as drinking milk) or condemns a behavior (such as smoking).

Whether modeling leads to changed behavior on the part of the observers depends on many other variables, including individuals’ perceptions of the favorable or unfavorable consequences of the behavior, their outcome expectancies (i.e., what they think will happen if they perform the behavior), and individuals’ perceived ability to carry out the behavior—that is, their self-efficacy.