Abstract
▪ Abstract The capacity to exercise control over the nature and quality of one's life is the essence of humanness. Human agency is characterized by a number of core features that operate through phenomenal and functional consciousness. These include the temporal extension of agency through intentionality and forethought, self-regulation by self-reactive influence, and self-reflectiveness about one's capabilities, quality of functioning, and the meaning and purpose of one's life pursuits. Personal agency operates within a broad network of sociostructural influences. In these agentic transactions, people are producers as well as products of social systems. Social cognitive theory distinguishes among three modes of agency: direct personal agency, proxy agency that relies on others to act on one's behest to secure desired outcomes, and collective agency exercised through socially coordinative and interdependent effort. Growing transnational embeddedness and interdependence are placing a premium on collective efficacy to exercise control over personal destinies and national life.
Keywords
Sense of agencyAgency (philosophy)EmbeddednessSocial psychologyPsychologyInterdependenceCognitionConsciousnessSelfControl (management)SociologyEconomicsManagementSocial science
MeSH Terms
BiotechnologyCognitionHumansPsychological TheorySelf EfficacySocial BehaviorSocial Responsibility
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Exercise of Human Agency Through Collective Efficacy
Social cognitive theory adopts an agentic perspective in which individuals are producers of experiences and shapers of events. Among the mechanisms of human agency, none is more...
Social Cognitive Theory in Cultural Context
La théorie socio‐cognitive adopte une perspective d’action pour ce qui est du développement, de l’adaptation et du changement humains. Cette théorie distingue trois types d’acti...
Self-Efficacy
Part 1: self-efficacy and human functioning exercise of personal agency through the self-efficacy mechanism two dimensions of perceived self- efficacy - cognitive control and be...
Self-efficacy, attribution, and outcome expectancy mechanisms in reading and writing achievement: Grade-level and achievement-level differences.
This study examined grade- and achievement-level differences in 4th-, 7th-, and lOth-grade students' control-related beliefs and relations between students' beliefs and their re...
The unbearable automaticity of being.
What was noted by E. J. hanger (1978) remains true today: that much of contemporary psychological research is based on the assumption that people are consciously and systematica...
Publication Info
- Year
- 2001
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 52
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-26
- Citations
- 13709
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
13709
OpenAlex
9089
CrossRef
Cite This
Albert Bandura
(2001).
Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective.
Annual Review of Psychology
, 52
(1)
, 1-26.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.1
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.1
- PMID
- 11148297