reciprocal determinism

Meaning: Reciprocal determinism is the central model of Albert Bandura's social cognitive theory. Three components influence one another: personal factors (thoughts, expectations, beliefs such as self-efficacy), behavior (what the person does), and environment (physical setting, other people, social context). Causation runs in loops, not one way, and the three need not be equally strong in a given situation.

On the MCAT: Passages describe a person, a behavior and a setting, and ask which link is shown. Example: a student with high self-efficacy joins a study group (personal → behavior), the group's encouragement raises confidence (environment → personal), and the extra studying changes how the group treats the student (behavior → environment). Expect answer choices that separate bidirectional influence from one-way accounts.

Common confusion: Students treat it as environmental determinism, where the situation shapes behavior in one direction, as in strict behaviorism. Reciprocal determinism adds that behavior changes the environment and that cognition shapes how a person responds to it. Behavior is one of the three components, so a description of only person and environment leaves out part of the model.