Albert Bandura

“People's beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities.”

“Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends.”

“Learning is bidirectional; we learn from the environment, and the environment learns and is modified by our actions.”

“What people think, believe, and feel affects how they behave.”

“A theory that denies that thoughts can regulate actions does not lend itself readily to the explanation of complex human behavior.”

“In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life.”

“Self-belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self-disbelief assuredly spawns failure.”

“Psychology cannot tell people how they ought to live their lives. It can, however, provide them with the means for effecting personal and social change.”

“Accomplishment is socially judged by ill-defined criteria so that one has to rely on others to find out how one is doing.”

“Most of the images of reality on which we base our actions are really based on vicarious experience.”

“People who believe they have the power to exercise some measure of control over their lives are healthier, more effective and more successful than those who lack the conviction that they can effect changes in their lives.”

“By sticking it out through tough times, people emerge from adversity with a stronger sense of efficacy.”

“People with a high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided.”

“To be an agent is to influence one's own functioning and the course of events by one's actions.”

“Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.”

“The human mind is generative, creative, proactive, and reflective—not just reactive.”

“People's level of motivation, affective states, and actions are based more on what they believe than on what is objectively true.”

“The content of most textbooks is perishable, but the tools of self-directedness serve one well over time.”

“People not only gain understanding through reflection, they evaluate and alter their own thinking.”

“If efficacy beliefs are lacking, people tend to behave ineffectually, even though they know what to do.”