Showing papers by "Albert Bandura published in 1991"

Self-regulatory mechanisms governing the impact of social comparison on complex decision making.

Abstract: This study tested the hypothesis that different patterns of social comparison would affect performance attainments in a simulated organization through their impact on mediating self-regulatory mechanisms. Ss served as organizational decision makers under prearranged comparative feedback that they performed as well as their comparators, consistently surpassed them, achieved growing mastery, or experienced progressive decline. Progressive mastery enhanced perceived self-efficacy, efficient analytic thinking, challenging goal setting, aidful affective self-reaction, and organizational performance. Relative decline undermined these self-regulatory factors and produced a growing deterioration of organizational performance. The similar and superior socialcomparative patterns of influence had a supportive self-regulative and performance effect. Path analyses revealed that perceived self-eificacy, quality of analytic thinking, personal goal setting, and affective self-reactions operated as significant determinants of performance attainments. Many of the theories that have been proposed over the years to explain human sociocognitive functioning have relied heavily on causal models favoring one-sided determinism. In such models of unidirectional causation, behavior is depicted as being shaped and regulated either by environmental influences or by internal dispositions. In the more recent, partially bidirectional models of causation, persons and situations affect each other but their influence on behavior flows unidirectionally. Social cognitive theory explains sociocognitive functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation (A. Bandura, 1986). In this model of reciprocal determinism, behavior, cognitive, and other personal factors and environmental events all operate as interacting determinants that influence each other bidirectionally. In analyzing the personal determinants in this interactional causal structure, social-cognitive theory accords a central role to cognitive self-regulative processes. In this research, interactional causal structures are examined as they operate within the context of managerial decision making in a dynamic simulated environment. Each of the major interactants in the triadic causal structure--cognitive, behavioral, and environmental-~-functions as an important constituent of the transactional processes. The cognitive determinant is indexed by self-beliefs of etficacy, personal goal setting, selfevaluation, and quality of analytic thinking. The managerial choices that are executed constitute the behavioral determi

The Impact of Conceptions of Ability on Self-Regulatory Factors and Motor Skill Acquisition

Abstract: This study tested the hypothesis that conceptions of ability affect self-regulatory processes and the acquisition rate of a perceptual-motor skill. Subjects performed a rotary pursuit task under induced cognitive sets that task performance reflected inherent aptitude or acquirable skill. Their perceived self-efficacy, affective self-reactions, and performance attainments were measured over a series of trials. Subjects who performed the task under the inherent-aptitude conception of ability displayed no growth in perceived self-efficacy across phases, negative self-reactions to performances, low interest in the activity, and a limited level of skill development. In contrast, those who performed the task under the conception of ability as an acquirable skill displayed growth in perceived self-efficacy, positive self-reactions to their performances, widespread interest in the activity, and a high level of skill acquisition. The stronger the positive self-reactions, the greater the subsequent performance atta...