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Albert Bandura?s Personality Theory
Albert Banduras Personality Theory
Part One
Albert Bandura is considered one of the leading American psychologists of the 20th century. His election as the American Psychological Association President (Frager & Fadiman, 2012) demonstrates that his academic and practical contributions were highly valued by his colleagues as well as in political circles. Moreover, the unanimous opinion is that his academic endeavors greatly simplified the daily work of the practicing psychological community. However, it should be emphasized that his theory has a number of imperfections although predominantly it should be considered as valid and academically sound.
Professor Bandura is one of the most acknowledged representatives of traditional behaviorism (Frager & Fadiman, 2012). In his works, he argued that social skills as well as professional characteristics of people emanate from complex social structures. Moreover, he highlighted that people are affected by their inner motives and genetic predisposition.
My personal opinion is that his concept of reciprocal determination is a crucial element of his theory. In particular, he argues that our behavior and perception of the reality are determined by internal and external factors. The concept of triadic reciprocality purports that major determinants of our consciousness and mindset are the behavior, the environment, and the internal factors. This opinion is shared by the majority of academics as well as my personal experience suggests that it is entirely valid in its essence. Undoubtedly, under exceptional circumstances some facets may dominate over others, but as a common rule, the way we perceive their reality contains these elements.
Secondly, the professor argued that the concept of observational learning is the way we master new skills and learn. Actually, there is a grain of truth in this assertion. However, Albert Bandura fails to recognize that the concept of subconsciousness is important. Under the postulates of his theory, practical knowledge is formulated by means of cognitive processes, while subliminal level of our development is neglected. My firm opinion is that this deficiency constitutes the major limitation of the theory.
Part Two
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As far as practical implementation of his findings for the psychological practitioners community is concerned, I firmly believe that it should be most indispensably applied in therapy. In particular, poor academic performance can be effectively treated by applying the concepts of observational learning theory. The client should be devised to pay attention to the model and remember what he/she has observed and reproduce the results accordingly. Besides, it is advisable for the practitioners to recommend their clients to be motivated enough and to practice sufficiently. This rule is especially important for clients engaged in education and sports.
Furthermore, my personal experience suggests that the concept of observational learning is indeed the most illustrative in terms of explaining the most effective way to master new skills and qualifications. Legal practice is one of the most probative evidence is in this regard. To be more exact, when a new attorney, usually a rookie who graduated from law school, is assigned to a particular department of a law firm, his academic credit has nothing to do with his subsequent career. A friend of mine who recently joined the offices of Baker and McKenzie in New York reported that the senior partners instruct him to pay attention to the way they practice law. This approach is purely practical in its nature. Monitoring how a senior partner completes merging and acquisition transaction constitutes paying attention to the model section. Imitation of his activities constitutes in production of the results. The essential concept of motivation is represented by the attorneys fees, while practice in this regard signifies relevant legal experience. Having summarized these elements, an effective legal training program is ultimately obtained. The analysis demonstrates that it is based on observational learning concept of Professor Albert Bandura. The efficacy of this process is corroborated by the fact that the most brilliant lawyers took vocational legal courses and never graduated from law school as their major. Therefore, we should conclude that the theory is indeed legitimate since the best results emanate from practice and observation of the professional work, but not from the theoretical background.
Secondly, the author broadly discoursed about the concept of self-efficacy. His arguments advocate the idea that another crucial element of self-development is constant self-analysis and self-improvement practice. Self-efficacy is defined by the ratio of the expectations from our personal or professional behavior and the ultimate results obtained. Leading business and professional development coaches highly recommend this technique, and my personal experience demonstrates that it is indeed valid. In particular, I want to highlight the fact that my personal academic record is based on the system. At the beginning of any academic year, I specify the marks I want to obtain and then compare them with the results I ultimately get. Entirely in accordance with his postulates, if the ratio is positive, self-enhancement happened and vice versa. Besides, the analysis of the most prominent scientists, business tycoons and political leaders indicated that the concept of self-efficacy analysis was always present in their careers. In particular, it is reported that Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose one of his personal faults every day and did his best to remove it during the day. The culmination of his busy days and the United States president was always the analysis of his faults removal process. This fact signifies that the theory of Albert Bandura was either expressly or impliedly recognized by the most prominent people of our century.
Overall, my firm conviction is that personality theory developed by Albert Bandura is one of the most effective and illustrative nowadays. Although its antagonism with the traditional approaches to the behaviorist study is sometimes controversial, the practice indicates that it is suitable and highly effective for the educational and therapeutic purposes.
