Reciprocal determinism

Reciprocal determinism is the theory set forth by psychologist Albert Bandura that a person's behavior both influences and is influenced by personal factors and the social environment. Bandura accepts the possibility of an individual's behavior being conditioned through the use of consequences. At the same time he asserts that a person's behavior (and personal factors, such as cognitive skills or attitudes) can impact the environment. These skill sets result in an under- or overcompensated ego that, for all creative purposes, is too strong or too weak to focus on pure outcome. This is important because Bandura was able to prove the strong correlation between this with experiments.

Bandura was able to show this when he created the Banduras Box experiment. As an example, Bandura's reciprocal determinism could occur when a child is acting out in school. The child doesn't like going to school; therefore, he/she acts out in class. This results in teachers and administrators of the school disliking having the child around. When confronted by the situation, the child admits he/she hates school and other peers don't like him/her. This results in the child acting inappropriately, forcing the administrators who dislike having him/her around to create a more restrictive environment for children of this stature. Each behavioral and environmental factor coincides with the child and so forth resulting in a continuous battle on all three levels.

Reciprocal determinism is the idea that behavior is controlled or determined by the individual, through cognitive processes, and by the environment, through external social stimulus events. The basis of reciprocal determinism should transform individual behavior by allowing subjective thought processes transparency when contrasted with cognitive, environmental, and external social stimulus events.

Actions do not go one way or the other, as it is affected by repercussions, meaning one’s behavior is complicated and can’t be thought of as individual and environmental means. Behavior consist of environmental and individual parts that interlink together to function. Many studies showed reciprocal associations between people and their environments over time.

Research conducted in this field include the study of doctor-patient relationships where one group of patients are termed ‘physician-reliant’ and the other group ‘self-reliant’. The physician-reliant patients tend to be more passive in their decision making and rely on their physicians to make their choices for them. Self-reliant patients take a more active role in deciding which health options would better suit them.

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