Who is Who Is Albert Bandura?

How do we learn? Social Psychologist Albert Bandura says you learn by: 1.) Observing, 2.) Rehearsing, and 3.) Imitating.

What are the best situations for learning?

Bandura says you learn well when you're in small groups. It's even better when you have a chance to picture yourself doing the behavior before you do it, and you do our best when you see or hear what others think about your behavior after you've done it.

Of course, it is important to know what we're learning when we're learning it.

According to Dr. Bandura, we learn Self-Esteem or what to believe about ourselves by talking to ourselves about our behavior and its results.

Dr. Bandura also says we develop Self-Efficacy or our belief in our ability to do what we want in order to get what we want or need by rehearsing or practicing behaviors and changing those behaviors until we are successful.

It's like learning to ride a bike. We learn how to go, balance, stop, and keep our balance by watching others, imagining ourselves doing it, and then practicing until we're good at it. Once we've done that, then we believe in our ability to ride a bike. He would say we have "Self-Efficacy" for riding a bike.

The entire process of learning how to ride a bike, or any other behavior is called Self-Regulation. In other words, we learn from the consequences of our behaviors by thinking about them. Of course, it is a little more involved than that.

We think about what we want, we imagine the behavior, we do the behavior, we think about the results, and then we think about the our behavior some more. If we think we need to change something, then we do. Bandura calls this Self-Regulation.

What are the best ways for gaining Self-Esteem?

What are the most effective ways of gaining Self-Efficacy?

How can you learn more about Self-Regulation?

If you're looking for answers, then read more