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SCIENCE

The Claim

Albert Bandura's theory of reciprocal determinism states that personal factors, behavior, and the environment influence each other.

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The Short Version

The claim accurately states Bandura’s core idea. Reciprocal determinism is widely defined as a triadic, mutual influence among personal or internal factors, behavior, and the environment. Differences in wording across sources do not materially alter that meaning.

Caveats

  • Some sources use “personal factors,” while others say “cognitive” or “internal” factors; this is a terminology difference, not a substantive contradiction.
  • The theory describes mutual influence among the three elements, not necessarily equal influence at all times or in every situation.
  • Lower-quality tertiary sources appear in the source list, but stronger academic and primary sources are sufficient to support the claim.

The Receipts

  1. Reciprocal Determinism

    Springer Nature Link

  2. The Self System in Reciprocal Determinism

    Dr. Adam M Volungis

  3. Health Behavior and Health Education | Part Three, Chapter Eight

    University of Pennsylvania (med.upenn.edu)

  4. The self system in reciprocal determinism.

    APA PsycNet

  5. Social Learning Theory | Education | Research Starters

    EBSCO

  6. Reciprocal determinism (video)

    Khan Academy

  7. Learning Approaches – General Psychology

    UCF Pressbooks

  8. The 3 Factors of Reciprocal Determinism

    Verywell Mind

  9. Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory

    Simply Psychology

  10. Reciprocal determinism

    Wikipedia

+ 5 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

Albert BanduraReciprocal DeterminismSocial Cognitive Theory