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behavior was insufficient. He focused on the inner person, on motives and on character. He sought to
change the total person, not just behavior” (Shields & Bredfeldt, p. 178, 2001).

Reflection: Spend some time thinking about your behavior around others. How do you show others
Jesus? What personality traits do others see in you that are Christ-like? Write a few reflection sentences
here.

This is a lot of information about personality! There are many more theories that have complicated and
interesting beliefs about how our personalities are formed and develop. We are going to look at one
more perspective on personality. This comes from a social-cognitive perspective.
The Social-Cognitive Perspective
In the view of social-cognitive psychologists, what mutual influences shape an individual’s
personality?

The social-cognitive perspective on personality proposed by Albert Bandura focuses on the interaction
of our traits with our situations. Much as nature and nurture always work together, so do individuals
and their situations.

Social-cognitive theorists believe we learn many of our behaviors either through conditioning or by
observing others and modeling our behavior after theirs. (That is the “social” part.) They also emphasize
the importance of mental processes: What we think about our situations affects our
behavior. (That is the “cognitive” part.) Instead of focusing solely on how our environment controls us,
social-cognitive theorists focus on how we and our environment interact: How do we interpret and
respond to external events? How do our minds, our memories, and our expectations influence our
behavior patterns? (Myers, 2009).

Consider three specific ways in which individuals and environments interact:
1. Different people choose different environments.
2. Our personalities shape how we interpret and react to events.
3. Our personalities help create situations to which we react.

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