Key Takeaways
- Reciprocal determinism shows how our thoughts, behaviors, and environments influence each other.
- Behavior is shaped by thoughts and the world around us, including the people we interact with daily.
- Personal factors like personality and beliefs play a part in how we act.
Have you ever wondered why you tend to act differently depending on the situation? Or why your personality seems to shift depending on who you’re with and what you’re doing? Some psychologists suggest that this can be explained by something called reciprocal determinism. Simply put, it’s a continuous loop showing how our thoughts, behaviors, and environments all influence one another.
Reciprocal determinism was a theory proposed by psychologist Albert Bandura suggesting that a person’s behavior is influenced by and influences individual factors and the environment.
This concept plays a central role in Bandura’s social learning theory. Also known as triadic reciprocality, reciprocal determinism is a model composed of three interrelated factors that influence behavior:
- The individual (including how they think and feel)
- Their environment
- The behavior itself
Previous theories of learning, such as B.F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning, argued that the environment always controlled people’s behavior. Such theories suggested that people were just passive recipients of environmental influences.
However, according to Bandura, not only does the environment influence a person’s thinking, but their subsequent behavior influences their environment. In other words, the environment influences how a person thinks and feels, which in turn influences their behavior, which impacts the environment, and so on.
Albert Bandura, psychologist and author of Social Learning Theory
Individuals are neither powerless objects controlled by environmental forces nor entirely free agents who can do whatever they choose.
— Albert Bandura, psychologist and author of Social Learning Theory
Behavioral Factors in Reciprocal Determinism
At its core, reciprocal determinism suggests that a person’s behavior doesn’t just stem from inside us—it’s shaped by our thoughts and the world around us, including the people we interact with in our daily lives.
For example, consider a kid who acts out because they don’t like school. The teacher responds by scolding them, making them dislike school more. It’s a cycle where the thoughts, behaviors, and environment all feed into one another.
Behavior refers to anything you do that might be rewarded or punished.
Environmental Factors in Reciprocal Determinism
Behaviors don’t occur in isolation. The environmental component refers to the context in which the behavior occurs.
It’s more than a person’s physical environment—it also includes their social environment. More specifically, it is heavily influenced by the people who are present (or absent) and the attitudes, beliefs, and ideas these people hold.
So if the child from the previous example gets yelled at by a teacher for talking in class, it not only affects them but also the classroom environment for the rest of the students, not to mention the teacher.
A person’s physical and social environment influences the intensity and frequency of the behavior, just as the behavior itself can have an impact on the environment.
Personal Factors in Reciprocal Determinism
In addition to this mix of behavioral and environmental variables are the personal characteristics that we each bring to the situation. This individual component includes all the characteristics that have been rewarded in the past.
Personality and cognitive factors play an essential part in how a person behaves, including all of the individual’s expectations, beliefs, and unique personality characteristics.
The behavior itself is something that may or may not be reinforced at any given time or situation. If the previous student knows that their teacher is more likely to reward them if they wait until the end of the school day to misbehave, they’ll likely tailor their behavior as a result.
Example
Notice how all the factors in this troubled student example affect each other: the child doesn’t like school, they act out, the teachers and classmates react to the bad behavior, reinforcing the student’s dislike of school, which then contributes to creating a hostile environment.
An Example of Reciprocal Determinism
Of course, the situation doesn’t have to be a negative one.
Imagine a shy student who usually keeps to themselves (personal factor), walks into class on the first day of school to find that the other students are already sitting down (environmental factor). The shy student tries to slip into the back of the class to avoid becoming the center of attention (behavioral factor).
But if a classmate sitting at the front of the room boisterously greets the shy student and invites them to sit next to them, the environment has introduced a *new* reinforcing stimulus (the friendly student) that could lead to a change in this student’s regular routine—as well as a change in their behavior.
Instead of feeling shy and reticent, receiving such a friendly introduction might help them feel more included and socially supported. It’s an example of how positive environmental factors can have a beneficial impact on individual thoughts and behaviors.
Self-Efficacy and Reciprocal Determinism
Reciprocal determinism is also associated with self-efficacy, or a person’s level of belief in their own ability to achieve their goals. Self-efficacy represents a personal factor in reciprocal determinism.
People with high self-efficacy are more likely to be confident when approaching problems (the behavior), which means they may be more likely to succeed in different situations (the environment).
In situations where someone has low self-efficacy, such as a student in class who lacks faith in their ability to do well, modifying aspects of the environment can be helpful. For example, a teacher who offers additional supportive resources and encouragement can help foster success, which may then improve success and boost a student’s sense of self-efficacy.
Applications for Reciprocal Determinism
Reciprocal determinism isn’t just a theoretical concept—it also has important real-world applications. By understanding the dynamic interplay between the individual, their behavior, and their environment, psychologists are better able to explain and address issues that affect mental well-being.
Examples of how reciprocal determinism can be applied include:
- Understanding drug addiction: This model can help psychologists better understand how the connections between personal characteristics, social environments, and risky behaviors can contribute to substance use and drug addiction. By recognizing the role each factor plays, psychologists can design more effective interventions that address each element that contributes to drug use and addiction.
- Managing mental health: Mental health professionals also utilize reciprocal determinism to understand and treat conditions like anxiety and depression. For example, they might look at how a person with depression (a personal factor) might engage in social withdrawal (a behavior), which leads to social isolation (an environmental factor), which then leads to worsening symptoms of depression. Treatments often focus on breaking this cycle.
- Improving learning: Reciprocal determinism can also be used to understand how student mindset, behavior, and environment interact to affect academic success. Helping students develop a more growth-oriented mindset, for example, may contribute to behaviors like studying that also lead to positive teacher feedback.
What It Means
Bandura’s theory represented an important shift from the behavioral perspective to a more social-cognitive approach to understanding behavior. Remember, the behaviorists suggested that it was the environment that almost entirely shaped individual behavior.
Meanwhile, Bandura recognized the importance of the bidirectional relationship between individuals, their behaviors, and the environment.
This suggests that while people are certainly affected by the things they experience in their environment, they also have the power to exert a change on their situation and circumstances through their own choices and behaviors.
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Additional Reading
Pastorino, Ellen E., and Doyle-Portillo, Susann M. What is Psychology?: Foundations, Applications, and Integration. United States, Cengage Learning, 2018.
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