Synopsis

Among the top ten most influential psychologists is Albert Bandura. He was born in December 4, 1925 at a town known as Alberta, Canada. Bandura is well-known for the social cognitive theory which has helped many students and scholars understand more regarding aggression and it was named “Bobo doll” experiment. Regarding his education, he completed high school in 1946 and immediately pursued a bachelor’s degree at the University of British Columbia after which he graduated in 1949. It was during this year that he was awarded the prestigious Bolocan Award in psychology. This was offered to any student who did exceptionally well in psychology. He also received a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Iowa in 1951.It is, thus, important to study his early life and contributions to psychology.

Background and Early Life

Bandura was born in 1925 and he is the youngest in a family of six. His parents originated from Eastern Europe but then moved to Canada as immigrants. In this regard, his father was a Polish from a town known as Krakow while the mother was from Ukraine. They had immigrated to Canada when they were still adolescents. After getting married, they decided to settle in Mudare, Alberta and this is where Albert was born. His father was then working on a trans-Canada railroad and from then, the young family grew while the kids were raised to pursue their talents. Every family would like to raise kids who grow to become successful as Albert Bandura since this would be an elation.

Just like any other families, the Banduras ensured that their children accessed quality educationby giving financial and moral support. Albert joined kindergarten and went all the way to high school where he graduated in 1946. Afterwards, he joined the University of British Columbia where he pursued what he loved most that is, psychology and earned a bachelor’s degree in the same field. This was the beginning of his career which has earned him a name in the same. He didexceptionally well to the extent of being bestowed with Bolocan Award. After two years, he joined the University of Iowa and he was involved in graduate coursework that led to his award of master’s degree in 1951. After another one year, he was awarded a doctorate (PhD) in psychology. These two degrees formed a great trajectory for his scholarly life since he put into practice what he acquired in school to real-life situations. As a result, he started developing crucial theories which are still referred to till now.

After accepting a one-year instructorship at the Stanford University in 1953, Bandura attained a professorship. This showed how intelligent he was as indicated by those who worked with him since he had mastered the art of psychology in practice and theory. Another great achievement that Bandura added to his blossoming psychology career is David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology. Through this accolade, he was elevated to the position of chairman of the department of psychology.He worked at Stanford University for long where he attained the status of professor emeritus in the year 2010. It was at this university that his career reached the peak and his legacy started forming. This means that he made use of the university life and ensured that any basics that were meant for him to create notable theories were amassed.

Bandura’s life was not without controversies. One of them is his Bobo doll experiment which was supposed to show how aggression could directly affect the observers, who were kids. As it will be seen in the next section, the experiment involved the beating of an inflatable doll. To many, this was considered to be unethical since it could have had a lasting impact of the life of the children. This is because witnessing violence might highly affect one’s behavior in the future, while being asked about the implications of the experiment, it was evident that Bandura was majorly fixated on the positive outcomes while overlooking the negative side. This was one of the weaknesses of most of his works since it seemed that he did not want societal norms to affect his work negatively in any way.

Contributions to Psychology

After graduating with a PhD, Bandura conducted many experiments that bordered the behavior of children. One of them was the Bobo doll experiment which he conducted in 1961 with an aim of understanding how children would mimic a behavior among adults in a setting such as a preschool. In this famous research, the researchers in question abused a clown-faced toy both physically and verbally in front of preschool-age children. This activity continued for some hours and it was ensured that the kids watched all that transpired. This made the kids to mimic the behavior by verbally and physically abusing the doll the same way it was done by the adults. Bandura and other psychologists did similar experiments in other fashions to determine whether the results were really consistent. Most of them were done and recorded on videotape. However, the results were consistent with the Bobo doll experiment showing that it was a reliable social experiment.

Even before getting the results, Bandura predicted some of the happenings regarding how children would react to adult behaviors. The main aim was to determine whether they would imitate the behavior that they had been exposed to earlier. The first prediction is that the children would take after the behavior of the adults even when the later was not present. Secondly, those kids who observed the less aggressive adult model would end up being less violent compared to those who were exposed to aggressive models. The third prediction is that children were highly probable to imitate those models from the same sex instead of those of the opposite sex.

From the experiment above, Bandura concluded that people learn through observation, modeling and imitation. This could be seen from the kids who mimicked their adult counterparts by taking after their behavior of abusing the clown. This is what is known as social learning theory and it has been in use to date. Since some of the aspects that were investigated in the experiment included aggression and violence, the experiment was relevant to many other cases such as the televised violence. In a related experiment that was done after the assassination of JF Kennedy, Bandura played a key role when he was given a chance to testify before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He also did so in many other commissions to confirm how televised violence has a great impact on the aggressive behavior among children and adults. This means that his influence had really been felt across the board regarding how behavior in psychology is learned. Even though learning can involve acquiring both positive and negative behavioral aspects, Bandura’s model focused more on the former to warn the adult members of the society against violence or aggression. By doing so, their kids would grow while adopting crucial behaviors which will play a significant role in their growth and development.

Regarding the social learning theory, Bandura came up with necessary conditions that should be observed for modelling to be effective. These include attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. From his conclusions, attention paid by learners can be affected by particular factors. These include affective valence, distinctiveness, complexity, prevalence, and functional value. Additionally, a person’s characteristics such as past reinforcement, sensory capacities and arousal levels high affect attention. On retention, one remembers what he or she paid attention to. Some of the aspects that are connected to this include mental images, symbolic coding, motorrehearsal and cognitive organization among others.Bandura further claimed that after observing some activity, one ends up reproducing the images in his or her mind thus, initiating learning. This can be seen in the step known as reproduction. In the final condition known as motivation, it is indicated that an individual should have a good reason to imitate. Some of the aspects that make up this condition include imagined incentives as well as remembering the past through a concept known as traditional behaviorism. All these concepts indicate that Bandura has made a crucial contributions to the field of psychology.

Another contribution that Bandura made in psychology is the development of reciprocal determinism.He had a strong belief in this phenomenon whereby a person’s behavior together with the world interrelate. In this regard, one of them causes the other. According to printed works, it is evident that Bandura considered behaviorism as a simplistic way of viewing a person’s behavior. Instead, he strongly supposed that a person’s behavior caused the environment. This postulation was backed up by solid shreds of evidence to ensure that any attempted refutation could be thwarted.Those who he worked with indicated that he had a different view of most of the earliest concepts developed by B.F. Skinner and many other renowned psychologists. Despite this divergence, Bandura won the respect of many scholars at Stanford University and many other institutions across the world. As Bandura explored the role played by the environment in determining one’s behavior, he postulated that three aspects tend to interact, thus forming one’s personality. These include behavior, the environment, and other psychological processes. In this regard, the mind plays a crucial role in creating a conducive environment for the two other factors to interact well towards the formation of one’s personality.

Legacy

It is with no doubt that Albert Bandura has left a great legacy as one of the best psychologists and theorists of the 20^th century. His interest in learning and human behavior was unmatched and through this, he won the hearts of many people across the world who were fascinated with psychology.

Besides being well-conversant with psychology, Bandura also had great leadership styles that ensured that he was a frontrunner in many platforms. In 1974, for example, he was elected the American Psychologists Association’s (APA) president. This is highly unexpected for someone who spent most of his time in the field of academia. It is clear that Bandura was an all-round individual who would have his impact felt in many fields which are not confined to academia. While acknowledging his contributions to the field, APA awarded him in 1980. This was after he published many papers and came up with the social learning theory which involved the use of the Bobo doll experiment. Another award was also bestowed to him in 2004. This was a rare gem in the field of psychology at that time since he wanted many aspects to go as per his expectations.

From the research regarding Bandura, I found out that he spent a lot of time reading books and doing an in-depth research. The main aim towards doing so was to amass knowledge that would help him in ensuring that his theories were successfully. Having spent a lot of time researching psychological concepts, his social life was partially affected even though he was after leaving a great legacy in the psychological theory. However, I learnt that he married in 1951 when his university life was at peak. His wife Virginia Varns acted as a pillar for the psychologist exercises since she did not only take care of the family but also ensured that Bandura remained on course. This was a crucial aspect towards earning the accolades that he is known for. In their marriage, the duo was blessed with two daughters, Mary and Carol. Mary was given birth to in 1954 while her sister was born in 1958.

Another aspect that can be learned regarding the great psychologist is that he treated cognitive and social psychology fields equally. In his experiments, he employed diligence to ensure that the two were given the required attention and this is the reason his way of doing things gave the desired fruits. Therefore, he was able to carve a niche for himself and remain competitive in the scholarly world based on this. While lecturing at Stanford University, he ensured that he worked closely with his students to create a conducive environment for himself to execute his mandates and adapt to new changes in the field of psychology. His long stint at the university led to numerous awards and accolades that made him one of the most outstanding psychologists.

In conclusion, Albert Bandura is a key figure in psychology based on the development of the social cognitive and learning theories. His work has been recognized all over the world given that he found an easier way of explaining how behavior can be acquired by observing a model. However, his Bobo doll experiment raised controversies given that he seemed to give room to violence in society by exposing children to aggression. Those who supported the premises of the experiment claimed that it was a great way of learning the impacts of observing aggression among children. Also, it is crucial to note that even though Bandura was highly interested in knowing how children acquired certain behaviors from their adult counterparts, the main was to learn about human character as a whole. Additionally, Bandura quickly rose through the ranks of academia after acquiring a bachelor’s degree which was followed by a master’s degree then a PhD after two years. References

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Albert-Bandura

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