Albert Bandura  "Perceptions are guided by preconceptions. Observers' cognitive competencies and perceptual sets dispose them to look for some things but not others. Their expectations not only channel what they look for but partly affect what features they extract from observations and how they interpret what they see and hear." ~ Albert Bandura, 1986, p. 53.

Albert Bandura believed that aggression is learned through a process called behavior modeling. He believed that individuals do not actually inherit violent tendencies, but they modeled them after three principles (Bandura, 1976: p.204). Albert Bandura argued that individuals, especially children learn aggressive reponses from observing others, either personally or through the media and environment. He stated that many individuals believed that aggression will produce reinforcements. These reinforcements can formulate into reduction of tension, gaining financial rewards, or gaining the praise of others, or building self-esteem

By the mid-1980s Bandura had developed a social cognitive theory of human functioning. In this view, people are self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting and self-regulating, not just reactive organisms shaped and shepherded by environmental forces or driven by concealed inner impulses. Human functioning is the product of a dynamic interplay of personal, behavioral, and environmental influences. In this model of triadic reciprocal causation, people are producers as well as products of their environment.

 A further distinctive feature of social cognitive theory that Bandura singles out for special attention is the capacity for self-directedness and forethought. People plan courses of action, anticipate their likely consequences, and set goals and challenges for themselves to motivate, guide and regulate their activities. After adopting personal standards, people regulate their own motivation and behavior by the positive and negative consequences they produce for themselves. They do things that give them satisfaction and a sense of self-worth, and refrain from actions that evoke self-devaluative reactionslarge body of knowledge bearing on this theory.

Self-efficacy is the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the sources of action required to manage perspective situations.