Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura was the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. He was a Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Bandura contributed to many fields of psychology, including social cognitive theory, therapy and personality psychology, and was also influential in the transition between behaviorism and cognitive psychology. He is known as the originator of social learning theory and the theory of self-efficacy, and is also responsible for the influential 1961 Bobo doll experiment that measured aggression in children. A 2002 survey ranked Bandura as the fourth most-frequently cited psychologist of all time, behind B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Piaget, and as the most cited living one. He served as president of the American Psychological Association in 1974-75. Bandura received 18 honorary degrees, including doctorates from the University of Rome, Pennsylvania State University, University of British Columbia, Indiana University, the Free University of Berlin, Leiden University in the Netherlands, SUNY Stony Brook, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, among many others.