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Comparison and Contrast of Albert Bandura and Roger Sperry

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Bandura's theory places particular emphasis on cognitive mediating factors such as self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies. Sperry's theory of hemispheric specialization had some positive effects in the general population, since people gained a better understanding of nonverbal forms of intelligence.

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Roger Sperry's studies explain human actions and functions from a biological perspective and demonstrates a reductionist approach. Albert Bandura's social learning theory explains human action in terms of the interplay among behavior, cognition, and environmental influences

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In the early 1950's, Roger W. Sperry began to research the function of physiology the corpus callosum. This narrow bundle of nerve cells, containing some 200 million neurons, connects the two halves of the brain. Sperry studies explains human actions and functions from a biological perspective demonstrates a reductionist approach. Albert Bandura's (1986) social learning theory explains human action in terms of the interplay among behavior, cognition, and environmental influences, whereas Sperry's theory (1991) focuses on hemispheric specialization. Bandura's theory places particular emphasis on cognitive mediating factors such as self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies. Its greatest contribution to a general theory of human learning has been its emphasis on learning by observation or modeling. Social learning theory, later amplified as social cognitive, provides a unified theoretical framework for analyzing the psychological processes that govern human behavior. Its goal is to explain how behavior develops, how it is maintained, and through what processes it can be modified. It seeks to accomplish this task by identifying the determinants of human action and the mechanisms through which they operate. Bandura's theory is based on a model of reciprocal determinism. This means that Bandura rejects both the humanist and existentialist position viewing people as free agents and the behaviorist position viewing behavior as controlled by the environment. Rather, external determinants of behavior (such as rewards and punishments) and internal determinants (such as thoughts, expectations, and beliefs) are considered part of a system of interlocking determinants that influence not only behavior but also the various other parts of the system. In other words, each part of the system-behavior, cognition, and environmental influences-affects each of the other parts. People are neither free agents nor passive reactors to external pressures. Instead, through self-regulatory processes, they have the ability to exercise some measure of control over their own actions. They can affect their behavior by setting goals, arranging environmental inducements, generating cognitive strategies, ...

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