Social cognitive theory provides an agentic conceptual framework within which to analyze the determinants and psychosocial mechanisms through which symbolic communication influences human thought, affect and action. Communications systems operate through two pathways. In the direct pathway, they promote changes by informing, enabling, motivating, and guiding participants. In the socially mediated pathway, media influences link participants to social networks and community settings that provide natural incentives and continued personalized guidance, for desired change. Social cognitive theory analyzes social diffusion of new styles of behavior in terms of the psychosocial factors governing their acquisition and adoption and the social networks through which they spread and are supported. Structural interconnectedness provides potential diffusion paths; sociocognitive factors largely determine what diffuses through those paths.

Social cognitive theory of mass communication

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Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication

The time has come to think about sex To some, sexuality may seem to be an unimportant
topic, a frivolous diversion from the more critical problems of poverty, war, disease, racism,
famine, or nuclear annihilation But it is precisely at times such as these, when we live with
the possibility of unthinkable destruction, that people are likely to become dangerously crazy
about sexuality Contemporary conflicts over sexual values and erotic conduct have much in
common with the religious disputes of earlier centuries They acquire immense symbolic
weight Disputes over sexual behaviour often become the vehicles for displacing social anxieties, and discharging their attendant emotional intensity Consequently, sexuality should be
treated with special respect in times of great social stress

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Thinking sex: notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality

• This article reviews the evidence for differing rates of depression between the sexes in the United States and elsewhere during the last 40 years, and then critically analyzes the various explanations offered. These explanations include the possibility that the trends are spurious because of artifacts produced by methods of reporting symptoms, or that they are real because of biological susceptibility (possibly genetic or female endocrine), psychosocial factors such as social discrimination, or female-learned helplessness.

Sex differences and the epidemiology of depression.

In this innovative book, a well-known feminist and sociologist-who is also the founding editor of Gender & Society-challenges our most basic assumptions about gender. Judith Lorber argues that gender is wholly a product of socialization, subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation, and that it is a social institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences. Calling into question the inevitability and necessity of gender, she envisions a society structured for equality, where no gender, racial ethnic, or social class group is allowed to monopolize positions of power.

Paradoxes of gender

Pornography and Sexual Aggression.

Stopping Rape: Successful Survival Strategies

Most women who have been sexually assaulted see at least some situations in the world as being more dangerous following their assault experiences. Based on in-depth interviews with 94 women who were either raped or avoided being raped during an attack, this study examines the effect of the events that occurred during the attack and the circumstances surrounding the attack as factors that determine later perceptions of danger. Women who have been raped are more likely to change their perceptions of the safety of the world in radical ways than women who have avoided being raped, although women who avoid being raped often make substantial reassessments as well. For both raped women and avoiders, one's likelihood of making a radical change in one's perceptions of dangerousness depended to a large degree on the sort of situation in which the attack took place. Women were less likely to change their perceptions of dangerousness if the attack took place in a situation where they believed they were in some danger before the attack. If the attack took place in circumstances which the women defined as safe, however, a much more extreme reaction was likely to occur.

Pauline B. Bart

Papers

Pornography and Sexual Aggression.

Stopping Rape: Successful Survival Strategies

Stopping Rape: Successful Survival Strategies

Through Women's Eyes: Defining Danger in the Wake of Sexual Assault

Psychoanalysis and Women.