Albert Bandura

Early Life

Albert Bandura is of Polish descent, born in Alberta, Canada, in the small town of Mundare. He was the youngest of six children, two of whom died in youth, one from a hunting accident and another from the flu pandemic. Bandura’s parents were hardworking and self-educated. They instilled in him a joy for celebrating life and the pursuit of education. His primary education was explorative and practical, as the school he attended was led by only two teachers and had limited resources for educational materials. Bandura saw this as an advantage, as he was forced to rely mainly on his own inquisitiveness and the world around him to grasp the concepts that would serve to further his knowledge. After finishing school, Bandura went to the Yukon to help protect the Alaskan Highway from sinkholes. Upon his return home, he was given the opportunity of staying on the farm in the remote and socially limited town, or continuing his education.

Professional Life

He entered the University of British Columbia and stumbled onto his career by choosing a psychology class as a filler for his curriculum. He instantly fell in love with the field and earned his B.A in only three years, also achieving the Bolocan Award in Psychology. He continued his studies at the University of Iowa, and earned his M.A. and his Ph.D. from that school. While at the University of Iowa, Bandura studied under Kenneth Spence and was influenced by his predecessor, Clark Hull. Bandura began experimenting with imagery, reciprocal determinism, and representation. He began to develop a collection of theoretical and analytical skills and was able to offer psychologists a new approach to the evaluation of the mental process, aside from the traditional model of psychoanalysis. Bandura interned briefly at the Wichita Kansas Guidance Center, and eventually began teaching at Stanford University in 1953, where he has remained for more than half a century.

Contribution to Psychology

Bandura began his research endeavors by focusing on human motivation, action and thought. He worked with Richard Walters to explore social aggression. Their study emphasized the impact of modeling and gave way to research in the area of observational learning. In the infancy of his research, Bandura examined the patterns of behavior imitation in adults and children, which became known as social learning. His research spawned his first several books. He challenged the notion that punishment and rewards were primary factors in behavior determination and suggested that humans develop behaviors in part, based on the behaviors of others. While focusing on aggression in children, Bandura observed the violent and aggressive behaviors that were present in the children’s lives to determine the source of the child’s behaviors. His work eventually led him to conduct the Bobo Doll Experiment.

The Bobo Doll Experiment – 1961

Bandura hoped to show that aggressive behavior was in part, learned by watching and being exposed to aggressive behaviors in others. Although it was criticized because of its methods that incited aggression in children, the results of the experiment created a dynamic shift in modern psychology that moved it from a strictly behavioral basis to one of a cognitive basis. To this day, the Bobo Doll Experiment is viewed as one of the most influential and acclaimed experiments in psychology.

Bandura developed his Social Cognitive Theory from a holistic view of human cognition in relation to social awareness and influence. He has published several books that explore social cognitive theories, self-organization and regulation, and self-efficacy. He has won many awards, including the Grawemeyer Award in Psychology in 2008. He has been listed as one of the most influential figures in modern psychology, and is cited fourth behind Skinner, Freud, and Piaget. He is often described as the “greatest living psychologist.”

Quote by Albert Bandura