social cognitive theory and homework

How to Design Homework in CBT That Will Engage Your Clients

Take-home assignments provide the opportunity to transfer different skills and lessons learned in the therapeutic context to situations in which problems arise.

These opportunities to translate learned principles into everyday practice are fundamental for ensuring that therapeutic interventions have their intended effects.

In this article, we’ll explore why homework is so essential to CBT interventions and show you how to design CBT homework using modern technologies that will keep your clients engaged and on track to achieving their therapeutic goals.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive CBT Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will provide you with a detailed insight into positive CBT and give you the tools to apply it in your therapy or coaching.

This Article Contains:

Why is homework important in cbt, how to deliver engaging cbt homework, using quenza for cbt: 3 homework examples, 3 assignment ideas & worksheets in quenza, a take-home message.

Many psychotherapists and researchers agree that homework is the chief process by which clients experience behavioral and cognitive improvements from CBT (Beutler et al., 2004; Kazantzis, Deane, & Ronan, 2000).

We can find explanations as to why CBT homework is so crucial in both behaviorist and social learning/cognitive theories of psychology.

Behaviorist theory

Behaviorist models of psychology, such as classical and operant conditioning , would argue that CBT homework delivers therapeutic outcomes by helping clients to unlearn (or relearn) associations between stimuli and particular behavioral responses (Huppert, Roth Ledley, & Foa, 2006).

For instance, imagine a woman who reacts with severe fright upon hearing a car’s wheels skidding on the road because of her experience being in a car accident. This woman’s therapist might work with her to learn a new, more adaptive response to this stimulus, such as training her to apply new relaxation or breathing techniques in response to the sound of a skidding car.

Another example, drawn from the principles of operant conditioning theory (Staddon & Cerutti, 2003), would be a therapist’s invitation to a client to ‘test’ the utility of different behaviors as avenues for attaining reward or pleasure.

For instance, imagine a client who displays resistance to drawing on their support networks due to a false belief that they should handle everything independently. As homework, this client’s therapist might encourage them to ‘test’ what happens when they ask their partner to help them with a small task around the house.

In sum, CBT homework provides opportunities for clients to experiment with stimuli and responses and the utility of different behaviors in their everyday lives.

Social learning and cognitive theories

Scholars have also drawn on social learning and cognitive theories to understand how clients form expectations about the likely difficulty or discomfort involved in completing CBT homework assignments (Kazantzis & L’Abate, 2005).

A client’s expectations can be based on a range of factors, including past experience, modeling by others, present physiological and emotional states, and encouragement expressed by others (Bandura, 1989). This means it’s important for practitioners to design homework activities that clients perceive as having clear advantages by evidencing these benefits of CBT in advance.

For instance, imagine a client whose therapist tells them about another client’s myriad psychological improvements following their completion of a daily thought record . Identifying with this person, who is of similar age and presents similar psychological challenges, the focal client may subsequently exhibit an increased commitment to completing their own daily thought record as a consequence of vicarious modeling.

This is just one example of how social learning and cognitive theories may explain a client’s commitment to completing CBT homework.

Let’s now consider how we might apply these theoretical principles to design homework that is especially motivating for your clients.

In particular, we’ll be highlighting the advantages of using modern digital technologies to deliver engaging CBT homework.

Designing and delivering CBT homework in Quenza

Gone are the days of grainy printouts and crumpled paper tests.

Even before the global pandemic, new technologies have been making designing and assigning homework increasingly simple and intuitive.

In what follows, we will explore the applications of the blended care platform Quenza (pictured here) as a new and emerging way to engage your CBT clients.

Its users have noted the tool is a “game-changer” that allows practitioners to automate and scale their practice while encouraging full-fledged client engagement using the technologies already in their pocket.

To summarize its functions, Quenza serves as an all-in-one platform that allows psychology practitioners to design and administer a range of ‘activities’ relevant to their clients. Besides homework exercises, this can include self-paced psychoeducational work, assessments, and dynamic visual feedback in the form of charts.

Practitioners who sign onto the platform can enjoy the flexibility of either designing their own activities from scratch or drawing from an ever-growing library of preprogrammed activities commonly used by CBT practitioners worldwide.

Any activity drawn from the library is 100% customizable, allowing the practitioner to tailor it to clients’ specific needs and goals. Likewise, practitioners have complete flexibility to decide the sequencing and scheduling of activities by combining them into psychoeducational pathways that span several days, weeks, or even months.

Importantly, reviews of the platform show that users have seen a marked increase in client engagement since digitizing homework delivery using the platform. If we look to our aforementioned drivers of engagement with CBT homework, we might speculate several reasons why.

Implicit awareness that others are completing the same or similar activities using the platform (and have benefitted from doing so) increases clients’ belief in the efficacy of homework.
Practitioners and clients can track responses to sequences of activities and visually evidence progress and improvements using charts and reporting features.
Using their own familiar devices to engage with homework increases clients’ self-belief that they can successfully complete assigned activities.
Therapists can initiate message conversations with clients in the Quenza app to provide encouragement and positive reinforcement as needed.

The rest of this article will explore examples of engaging homework, assignments, and worksheets designed in Quenza that you might assign to your CBT clients.

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Let’s now look at three examples of predesigned homework activities available through Quenza’s Expansion Library.

Urge Surfing

Many of the problems CBT seeks to address involve changing associations between stimulus and response (Bouton, 1988). In this sense, stimuli in the environment can drive us to experience urges that we have learned to automatically act upon, even when doing so may be undesirable.

For example, a client may have developed the tendency to reach for a glass of wine or engage in risky behaviors, hoping to distract themselves from negative emotions following stressful events.

Using the Urge Surfing homework activity, you can help your clients unlearn this tendency to automatically act upon their urges. Instead, they will discover how to recognize their urges as mere physical sensations in their body that they can ‘ride out’ using a six-minute guided meditation, visual diagram, and reflection exercise.

Moving From Cognitive Fusion to Defusion

Central to CBT is the understanding that how we choose to think stands to improve or worsen our present emotional states. When we get entangled with our negative thoughts about a situation, they can seem like the absolute truth and make coping and problem solving more challenging.

The Moving From Cognitive Fusion to Defusion homework activity invites your client to recognize when they experience a negative thought and explore it in a sequence of steps that help them gain psychological distance from the thought.

Finding Silver Linings

Many clients commencing CBT admit feeling confused or regretful about past events or struggle with self-criticism and blame. In these situations, the focus of CBT may be to work with the client to reappraise an event and have them look at themselves through a kinder lens.

The Finding Silver Linings homework activity is designed to help your clients find the bright side of an otherwise grim situation. It does so by helping the user to step into a positive mindset and reflect on things they feel positively about in their life. Consequently, the activity can help your client build newfound optimism and resilience .

As noted, when you’re preparing homework activities in Quenza, you are not limited to those in the platform’s library.

Instead, you can design your own or adapt existing assignments or worksheets to meet your clients’ needs.

You can also be strategic in how you sequence and schedule activities when combining them into psychoeducational pathways.

Next, we’ll look at three examples of how a practitioner might design or adapt assignments and worksheets in Quenza to help keep them engaged and progressing toward their therapy goals.

In doing so, we’ll look at Quenza’s applications for treating three common foci of treatment: anxiety, depression, and obsessions/compulsions.

When clients present with symptoms of generalized anxiety, panic, or other anxiety-related disorders, a range of useful CBT homework assignments can help.

These activities can include the practice of anxiety management techniques , such as deep breathing, muscle relaxation, and mindfulness training. They can also involve regular monitoring of anxiety levels, challenging automatic thoughts about arousal and panic, and modifying beliefs about the control they have over their symptoms (Leahy, 2005).

Practitioners looking to support these clients using homework might start by sending their clients one or two audio meditations via Quenza, such as the Body Scan Meditation or S.O.B.E.R. Stress Interruption Mediation . That way, the client will have tools on hand to help manage their anxiety in stressful situations.

As a focal assignment, the practitioner might also design and assign the client daily reflection exercises to be completed each evening. These can invite the client to reflect on their anxiety levels during the day by responding to a series of rating scales and open-ended response questions. Patterns in these responses can then be graphed, reviewed, and used to facilitate discussion during the client’s next in-person session.

As with anxiety, there is a range of practical CBT homework activities that aid in treating depression.

It should be noted that it is common for clients experiencing symptoms of depression to report concentration and memory deficits as reasons for not completing homework assignments (Garland & Scott, 2005). It is, therefore, essential to keep this in mind when designing engaging assignments.

CBT assignments targeted at the treatment of depressive symptoms typically center around breaking cycles of negative events, thinking, emotions, and behaviors, such as through the practice of reappraisal (Garland & Scott, 2005).

Examples of assignments that facilitate this may include thought diaries , reflections that prompt cognitive reappraisal, and meditations to create distance between the individual and their negative thoughts and emotions.

To this end, a practitioner looking to support their client might design a sequence of activities that invite clients to explore their negative cognitions once per day. This exploration can center on responses to negative feedback, faced challenges, or general low mood.

A good template to base this on is the Personal Coping Mantra worksheet in Quenza’s Expansion Library, which guides clients through the process of replacing automatic negative thoughts with more adaptive coping thoughts.

The practitioner can also schedule automatic push notification reminders to pop up on the client’s device if an activity in the sequence is not completed by a particular time each day. This function of Quenza may be particularly useful for supporting clients with concentration and memory deficits, helping keep them engaged with CBT homework.

Obsessions/compulsions

Homework assignments pertaining to the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder typically differ depending on the stage of the therapy.

In the early stages of therapy, practitioners assigning homework will often invite clients to self-monitor their experience of compulsions, rituals, or responses (Franklin, Huppert, & Roth Ledley, 2005).

This serves two purposes. First, the information gathered through self-monitoring, such as by completing a journal entry each time compulsive thoughts arise, will help the practitioner get clearer about the nature of the client’s problem.

Second, self-monitoring allows clients to become more aware of the thoughts that drive their ritualized responses, which is important if rituals have become mostly automatic for the client (Franklin et al., 2005).

Therefore, as a focal assignment, the practitioner might assign a digital worksheet via Quenza that helps the client explore phenomena throughout their day that prompt ritualized responses. The client might then rate the intensity of their arousal in these different situations on a series of Likert scales and enter the specific thoughts that arise following exposure to their fear.

The therapist can then invite the client to complete this worksheet each day for one week by assigning it as part of a pathway of activities. A good starting point for users of Quenza may be to adapt the platform’s pre-designed Stress Diary for this purpose.

At the end of the week, the therapist and client can then reflect on the client’s responses together and begin constructing an exposure hierarchy.

This leads us to the second type of assignment, which involves exposure and response prevention. In this phase, the client will begin exploring strategies to reduce the frequency with which they practice ritualized responses (Franklin et al., 2005).

To this end, practitioners may collaboratively set a goal with their client to take a ‘first step’ toward unlearning the ritualized response. This can then be built into a customized activity in Quenza that invites the client to complete a reflection.

For instance, a client who compulsively hoards may be invited to clear one box of old belongings from their bedroom and resist the temptation to engage in ritualized responses while doing so.

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Developing and administering engaging CBT homework that caters to your client’s specific needs or concerns is becoming so much easier with online apps.

Further, best practice is becoming more accessible to more practitioners thanks to the emergence of new digital technologies.

We hope this article has inspired you to consider how you might leverage the digital tools at your disposal to create better homework that your clients want to engage with.

Likewise, let us know if you’ve found success using any of the activities we’ve explored with your own clients – we’d love to hear from you.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. For more information, don’t forget to download our three Positive CBT Exercises for free .

Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American Psychologist , 44 (9), 1175–1184.
Beutler, L. E., Malik, M., Alimohamed, S., Harwood, T. M., Talebi, H., Noble, S., & Wong, E. (2004). Therapist variables. In M. J. Lambert (Ed.), Bergin and Garfield’s handbook of psychotherapy and behavior change (5th ed.) (pp. 227–306). Wiley.
Bouton, M. E. (1988). Context and ambiguity in the extinction of emotional learning: Implications for exposure therapy. Behaviour Research and Therapy , 26 (2), 137–149.
Franklin, M. E., Huppert, J. D., & Roth Ledley, D. (2005). Obsessions and compulsions. In N. Kazantzis, F. P. Deane, K. R., Ronan, & L. L’Abate (Eds.), Using homework assignments in cognitive behavior therapy (pp. 219–236). Routledge.
Garland, A., & Scott, J. (2005). Depression. In N. Kazantzis, F. P. Deane, K. R., Ronan, & L. L’Abate (Eds.), Using homework assignments in cognitive behavior therapy (pp. 237–261). Routledge.
Huppert, J. D., Roth Ledley, D., & Foa, E. B. (2006). The use of homework in behavior therapy for anxiety disorders. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration , 16 (2), 128–139.
Kazantzis, N. (2005). Introduction and overview. In N. Kazantzis, F. P. Deane, K. R., Ronan, & L. L’Abate (Eds.), Using homework assignments in cognitive behavior therapy (pp. 1–6). Routledge.
Kazantzis, N., Deane, F. P., & Ronan, K. R. (2000). Homework assignments in cognitive and behavioral therapy: A meta‐analysis. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice , 7 (2), 189–202.
Kazantzis, N., & L’Abate, L. (2005). Theoretical foundations. In N. Kazantzis, F. P. Deane, K. R., Ronan, & L. L’Abate (Eds.), Using homework assignments in cognitive behavior therapy (pp. 9–34). Routledge.
Leahy, R. L. (2005). Panic, agoraphobia, and generalized anxiety. In N. Kazantzis, F. P. Deane, K. R., Ronan, & L. L’Abate (Eds.), Using homework assignments in cognitive behavior therapy (pp. 193–218). Routledge.
Staddon, J. E., & Cerutti, D. T. (2003). Operant conditioning. Annual Review of Psychology , 54 (1), 115–144.

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Article contents

Cognition and social cognitive theory.

Paula S. Nurius Paula S. Nurius School of Social Work, University of Washington
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.65
Published online: 11 June 2013
This version: 13 August 2013
Previous version

Social cognition refers to the ways in which people “make sense” of themselves, other people, and the world around them. Building on social psychological contributions, this entry summarizes processes through which we perceive, interpret, remember, and apply information in our efforts to render meaning and to interact. Rather than a rationalistic depiction, we see complex relationships among cognitions, emotions, motivations, and contexts. Social cognition provides guidance to mechanisms or venues through which personal and environmental transactions related to meaning take specific form, thereby offering crucial insights into adaptive or maladaptive development as well as change strategies.

A principal benefit of social cognition for social work practice is its empirically supported and broadly applicable framework for explaining how person–environment interactions unfold and might be altered in the service of social work practice and social justice. Social cognition includes, for example, social knowledge, social influences, the relationship between social structures and categories (age, race, and sex) in constructing meaning, stereotyping and other biases in information processing, dynamic processes through which memories get stored, recall, and revised, attributions of others' behavior and motives and of one's own responses and internal states, identity development, and processes through which affect, cognition, and neurophysiology interrelate as people interact with their social environments.

social cognition
information processing

Updated in this version

Bibliography expanded and updated to reflect recent research.

Key Concepts and Processes of Social Cognition

Social cognition refers to the processes through which people perceive, interpret, remember, and apply information about themselves and the social world. These processes are often relatively automatic in nature and therefore not fully within conscious awareness. Meaning making involves complex transactions between individuals and their environment. Each of us is an active, but not the sole, participant in creating the meaning of our lives. The meanings we assign cannot be independent of the linguistic categories, rules, values, goals, and structures of our culture. The families, communities, and opportunity structures we are born into and grow up in provide a foundation of memories and norms that we use to shape and understand the ongoing flow of information and experience. Moreover, social cognition views people not only as products of their environments but also as forces that shape the construction of those environments. This focus on the person–environment interplay makes social cognitive theory particularly useful for social work.

Social cognition extends social learning theory, adding the understanding that input from the environment is mediated or filtered. We are continuously bombarded with far more information than we can possibly handle. Moreover, much of this information is complex, ambiguous, and emotionally evocative. To avoid a paralyzing overload and to allow functional navigation through our social world, we must rely on numerous shortcuts or aids to screen, sort, interpret, manage, store, and recall information that seems relevant. Research on how the brain interacts with our sensory–perceptual system and long- and short-term memory provides the basis for specifying “information processing”; that is, the mechanisms through which people go about selectively attending to, interpreting, and evaluating environmental inputs. Broad commonalities in the neurological and physiological functions of social cognition exist, indicating consistency across people at the process level. However, the content within these processes can be highly variable, reflecting the diversity of persons and the environments within which they are embedded.

Schemas are the cognitive structures or memory representations that contain our experiences and learning, for example, about ourselves, other people, attitudes, social roles, norms, and events. In our ongoing effort to form meaning, we draw on our knowledge of past situations to guide us in what to pay attention to, what interpretations to make, and how to respond. Findings from each new experience then become recorded as updates to our existing network of schemas. Language, culture, and structure play pivotal roles in the development, communication, and enactment of schemas (Hannover & Kuhnen, 2009 ; Lau, Lee, & Chiu, 2004 ).

Schemas are critically important in providing the preconceptions that make information processing more rapid, efficient, and often automatic. They are used to fill in gaps when information is missing and in interpreting new experiences (Swann & Bosson, 2010 ). Thus, schemas provide relief from the processing burden of treating each situation as new and all stimuli as requiring careful and deliberate attention, but in so doing they exact a price. Schemas incline us to confirm our understanding of reality, to be highly biased toward information that fits our expectations, to overlook or discount confusing or contradictory information, and to rely on relatively stereotypic images and habitual modes of social interaction. Depending on the particular circumstances, this tendency toward simplicity and stability can work as an asset or a liability. It can, for example, contribute to the tenacity with which both the well-adjusted, optimistic person and the clinically depressed person seek out, find, and build on expectation-confirming input from their experiences and their environment. That is, expectancies tend to bias information processing to reinforce, rather than challenge, extant schemas.

Schemas do not simply reside in memory as isolated bits of stored information. Rather, they are part of a memory structure that organizes concepts into hierarchical clusters and networks of related knowledge. “Nodes” of schematic knowledge linked to one another form networks of ideas; and when nodes are activated, they enter consciousness (short-term or working memory) and thereby play an active role in shaping current information processing, affective states, and action readiness. Nodes may also have a deactivation capacity that mutes access to discrepant forms of stored knowledge. Although there are several models of memory functioning (for overview, see Morris, Hitch, Graham, & Bussey, 2006 ), social cognition theories have been influenced by the view that schemas and connecting linkages among nodes are strengthened by repeated activation. Thus, once we come to think of certain attributes as meaningfully related (as with stereotypes), it is very difficult not to think in terms of these clusters. When we are experiencing a certain emotional or physiological feeling, we are predisposed to think about and retrieve information consistent with that feeling rather than information that is contradictory to it.

Heuristics and Social Inference

Social inferences involve processes through which people arrive at judgments or decisions about social phenomena. Social inferences take many forms, for example, attributions about intentions and causal forces, perceptions about associations, and how things go together or function. We focus here on one form of social inferences—heuristics—to illustrate this. Because we cannot constantly gather all possible data and consider all possibilities of meaning and response, we rely on heuristics, basically “rules of thumb,” when reasoning under uncertainty or to reduce complex problem solving to seemingly simpler judgments (Fiske, Gilbert, & Lindzey, 2010 , and Kunda, 1999 , provide fuller coverage of various aspects of social inference).

Like schemas, heuristics are double edged. These thinking processes are quick, automatic (involving little or no active awareness), and essential to navigating our complex social landscapes. Whereas they can be reasonably accurate, they are also highly vulnerable to biases and, not uncommonly, errors. Consider how the following examples of common inferential strategies may function in positive or negative ways: (1) basing inferences and judgments on how easily and quickly information comes to mind; (2) categorizing people or events on the basis of how much these resemble the observer's preexisting notions––their schemas––of types of people and events; (3) predicting the likely outcome of a situation based on how easily a given outcome can be envisioned and the emotional intensity of that outcome; (4) attributing people's behavior to their individual characteristics such as personality traits, rather than to external factors; and (5) anticipating a relationship between two variables, leading one to overestimate the degree of relationship or to impose a nonexistent one. Now consider that normative biases in information processing affect us all, including social workers in their professional roles. Growing awareness of naturally occurring vulnerabilities such as these is shaping attention in arenas such as clinical reasoning and contextualized assessment to include social cognitive theory as part of professional skill development.

Conscious and Automatic Modes of Information Processing

In some situations, such as a new environment, we are more aware of our thinking and reactions as we carefully observe our surroundings and monitor ourselves. However, most of the time people are unaware of their own cognitive processes. Treating most stimuli in a more automatic, efficient, and familiar manner allows us to function without becoming overwhelmed by the enormity of information available in the environment. Part of what accounts for this relative lack of awareness are the differing modes through which memory and information processing function. These are distinguishable as conscious or unconscious modes, which roughly denote controlled or controllable versus more automatic processing (Morris, Uleman, & Bargh, 2005 ). Although essential, being on “autopilot” (automatic processing) entails a degree of insensitivity to the environment, a heavy reliance on past constructs stored in memory, and thus a lesser likelihood of making cognitive distinctions and generating creative responses. Study of these “implicit” (automatic, unconscious) processes in social cognition is rapidly developing nuanced distinctions, assessment tools, and applications across a range of practical applications, such as consumer psychology, forensics, political and social justice–related psychology, health processes and practices, and prejudice and stereotyping, as well as clinical applications (Gawronski & Payne, 2010 ).

Social work practice often involves helping clients interrupt prior habits to build new ones by shifting from unhelpful and problematic, more automatic modes of processing (associated with the problem) to more deliberate, adaptive, yet awkward-feeling controlled modes (associated with the new patterns) to more natural-feeling, new, automatic modes (associated with incorporation of new patterns into one's self-concept and social niche). As an aid to interrupting problematic patterns and substituting preferred ones, cognitively oriented practice methods involve fostering metacognitive awareness to assist clients in gaining more mindful awareness of their information processing habits (for example, what inferences are made of others' expressions or behaviors and which self-defining schemas tend to be activated under trigger situations).

Knowing More Than We Can Use

Study of human memory currently argues for the concept of multiple, interdependent memory systems that are distributed in various regions of the brain. Long-term memory is generally thought to include storage of distinct forms of memory, for example, memory for events we experience, recognition of information we have been exposed to, semantic information about concepts and the meaning of words, sensorimotor skills achieved through practice, and value or emotional memory (Morris et al., 2006 ). Working memory refers to the system through which limited amounts of retrieved information are held in an active, conscious state. It is a critical factor in that, although we may have certain knowledge or skills in memory storage, the subset that is pulled into working memory most powerfully shapes our perceptions, interpretations, decisions, and actions in that moment. Patterns of memory activation are a two-way street. Our contemporaneous state of mind (expectancies, goals, feelings) influences both how we encode present events for storage and what we recruit into working memory. Anxiety, for example, favors retrieval of anxiety-congruent schemas and inhibits access to anxiety-incongruent content. Thus, it is not enough to assist people in developing new knowledge or skills. If memory retrieval patterns are inconsistent with these changes, those new representations are unlikely to successfully compete with more long-standing, deeply networked schemas. These existing schemas are the basis for cognitive change strategies that work to first illuminate and then progressively revise memory retrieval, such that working memory is purposefully steered to activate the kind of representations from long-term storage most needed at the moment (see Young, Klosko, & Weishaar, 2003 ).

The Self: Situated, Transactional, and Possible

The self holds a privileged status in information processing in that information that is irrelevant to the self is less likely to be noticed, scrutinized, assimilated, or used to guide social functioning (see Leary & Tangney, 2012 for an extensive coverage of self and identity). Yet self-defining information is subject to the same memory and inference processes described thus far. For example, although we have enduring beliefs about ourselves, we do not have “a” self-concept so much as we have context-sensitive working self-concepts. That is, different representations of self are more or less likely to be activated and pulled into working memory at any given moment. Variability in this continually shifting subset of self-knowledge is part of why we can view and experience ourselves quite differently, depending on the context; for example, myself playing with my young child versus making a formal professional presentation, or winning an award versus receiving sharp criticism. The situational variability in the self-concept is important because it influences social functioning, often in ways not immediately evident to the individual. Social perceptions of others, as well as appraisals of self-worth and self-efficacy, reflect currently active self-schemas.

Recent formulations go a step further, arguing that we must look to the transactional dynamics of people and their environments to discern stable, self-defining patterns. That is, people have stability within what is psychologically salient for them in particular contexts, but the characteristics of this stability may differ as the context changes (which may differ from the seemingly distinct features of those contexts). Differing contextual features activate distinctive networks of mental-emotional representations. Thus, stability in what we might call identity or personality must include situations and the if-then (situation-behavior) signatures that emerge from these transactions—a position quite at contrast with earlier, more person-focused views (Mischel & Shoda, 2008 ). The situated functioning and responsiveness of the self-concept move important assessment considerations away from global or trait-like conceptions to a contextually embedded approach to the “working self,” which tends to vary due to experience, the situation, or the events a person is facing (Nurius & Macy, 2012 ; Shoda & Smith, 2004 ).

We have also learned that the self-concept is not a catalogue of what “is” but rather contains a variety of self-perspectives. For example, in addition to our perceived actual selves, we maintain concepts of ideal and ought selves—conceptions against which we measure ourselves and grapple with discrepancies (Higgins, 1998 ). Self-conceptions bridge time and carry powerful influence; for example, the ways in which feared past selves and hoped-for future selves galvanize—positively or negatively—our attention and action. Cognitive representations of our future or possible selves, including goals, plans, aspirations, and fears, are often not well recognized by us but may be wielding substantial influence (Dunkel & Kerpelman, 2006 ; Oyserman & James, 2011 ). As reflections of social contexts and transactions, self-schemas developed in response to adversity, such as trauma and illness, and social injustices such as poverty and discrimination are not immutable, but they do manifest a kind of neural and psychophysiological embodiment of these formative factors.

Hot Cognitions and Interfaces With Emotions

Social cognition theory offers useful input for questions critical to practice such as where feeling states “come from,” what factors generate these feeling responses, and how any given feeling is expected to positively or negatively influence a client's functioning. Social cognition addresses how individuals interpret the stimulus they are responding to (like a facial expression) as well as their own physiological state (heart beating quickly, skin temperature rising) and then, based on the meaning that they give to these phenomena, assign an emotion label to themselves (“I am feeling very anxious”). An underlying premise is that although physiological arousal may occur with little or no cognitive involvement, emotions require a more active role by the individual in assigning personal meaning—which can lead to different emotional reactions to the same phenomena.

Evidence indicates that a closely interactive relationship between affective states and information strategies is central to understanding how emotion influences and is influenced by thinking, judgments, and behavior (Forgas & Smith, 2003 ). In addition to effects on what people think, affect also shapes how they think. For example, a positive mood facilitates more automatic but efficient, flexible, and confident information processing, whereas a negative mood triggers more deliberate, externally vigilant, and at times, ruminative processing style. Indeed, affective states have been found to have a broad-based effect on the ways that people interpret, evaluate, and respond to social information, such as learning, attention, recall, attributions, judgments, attitudes, self-perception, action readiness, and interpersonal behavior (Forgas, 2008 ). The term “hot cognition” conveys the many ways in which judgments, decisions, and so forth are often less coolly rational than “heated” by our motivations and emotions, and this heat is carried through our social cognitive processing.

Some emotion-related research has examined the process of interpretation in terms of cognitive appraisals, based on a view that appraisals serve an important mediational role in linking an individual's goals and beliefs with situational cognitive interpretations and emotional responses. This research is particularly relevant for social work practice because of its application to questions of coping under ambiguous and stressful conditions and how cognitive interpretations and emotional responses set the stage for subsequent action that may or may not result in effective coping outcomes (Nurius, 2000 ). Lazarus's ( 1991 ) model, for example, suggests that appraisals made of threatening circumstances yield distinct emotion sets which, in turn, predispose the individual to action proclivities (Roseman & Smith, 2001 ). To illustrate, a problematic situation appraised to be one's own fault is likely to stimulate guilt or shame and acquiescence or avoidance, but when others are seen to be accountable, it is likely to stimulate anger or indignation, fostering efforts toward punishment. Although much of emotional and appraisal processing is believed to occur automatically and outside fully conscious awareness, these processes can be brought under more deliberative focal attention to allow for more thorough analysis and reappraisal (Leahy, Tirch, & Napolitano, 2011 ). Importantly, knowledge about mechanisms linking emotions to both consciousness and unconsciousness is rapidly advancing in social cognition, informing specification as to the embodiment of emotional knowledge, the neural basis of interactions between emotion and cognition, and the ways that nonconscious emotional processes function (Barrett, Niedenthal, & Winkelman, 2005 ).

Social Cognitive Neuroscience

Integration of neuroscience in the study of relationships among the cognitive, affective, and neurophysiological dimensions of people interacting with the social environment has become increasingly sophisticated and has yielded compelling new insights. Ochsner and Lieberman ( 2001 ) note, for example, how neural systems mediate cognitive interactions of social psychological phenomena, relationships between impaired social cognitive capacities in producing disabilities such as autism, and the neural basis for a range of processes such as stereotyping, attitudes, and person perception (see also Lieberman, 2010 ; Striano & Reid, 2009 ). Especially promising are advances in illuminating the mechanisms undergirding relatively automatic, nonconscious processing, for example, in spontaneous social inferences (Todorov, Fiske, & Prentice, 2011 ) and in distilling how varied dimensions of social context are represented in the brain and exert influence over social judgments and action (Beer & Ochsner, 2006 ). Social cognitive neuroscience also offers a multilevel framework for specifying linkages between social and structural factors to patterns of construal and psychophysiological responding, yielding either resilient or compromised health statuses. Gaining a more precise, nuanced understanding of how to augment control over maladaptive patterns at these levels of processing may provide important new assessment and intervention options to the social work practitioner.

Part of the value of social cognition theory is its usefulness in connecting knowledge about human behavior in the social environment (under mundane as well as exceptional circumstances) with theory and strategies for personal change. Many problems in life are at least partly the result of the same processes that explain normal, adaptive patterns of functioning. The content of the predominant self- and social schemas for the depressed person and the happy person are likely to be substantially different. But the functional effects of their schemas, their patterned ways of drawing on their self- and social knowledge as they interact in differing contexts, and their role in shaping their and other's behavior stem from the same social cognitive processes. Social cognition is a body of theorizing and research that underlies models of learning and social communication, approaches to health promotion such as the health beliefs model, understandings of stress and coping, and some of the most widely used treatment strategies today, such as self-efficacy and collective efficacy interventions, cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapies, schema therapy, emotion management, and self-regulation strategies.

Future trends in social cognition research will include an increasing focus on naturalistic settings and questions of real-world concern. Complex questions of interest to social work—such as the development of human aggression, the social cognition of group and cultural dynamics, and the effects of information processing systems in mediating social conditions—are now at the forefront of investigation (Anderson & Huesman, 2003 ; Kitayama & Cohen, 2007 ; Shoda, 2004 ). Social cognition work is becoming increasingly multilevel, striving to capture processes of transaction between individual and social forces as well as dimensions such as the built environment and links between biological systems and social behavior. Examples of developing areas include the science of social identities and social influence, intergroup relations, the roles of history and culture in shaping social cognition, and how emotion and physiology affect social thinking and behavior. The future provides opportunity for social work to test the usefulness of findings in practice, to press for extension into heretofore neglected areas, and to actively participate in the generation and application of social cognition work in the service of social welfare.

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3 Social Cognitive Theory

At the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

Identify key elements of social cognitive theory
Explain strategies utilized to implement social cognitive theory
Summarize the criticisms of social cognitive theory and educational implications
Explain how equity is impacted by social cognitive theory
Identify classroom strategies to support the use of social cognitive theory
Select strategies to support student success utilizing social cognitive theory
Develop a plan to implement the use of social cognitive theory

SCENARIO: Yesterday, Ms Mitchell felt exhausted at the end of the school day so today she was going to try something new. In her science class, the students could not seem to follow the neatly printed directions on the white board, nor did the color-coordinated handouts seem to make any difference. She had run around the room trying to respond to the different groups attempting the science project but there was a great deal of confusion. It was one of those days where she questioned her career choice- was she really cut out to be a teacher? After a good night’s sleep and coaching from a colleague, Ms. Mitchell was determined to try a different approach and model every step of the process. After she modeled each section, students seemed to get it quickly. Following some verbal encouragement from Ms. Mitchell, there was soon a happy buzz in the classroom as students engaged with each other in the steps of the science project. Ms. Mitchell was even able to rest her feet, drink her herbal tea and consider what a difference these simple strategies made.

What changes did Ms. Mitchell make? How did modeling the activity change the end result and facilitate their learning? How did her positive remarks reinforce their confidence with the tasks? How did group work also build engagement? As you read through this chapter, consider the power of observation and how learning occurs in a social context with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person, environment, and behavior.

Video 3.1 – Social Cognitive Theory

Introduction.

Albert Bandura (1925-2021) was born in Mundare, Alberta, Canada, the youngest of six children. Both of his parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe. Bandura’s father worked as a track layer for the Trans-Canada railroad while his mother worked in a general store before they were able to buy some land and become farmers. Though times were often hard growing up, Bandura’s parents placed great emphasis on celebrating life and more importantly family. They were also very keen on their children doing well in school. Mundare had only one school at the time so Bandura did all of his schooling in one place.

Bandura attended the University of British Columbia and graduated three years later in 1949 with the Bolocan Award in psychology. Bandura then went to the University of Iowa to complete his graduate work. At the time, the University of Iowa was central to psychological study, especially in the area of social learning theory. By 1952, Bandura completed his Master’s and Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Bandura worked at the Wichita Guidance Center before accepting a position as a faculty member at Stanford University in 1953. Bandura has studied many different topics over the years, including aggression in adolescents (more specifically he was interested in aggression in boys who came from intact middle-class families), children’s abilities to self-regulate and self-reflect, and of course self-efficacy (a person’s perception and beliefs about their ability to produce effects, or influence events that concern their lives).

Bandura is perhaps most famous for his Bobo Doll experiments in the 1960s. At the time there was a popular belief that learning was a result of reinforcement. In the Bobo Doll experiments, Bandura presented children with social models of novel (new) violent behavior or non-violent behavior towards the inflatable rebounding Bobo Doll.

As children continue through adolescence toward adulthood, they need to assume responsibility for themselves in all aspects of life. They must master many new skills, and a sense of confidence in working toward the future is dependent on a developing sense of self-efficacy supported by past experiences of mastery. In adulthood, a healthy and realistic sense of self-efficacy provides the motivation necessary to pursue success in one’s life.

In summary, as we learn more about our world and how it works, we also learn that we can have a significant impact on it. Most importantly, we can have a direct effect on our immediate personal environment, especially with regard to personal relationships, behaviors, and goals. What motivates us to try influencing our environment is specific ways in which we believe, indeed, we can make a difference in a direction we want in life. Thus, research has focused largely on what people think about their efficacy, rather than on their actual ability to achieve their goals (Bandura, 1997).

Impact of Social Cognitive Theory

Bandura is still influencing the world with expansions of Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). SCT has been applied to many areas of human functioning such as career choice and organizational behavior as well as in understanding classroom motivation, learning, and achievement (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). Bandura (2001) brought SCT to mass communication in his journal article that stated the theory could be used to analyze how “symbolic communication influences human thought, affect and action” (p. 3). The theory shows how new behavior diffuses through society by psychosocial factors governing acquisition and adoption of the behavior. Bandura’s (2011) book chapter “The Social and Policy Impact of Social Cognitive Theory” to extend SCT’s application in health promotion and urgent global issues, which provides insight into addressing global problems through a macro social lens, aiming at improving equality of individuals’ lives under the umbrellas of SCT. This work focuses on how SCT impacts areas of both health and population effects in relation to climate change. He proposes that these problems could be solved through television serial dramas that show models similar to viewers performing the desired behavior.

Bandura (2011) states population growth is a global crisis because of its correlation with depletion and degradation of our planet’s resources. Bandura argues that SCT should be used to get people to use birth control, reduce gender inequality through education, and to model environmental conservation to improve the state of the planet. Green and Peil (2009) reported he has tried to use cognitive theory to solve a number of global problems such as environmental conservation, poverty, soaring population growth, etc.

Criticism of Social Cognitive Theory

The social cognitive theory is that it is not a unified theory. This means that the different aspects of the theory may not be connected. For example, researchers currently cannot find a connection between observational learning and self-efficacy within the social-cognitive perspective.
The theory is so broad that not all of its component parts are fully understood and integrated into a single explanation of learning. The findings associated with this theory are still, for the most part, preliminary.
The theory is limited in that not all social learning can be directly observed. Because of this, it can be difficult to quantify the effect that social cognition has on development.
Finally, this theory tends to ignore maturation throughout the lifespan. Because of this, the understanding of how a child learns through observation and how an adult learns through observation are not differentiated, and factors of development are not included.

Image 3.7

Educational implications of social cognitive theory.

An important assumption of Social Cognitive Theory is that personal determinants, such as self-reflection and self-regulation, do not have to reside unconsciously within individuals . People can consciously change and develop their cognitive functioning. This is important to the proposition that self-efficacy too can be changed, or enhanced. From this perspective, people are capable of influencing their own motivation and performance according to the model of triadic reciprocality in which personal determinants (such as self-efficacy), environmental conditions (such as treatment conditions), and action (such as practice) are mutually interactive influences. Improving performance, therefore, depends on changing some of these influences.

Relevancy to the classroom:

In teaching and learning, the challenge upfront is to:

Get the learner to believe in his or her personal capabilities to successfully perform a designated task.
Provide environmental conditions, such as instructional strategies and appropriate technology, that improve the strategies and self-efficacy of the learner.
Provide opportunities for the learner to experience successful learning as a result of appropriate action (Self-efficacy Theory, n.d.).

Shen Decan 2 &
Zhang Kan 3

Social Cognitive Theory is a social psychological theory that aims to reveal how individuals’ internal knowledge structure and belief system explain and give meaning to social objects and their interrelationships. According to Gestalt psychology, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Therefore, an understanding of the whole requires a top-down analysis from the overall structure to the characteristics of every part. In the 1930s and 1940s, Kurt Lewin broke new ground in the study of Gestalt psychology by founding topological psychology that focuses on the study of will and need. He proposed an equation for behavior, B = f ( P, E ), emphasizing that behavior ( B ) is a function of two factors: the person ( P ) and their environment ( E ). That is to say, behavior changes with the change of person and social environment. Lewin’s contemporaries, such as Fritz Heider, Muzafer Sherif, Solomon Asch, and Theodore Newcomb, also made great progress in studying cognitive balance, formation of...

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Decan, S., Kan, Z. (2024). Social Cognitive Theory. In: The ECPH Encyclopedia of Psychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6000-2_826-1

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Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory

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Key Takeaways

Social cognitive theory emphasizes the learning that occurs within a social context. In this view, people are active agents who can both influence and are influenced by their environment.
The theory was founded most prominently by Albert Bandura, who is also known for his work on observational learning, self-efficacy, and reciprocal determinism.
One assumption of social learning is that we learn new behaviors by observing the behavior of others and the consequences of their behavior.
If the behavior is rewarded (positive or negative reinforcement), we are likely to imitate it; however, if the behavior is punished, imitation is less likely. For example, in Bandura and Walters’ experiment, the children imitated more the aggressive behavior of the model who was praised for being aggressive to the Bobo doll.
Social cognitive theory has been used to explain a wide range of human behavior, ranging from positive to negative social behaviors such as aggression, substance abuse, and mental health problems.

How We Learn From the Behavior of Others

Social cognitive theory views people as active agents who can both influence and are influenced by their environment.

The theory is an extension of social learning that includes the effects of cognitive processes — such as conceptions, judgment, and motivation — on an individual’s behavior and on the environment that influences them.

Rather than passively absorbing knowledge from environmental inputs, social cognitive theory argues that people actively influence their learning by interpreting the outcomes of their actions, which, in turn, affects their environments and personal factors, informing and altering subsequent behavior (Schunk, 2012).

By including thought processes in human psychology, social cognitive theory is able to avoid the assumption made by radical behaviorism that all human behavior is learned through trial and error. Instead, Bandura highlights the role of observational learning and imitation in human behavior.

Numerous psychologists, such as Julian Rotter and the American personality psychologist Walter Mischel, have proposed different social-cognitive perspectives.

Albert Bandura (1989) introduced the most prominent perspective on social cognitive theory.

Bandura’s perspective has been applied to a wide range of topics, such as personality development and functioning, the understanding and treatment of psychological disorders, organizational training programs, education, health promotion strategies, advertising and marketing, and more.

The central tenet of Bandura’s social-cognitive theory is that people seek to develop a sense of agency and exert control over the important events in their lives.

This sense of agency and control is affected by factors such as self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals, and self-evaluation (Schunk, 2012).

Origins: The Bobo Doll Experiments

Social cognitive theory can trace its origins to Bandura and his colleagues, in particular, a series of well-known studies on observational learning known as the Bobo Doll experiments .

In these experiments, researchers exposed young, preschool-aged children to videos of an adult acting violently toward a large, inflatable doll.

This aggressive behavior included verbal insults and physical violence, such as slapping and punching. At the end of the video, the children either witnessed the aggressor being rewarded, or punished or received no consequences for his behavior (Schunk, 2012).

After being exposed to this model, the children were placed in a room where they were given the same inflatable Bobo doll.

The researchers found that those who had watched the model either received positive reinforcement or no consequences for attacking the doll were more likely to show aggressive behavior toward the doll (Schunk, 2012).

This experiment was notable for being one that introduced the concept of observational learning to humans.

Bandura’s ideas about observational learning were in stark contrast to those of previous behaviorists, such as B.F. Skinner.

According to Skinner (1950), learning can only be achieved through individual action.

However, Bandura claimed that people and animals can also learn by watching and imitating the models they encounter in their environment, enabling them to acquire information more quickly.

Observational Learning

Bandura agreed with the behaviorists that behavior is learned through experience. However, he proposed a different mechanism than conditioning.

He argued that we learn through observation and imitation of others’ behavior.

This theory focuses not only on the behavior itself but also on the mental processes involved in learning, so it is not a pure behaviorist theory.

Social Learning Theory Bandura four stages mediation process in social learning theory attention retention motor reproduction motivation in diagram flat style.

Stages of the Social Learning Theory (SLT)

Not all observed behaviors are learned effectively. There are several factors involving both the model and the observer that determine whether or not a behavior is learned. These include attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation (Bandura & Walters, 1963).

The individual needs to pay attention to the behavior and its consequences and form a mental representation of the behavior. Some of the things that influence attention involve characteristics of the model.

This means that the model must be salient or noticeable. If the model is attractive, prestigious, or appears to be particularly competent, you will pay more attention. And if the model seems more like yourself, you pay more attention.

Storing the observed behavior in LTM where it can stay for a long period of time. Imitation is not always immediate. This process is often mediated by symbols. Symbols are “anything that stands for something else” (Bandura, 1998).

They can be words, pictures, or even gestures. For symbols to be effective, they must be related to the behavior being learned and must be understood by the observer.

Motor Reproduction

The individual must be able (have the ability and skills) to physically reproduce the observed behavior. This means that the behavior must be within their capability. If it is not, they will not be able to learn it (Bandura, 1998).

The observer must be motivated to perform the behavior. This motivation can come from a variety of sources, such as a desire to achieve a goal or avoid punishment.

Bandura (1977) proposed that motivation has three main components: expectancy, value, and affective reaction. Firstly, expectancy refers to the belief that one can successfully perform the behavior. Secondly, value refers to the importance of the goal that the behavior is meant to achieve.

The last of these, Affective reaction, refers to the emotions associated with the behavior.

If behavior is associated with positive emotions, it is more likely to be learned than a behavior associated with negative emotions. Reinforcement and punishment each play an important role in motivation.

Individuals must expect to receive the same positive reinforcement (vicarious reinforcement) for imitating the observed behavior that they have seen the model receiving.

Imitation is more likely to occur if the model (the person who performs the behavior) is positively reinforced. This is called vicarious reinforcement.

Imitation is also more likely if we identify with the model. We see them as sharing some characteristics with us, i.e., similar age, gender, and social status, as we identify with them.

Features of Social Cognitive Theory

The goal of social cognitive theory is to explain how people regulate their behavior through control and reinforcement in order to achieve goal-directed behavior that can be maintained over time.

Bandura, in his original formulation of the related social learning theory, included five constructs, adding self-efficacy to his final social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986).

Reciprocal Determinism

Reciprocal determinism is the central concept of social cognitive theory and refers to the dynamic and reciprocal interaction of people — individuals with a set of learned experiences — the environment, external social context, and behavior — the response to stimuli to achieve goals.

Its main tenet is that people seek to develop a sense of agency and exert control over the important events in their lives.

This sense of agency and control is affected by factors such as self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals, and self-evaluation (Bandura, 1989).

To illustrate the concept of reciprocal determinism, Consider A student who believes they have the ability to succeed on an exam (self-efficacy) is more likely to put forth the necessary effort to study (behavior).

If they do not believe they can pass the exam, they are less likely to study. As a result, their beliefs about their abilities (self-efficacy) will be affirmed or disconfirmed by their actual performance on the exam (outcome).

This, in turn, will affect future beliefs and behavior. If the student passes the exam, they are likely to believe they can do well on future exams and put forth the effort to study.

If they fail, they may doubt their abilities (Bandura, 1989).

Behavioral Capability

Behavioral capability, meanwhile, refers to a person’s ability to perform a behavior by means of using their own knowledge and skills.

That is to say, in order to carry out any behavior, a person must know what to do and how to do it. People learn from the consequences of their behavior, further affecting the environment in which they live (Bandura, 1989).

Reinforcements

Reinforcements refer to the internal or external responses to a person’s behavior that affect the likelihood of continuing or discontinuing the behavior.

These reinforcements can be self-initiated or in one’s environment either positive or negative. Positive reinforcements increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated, while negative reinforcers decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.

Reinforcements can also be either direct or indirect. Direct reinforcements are an immediate consequence of a behavior that affects its likelihood, such as getting a paycheck for working (positive reinforcement).

Indirect reinforcements are not immediate consequences of behavior but may affect its likelihood in the future, such as studying hard in school to get into a good college (positive reinforcement) (Bandura, 1989).

Expectations

Expectations, meanwhile, refer to the anticipated consequences that a person has of their behavior.

Outcome expectations, for example, could relate to the consequences that someone foresees an action having on their health.

As people anticipate the consequences of their actions before engaging in a behavior, these expectations can influence whether or not someone completes the behavior successfully (Bandura, 1989).

Expectations largely come from someone’s previous experience. Nonetheless, expectancies also focus on the value that is placed on the outcome, something that is subjective from individual to individual.

For example, a student who may not be motivated to achieve high grades may place a lower value on taking the steps necessary to achieve them than someone who strives to be a high performer.

Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy refers to the level of a person’s confidence in their ability to successfully perform a behavior.

Self-efficacy is influenced by a person’s own capabilities as well as other individual and environmental factors.

These factors are called barriers and facilitators (Bandura, 1989). Self-efficacy is often said to be task-specific, meaning that people can feel confident in their ability to perform one task but not another.

For example, a student may feel confident in their ability to do well on an exam but not feel as confident in their ability to make friends.

This is because self-efficacy is based on past experience and beliefs. If a student has never made friends before, they are less likely to believe that they will do so in the future.

Modeling Media and Social Cognitive Theory

Learning would be both laborious and hazardous in a world that relied exclusively on direct experience.

Social modeling provides a way for people to observe the successes and failures of others with little or no risk.

This modeling can take place on a massive scale. Modeling media is defined as “any type of mass communication—television, movies, magazines, music, etc.—that serves as a model for observing and imitating behavior” (Bandura, 1998).

In other words, it is a means by which people can learn new behaviors. Modeling media is often used in the fashion and taste industries to influence the behavior of consumers.

This is because modeling provides a reference point for observers to imitate. When done effectively, modeling can prompt individuals to adopt certain behaviors that they may not have otherwise engaged in.

Additionally, modeling media can provide reinforcement for desired behaviors.

For example, if someone sees a model wearing a certain type of clothing and receives compliments for doing so themselves, they may be more likely to purchase clothing like that of the model.

Observational Learning Examples

There are numerous examples of observational learning in everyday life for people of all ages.

Nonetheless, observational learning is especially prevalent in the socialization of children. For example:

A newer employee avoids being late to work after seeing a colleague be fired for being late.
A new store customer learns the process of lining up and checking out by watching other customers.
A traveler to a foreign country learning how to buy a ticket for a train and enter the gates by witnessing others do the same.
A customer in a clothing store learns the procedure for trying on clothes by watching others.
A person in a coffee shop learns where to find cream and sugar by watching other coffee drinkers locate the area.
A new car salesperson learning how to approach potential customers by watching others.
Someone moving to a new climate and learning how to properly remove snow from his car and driveway by seeing his neighbors do the same.
A tenant learning to pay rent on time as a result of seeing a neighbor evicted for late payment.
An inexperienced salesperson becomes successful at a sales meeting or in giving a presentation after observing the behaviors and statements of other salespeople.
A viewer watches an online video to learn how to contour and shape their eyebrows and then goes to the store to do so themselves.
Drivers slow down after seeing that another driver has been pulled over by a police officer.
A bank teller watches their more efficient colleague in order to learn a more efficient way of counting money.
A shy party guest watching someone more popular talk to different people in the crowd, later allowing them to do the same thing.
Adult children behave in the same way that their parents did when they were young.
A lost student navigating a school campus after seeing others do it on their own.

Social Learning vs. Social Cognitive Theory

Social learning theory and Social Cognitive Theory are both theories of learning that place an emphasis on the role of observational learning.

However, there are several key differences between the two theories. Social learning theory focuses on the idea of reinforcement, while Social Cognitive Theory emphasizes the role of cognitive processes.

Additionally, social learning theory posits that all behavior is learned through observation, while Social Cognitive Theory allows for the possibility of learning through other means, such as direct experience.

Finally, social learning theory focuses on individualistic learning, while Social Cognitive Theory takes a more holistic view, acknowledging the importance of environmental factors.

Though they are similar in many ways, the differences between social learning theory and Social Cognitive Theory are important to understand. These theories provide different frameworks for understanding how learning takes place.

As such, they have different implications in all facets of their applications (Reed et al., 2010).

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory . Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84 (2), 191.

Bandura, A. (1986). Fearful expectations and avoidant actions as coeffects of perceived self-inefficacy.

Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American psychologist, 44 (9), 1175.

Bandura, A. (1998). Health promotion from the perspective of social cognitive theory. Psychology and health, 13 (4), 623-649.

Bandura, A. (2003). Social cognitive theory for personal and social change by enabling media. In Entertainment-education and social change (pp. 97-118). Routledge.

Bandura, A. Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through the imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 63, 575-582.

LaMort, W. (2019). The Social Cognitive Theory. Boston University.

Reed, M. S., Evely, A. C., Cundill, G., Fazey, I., Glass, J., Laing, A., … & Stringer, L. C. (2010). What is social learning?. Ecology and society, 15 (4).

Schunk, D. H. (2012). Social cognitive theory .

Skinner, B. F. (1950). Are theories of learning necessary?. Psychological Review, 57 (4), 193.

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Social Cognitive Theory: How We Learn From the Behavior of Others

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Archaeology

Ph.D., Psychology, Fielding Graduate University
M.A., Psychology, Fielding Graduate University
B.A., Film Studies, Cornell University

Social cognitive theory is a learning theory developed by the renowned Stanford psychology professor Albert Bandura. The theory provides a framework for understanding how people actively shape and are shaped by their environment. In particular, the theory details the processes of observational learning and modeling, and the influence of self-efficacy on the production of behavior.

Key Takeaways: Social Cognitive Theory

Social cognitive theory was developed by Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura.
The theory views people as active agents who both influence and are influenced by their environment.
A major component of the theory is observational learning: the process of learning desirable and undesirable behaviors by observing others, then reproducing learned behaviors in order to maximize rewards.
Individuals' beliefs in their own self-efficacy influences whether or not they will reproduce an observed behavior.

Origins: The Bobo Doll Experiments

In the 1960s, Bandura, along with his colleagues, initiated a series of well-known studies on observational learning called the Bobo Doll experiments. In the first of these experiments , pre-school children were exposed to an aggressive or nonaggressive adult model to see if they would imitate the model’s behavior. The gender of the model was also varied, with some children observing same-sex models and some observing opposite-sex models.

In the aggressive condition, the model was verbally and physically aggressive towards an inflated Bobo doll in the presence of the child. After exposure to the model, the child was taken to another room to play with a selection of highly attractive toys. To frustrate participants, the child’s play was stopped after about two minutes. At that point, the child was taken to a third room filled with different toys, including a Bobo doll, where they were allowed to play for the next 20 minutes.

The researchers found that the children in the aggressive condition were much more likely to display verbal and physical aggression, including aggression towards the Bobo doll and other forms of aggression. In addition, boys were more likely to be aggressive than girls, especially if they had been exposed to an aggressive male model.

A subsequent experiment utilized a similar protocol, but in this case, the aggressive models weren’t just seen in real-life. There was also a second group that observed a film of the aggressive model as well as a third group that observed a film of an aggressive cartoon character. Again, the gender of the model was varied, and the children were subjected to mild frustration before they were brought to the experimental room to play. As in the previous experiment, the children in the three aggressive conditions exhibited more aggressive behavior than those in the control group and boys in the aggressive condition exhibiting more aggression than girls.

These studies served as the basis for ideas about observational learning and modeling both in real-life and through the media. In particular, it spurred a debate over the ways media models can negatively influence children that continues today.

In 1977, Bandura introduced Social Learning Theory, which further refined his ideas on observational learning and modeling. Then in 1986, Bandura renamed his theory Social Cognitive Theory in order to put greater emphasis on the cognitive components of observational learning and the way behavior, cognition, and the environment interact to shape people.

Observational Learning

A major component of social cognitive theory is observational learning. Bandura’s ideas about learning stood in contrast to those of behaviorists like B.F. Skinner . According to Skinner, learning could only be achieved by taking individual action. However, Bandura claimed that observational learning, through which people observe and imitate models they encounter in their environment, enables people to acquire information much more quickly.

Observational learning occurs through a sequence of four processes :

Attentional processes account for the information that is selected for observation in the environment. People might select to observe real-life models or models they encounter via media.
Retention processes involve remembering the observed information so it can be successfully recalled and reconstructed later.
Production processes reconstruct the memories of the observations so what was learned can be applied in appropriate situations. In many cases, this doesn’t mean the observer will replicate the observed action exactly, but that they will modify the behavior to produce a variation that fits the context.
Motivational processes determine whether or not an observed behavior is performed based on whether that behavior was observed to result in desired or adverse outcomes for the model. If an observed behavior was rewarded, the observer will be more motivated to reproduce it later. However, if a behavior was punished in some way, the observer would be less motivated to reproduce it. Thus, social cognitive theory cautions that people don’t perform every behavior they learn through modeling.

Self-Efficacy

In addition to the information models can convey during observational learning, models can also increase or decrease the observer’s belief in their self-efficacy to enact observed behaviors and bring about desired outcomes from those behaviors. When people see others like them succeed, they also believe they can be capable of succeeding. Thus, models are a source of motivation and inspiration.

Perceptions of self-efficacy influence people’s choices and beliefs in themselves, including the goals they choose to pursue and the effort they put into them, how long they’re willing to persevere in the face of obstacles and setbacks, and the outcomes they expect. Thus, self-efficacy influences one’s motivations to perform various actions and one's belief in their ability to do so.

Such beliefs can impact personal growth and change. For example, research has shown that enhancing self-efficacy beliefs is more likely to result in the improvement of health habits than the use of fear-based communication. Belief in one’s self-efficacy can be the difference between whether or not an individual even considers making positive changes in their life.

Modeling Media

The prosocial potential of media models has been demonstrated through serial dramas that were produced for developing communities on issues such as literacy, family planning, and the status of women. These dramas have been successful in bringing about positive social change, while demonstrating the relevance and applicability of social cognitive theory to media.

For example, a television show in India was produced to raise women’s status and promote smaller families by embedding these ideas in the show. The show championed gender equality by including characters that positively modeled women’s equality. In addition, there were other characters that modeled subservient women’s roles and some that transitioned between subservience and equality. The show was popular, and despite its melodramatic narrative, viewers understood the messages it modeled. These viewers learned that women should have equal rights, should have the freedom to choose how they live their lives, and be able to limit the size of their families. In this example and others, the tenets of social cognitive theory have been utilized to make a positive impact through fictional media models.

Bandura, Albert. “Social cognitive theory for personal and social change by enabling media.” Entertainment-education and social change: History, research, and practice , edited by Arvind Singhal, Michael J. Cody, Everett M. Rogers, and Miguel Sabido, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004, pp. 75-96.
Bandura, Albert. “Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication. Media Psychology , vol. 3, no. 3, 2001, pp. 265-299, https://doi.org/10.1207/S1532785XMEP0303_03
Bandura, Albert. Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory . Prentice Hall, 1986.
Bandura, Albert, Dorothea Ross, and Sheila A. Ross. “Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive Models.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 63, no. 3, 1961, pp. 575-582, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0045925
Bandura, Albert, Dorothea Ross, and Sheila A. Ross. “Imitation of Film-Mediated Aggressive Models.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 66, no. 1, 1961, pp. 3-11, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0048687
Crain, William. Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications . 5th ed., Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.
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Social Cognition in Psychology

The Way We Think About Others

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

How It Develops
Cultural Differences

Research and Challenges

Social cognition refers to the different psychological processes that influence how people process, interpret, and respond to social signals. These processes allow people to understand social behavior and respond in ways that are appropriate and beneficial.

Social cognition is a sub-topic of social psychology that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about others and social situations. It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in our social interactions. How we think about others plays a major role in how we think, feel, and interact with the world around us.

This article explores the processes involved in social cognition and how this ability forms. It also explores how psychologists study the processes involved in social cognition.

What Is Social Cognition?

Social cognition encompasses a range of processes. Some common factors that many experts have identified as being important include:

The processes involved in perceiving other people and how we learn about the people in the world around us.
The study of the mental processes involved in perceiving, remembering, thinking about, and attending to the other people in our social world.
The reasons we attend to certain information about the social world, how it is stored in memory, and how it is used to interact with other people.

Another important topic in social cognition is the concept of social schemas. Social schemas refer to people's mental representations of social patterns and norms. These representations can include information about societal roles and the expectations of different individuals within a group.

Social cognition is not simply a topic within social psychology —it is an approach to studying any subject with social psychology. Using a social-cognitive perspective, researchers can study a wide range of topics, including:

Person perception
Stereotypes
Self-concept
Discrimination
Decision-making

Examples of Social Cognition

Imagine that you are getting ready to go on a blind date. Not only do you worry about the impression and signals that you are sending to the other person, but you are also concerned with interpreting the signals given by your date.

Questions you might ask include:

How do you form an impression of this person?
What meaning do you read into the other person's behavior?
How do you attribute their actions?

This is just one example of how social cognition influences a single social interaction, but you can probably think of many more examples from your daily life. We spend a considerable portion of every day interacting with others, which is why this branch of psychology formed to help understand how we feel, think, and behave in social situations.

Development of Social Cognition

Social cognition develops in childhood and adolescence. As children grow, they become more aware not only of their own feelings, thoughts, and motives but also of the emotions and mental states of others.

Children become more adept at understanding how others feel, learning how to respond in social situations, engaging in prosocial behaviors , and taking the perspective of others.

While many different theories look at how social cognition develops, one of the most popular focuses on the work of the psychologist Jean Piaget. According to Piaget, a child's cognitive development goes through several stages .

During the earliest stages of development, children are very egocentric . They see the world from their own perspective and struggle to think about how other people may view the world.
As children grow older, children become increasingly adept at perspective-taking and have an increased ability to think about how and why people act the way they do in social situations.

More recently, research has provided evidence that children develop the ability to think about other people's perspectives at an earlier age than Piaget believed. Even young preschoolers exhibit some ability to think about how other people might view a situation.

One of the most important developments in the early emergence of social cognition is the growth of a theory of mind. A theory of mind refers to a person's ability to understand and think about the mental states of other people.

It is the emergence of a theory of mind that is critical to being able to consider the thoughts, motives, desires, needs, feelings, and experiences that other people may have. Being able to think about how these mental states can influence how people act is critical to forming social impressions and explaining how and why people do the things that they do.

Disorders That Impact Social Cognition

Certain mental health conditions are characterized by disruptions in social cognition. Examples include:

Bipolar disorder
Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Schizophrenia
Traumatic brain injury
Williams syndrome

Cultural Differences in Social Cognition

Social psychologists have also found that there are often important cultural differences in social cognition. When looking at a social situation, any two people may have wildly different interpretations. Each person brings a unique background of experiences, knowledge, social influences, feelings, and cultural variations.

Collective cultural influences can also affect how people interpret social situations. The same social behavior in one cultural setting might have a very different meaning and interpretation if it were to occur or be observed in another culture.

As people interpret behavior, extract meaning from the interaction, and then act based upon their beliefs about the situation, they are then further reinforcing and reproducing the cultural norms that influence their social cognitions.

Research into social cognition is ongoing. But there are also challenges to some established theories.

Future Areas of Study

So what are some of the different questions related to social cognition that researchers are interested in understanding? Our perceptions of others play such an important role in how we forge relationships, how we interact with others, how we treat others, and how others treat us.

Some of the topics that psychologists are interested in when it comes to social cognition include:

How do we develop attitudes ? What role do these attitudes play in our social lives?
How do we interpret other people's feelings and emotions? How do we figure out what they are thinking or feeling? What cues or indicators do we use to make these assumptions?
How is self-concept formed and how does it influence our relationships with others?
What influence do our thoughts have on our feelings?
What mental processes influence person perception , or how we form impressions of other people?

One criticism of some of the research on social cognition suggests that it is too focused on individual behavior. Because the topic is so social, some suggest that many information-processing models traditionally used to understand the cognitive processes behind social cognition are too limited.

Focusing on the collective and interactive aspects of human thought may provide a better understanding of how people think about and understand social behavior.

Other critics have noted that the field often focuses too heavily on the reasons for a behavior and not on the underlying causes.

A Word From Verywell

Social cognition is the cognitive processes that influence social behavior. Learning more about this perspective offers insights into how other people shape our behaviors and choices. It also plays a role in understanding how individual cognitions affect how we perceive and respond to others.

Arioli M, Crespi C, Canessa N. Social cognition through the lens of cognitive and clinical neuroscience . Biomed Res Int . 2018;2018:4283427. doi:10.1155/2018/4283427

Kaneko A, Asaoka Y, Lee YA, Goto Y. Cognitive and affective processes associated with social biases . Int J Neuropsychopharmacol . 2021;24(8):645-655. doi:10.1093/ijnp/pyab022

Moll H, Meltzoff AN. How does it look? Level 2 perspective-taking at 36 months of age . Child Dev. 2011;82(2):661-73. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01571.x

Schaafsma SM, Pfaff DW, Spunt RP, Adolphs R. Deconstructing and reconstructing theory of mind . Trends Cogn Sci (Regul Ed). 2015;19(2):65-72. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.11.007

Dickerson BC. Dysfunction of social cognition and behavior . Continuum (Minneap Minn) . 2015;21(3 Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry):660-677. doi:10.1212/01.CON.0000466659.05156.1d

Legare CH. The development of cumulative cultural learning . Annu Rev Dev Psychol . 2019;1(1):119-147. doi:10.1146/annurev-devpsych-121318-084848

Kim D, Hommel B. Social cognition 2.0: Toward mechanistic theorizing [published correction appears in Front Psychol. 2020 Feb 05;11:41]. Front Psychol . 2019;10:2643. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02643

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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v.4(2); Apr-Jun 2017

Supporting Homework Compliance in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Essential Features of Mobile Apps

1 Discipline of Psychiatry, Department of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, Canada

David Kreindler

2 Division of Youth Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada

3 Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health, Department of Psychiatry, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada

4 Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most effective psychotherapy modalities used to treat depression and anxiety disorders. Homework is an integral component of CBT, but homework compliance in CBT remains problematic in real-life practice. The popularization of the mobile phone with app capabilities (smartphone) presents a unique opportunity to enhance CBT homework compliance; however, there are no guidelines for designing mobile phone apps created for this purpose. Existing literature suggests 6 essential features of an optimal mobile app for maximizing CBT homework compliance: (1) therapy congruency, (2) fostering learning, (3) guiding therapy, (4) connection building, (5) emphasis on completion, and (6) population specificity. We expect that a well-designed mobile app incorporating these features should result in improved homework compliance and better outcomes for its users.

Homework Non-Compliance in CBT

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy that has gained significant acceptance and influence in the treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders and is recommended as a first-line treatment for both of these [ 1 , 2 ]. It has also been shown to be as effective as medications in the treatment of a number of psychiatric illnesses [ 3 - 6 ]. Homework is an important component of CBT; in the context of CBT, homework can be defined as “specific, structured, therapeutic activities that are routinely discussed in session, to be completed between sessions” [ 7 ]. Completion of homework assignments was emphasized in the conception of CBT by its creator, Aaron Beck [ 8 ]. Many types of homework are prescribed by CBT practitioners, including symptom logs, self-reflective journals, and specific structured activities like exposure and response prevention for obsessions and compulsions. These can be divided into the following 3 main categories: (1) psychoeducational homework, (2) self-assessment homework, and (3) modality-specific homework. Psychoeducation is an important component in the early stage of therapy. Reading materials are usually provided to educate the client on the symptomatology of the diagnosed illness, its etiology, as well as other treatment-relevant information. Self-assessment strategies, including monitoring one’s mood using thought records, teach the patients to recognize the interconnection between one’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviors [ 8 ]. For example, depressed patients may be asked to identify thinking errors in daily life and document the negative influences these maladaptive thinking patterns can produce on their behaviors. Various psychiatric disorders may require different types of modality-specific homework. For example, exposure to images of spiders is a treatment method specific to arachnophobia, an example of a “specific phobia” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) [ 9 ]. Homework is strategically created by the therapist to correct and lessen the patient’s psychopathology. The purpose of these exercises is to allow the patients to practice and reinforce the skills learned in therapy sessions in real life.

Homework non-compliance is one of the top cited reasons for therapy failure in CBT [ 10 ] and has remained a persistent problem in the clinical practice. Surveys of practitioners have suggested rates of non-adherence in adult clients of approximately 20% to 50% [ 10 , 11 ] while adherence rates in adolescents have been reported to be approximately 50% [ 12 ]. Many barriers to homework compliance have been identified in the literature; to facilitate discussions, they can be divided into internal and external factors. Internal factors originate from a client’s own psychological environment while external ones are created by external influences. Internal factors that have been identified include lack of motivation to change the situation when experiencing negative feelings, the inability to identify automatic thoughts, disregard for the importance or relevance of the homework, and the need to see immediate results [ 12 - 14 ]. Various external factors have also been identified, including the effort associated with pen-and-paper homework formats, the inconvenience of completing homework because of the amount of time consumed, not understanding of the purpose of the homework, lack of instruction, and failure to anticipate potential difficulties in completing the homework [ 14 - 16 ]. There is strong evidence suggesting that homework compliance is integral to the efficacy of CBT in a variety of psychiatric illnesses. In the treatment of depression with CBT, homework compliance has been correlated with significant clinical improvement and shown to predict decreases in both subjective and objective measures of depressive symptoms [ 17 - 23 ]. Similarly, homework compliance is correlated with short-term and long-term improvement of symptoms in anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), hoarding, panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [ 17 , 24 - 32 ]. Fewer studies have been done on homework compliance in other psychiatric conditions, but better homework compliance has been correlated with significant reductions in pathological behaviors in psychotic disorders [ 33 , 34 ], cocaine dependence [ 35 , 36 ], and smoking [ 37 ]. Two meta-analyses further support the notion that greater homework adherence is associated with better treatment outcomes in depression, anxiety-related disorders, and substance use [ 38 , 39 ].

The Utility of Technology in Enhancing CBT Homework

Despite its demonstrated efficacy, access to CBT (as well as other forms of psychotherapy) remains difficult due to the limited number of practicing psychotherapists and the cost of therapy sessions [ 40 ]. With the rise of mass-market mobile communication devices such as the iPhone or other kinds of mobile devices with app capabilities (smartphones), new solutions are being sought that will use these devices to provide therapy to patients in a more cost-effective manner. Mobile phones with app capabilities are portable devices that combine features of a cellphone and a hand-held computer with the ability to wirelessly access the Internet. Over time, ownership of mobile phones in North America has grown [ 41 , 42 ] and progressively lower prices have further reduced barriers to their use and ownership [ 43 , 44 ]. As more and more people acquire mobile phones, the acceptance of and the demand for mobile health solutions have been on the rise [ 45 ]. Boschen (2008), in a review predating the popularization of the modern mobile phone, identified the unique features of the mobile telephone that made it a potentially suitable vehicle for adjunctive therapeutic applications: portability, acceptability, low initial cost, low maintenance cost, social penetration and ubiquity, “always on,” “always connected,” programmability, audio and video output, keypad and audio input, user-friendliness, and ease of use [ 46 ]. Over the last decade, modern mobile phones have supplanted the previous generation of mobile telephones; progressive increases in their computing power, ongoing advances in the software that they run and interact with (eg, JAVA, HTML5, etc.), common feature sets across different operating systems such as Google Inc.'s Android or Apple Inc.'s iOS, and adoption of common hardware elements across manufacturers (eg, touch screens, high-resolution cameras, etc) have enabled the development of platform-independent apps for mobile phones, or at least apps on different platforms with comparable functionality (eg, apps written for Apple's HealthKit or the apps written for Microsoft's HealthVault).

The popularization of the smartphone presents a unique opportunity to enhance CBT homework compliance using adjunctive therapeutic applications such that well-designed mobile software may be able to diminish barriers to CBT [ 40 ] by making CBT therapists' work more cost-effective. However, there are no guidelines and no existing research that directly address the design of mobile phone apps for this purpose. Given this gap in the literature, we searched MEDLINE (1946 to April 2015) and PsycINFO (1806 to April 2015) for all articles related to “cognitive behavioral therapy”, “homework”, “mobile applications” and “treatment compliance or adherence”, and reviewed articles related to (1) mobile technologies that address homework completion, (2) essential features of therapy, or (3) barriers to homework completion in CBT. In this article, we propose a collection of essential features for mobile phone-based apps that will optimally support homework compliance in CBT.

A Proposed List of Essential Features for Mobile Apps That Optimally Support CBT Homework Compliance

In order to be effective for patients and acceptable to therapists, an optimal mobile phone app to support CBT homework compliance should conform to the CBT model of homework while addressing barriers to homework compliance. Tompkins (2002) provides a comprehensive guideline on the appropriate ways to provide CBT homework such that homework should be meaningful, relevant to the central goals of therapy, salient to focus of the session, agreeable to both therapist and client, appropriate to sociocultural context, practiced in session to improve skill, doable, begin small, have a clear rationale, include written instructions, and include a backup plan with homework obstacles [ 47 ]. In addition, the therapist providing the homework needs to be curious, collaborative, reinforce all pro-homework behavior and successful homework completion, and emphasize completion over outcome [ 47 ]. By combining Tompkins' guidelines with the need to reduce barriers to homework compliance (as described above), we obtained the following list of 6 essential features that should be incorporated into mobile apps to maximize homework compliance: (1) congruency to therapy, (2) fostering learning, (3) guiding therapy, (4) building connections, (5) emphasizing completion, and (6) population specificity.

Congruency to Therapy

Any intervention in therapy needs to be relevant to the central goals of the therapy and salient to the focus of the therapeutic session. A mobile app is no exception; apps have to deliver useful content and be congruent to the therapy being delivered. There are different types of homework in CBT, including (1) psychoeducational homework; (2) self-assessment homework; and (3) modality-specific homework. Which types are assigned will depend on the nature of the illness being treated, the stage of treatment, and the specific target [ 48 ]. An effective app supporting homework compliance will need to be able to adjust its focus as the therapy progresses. Self-monitoring and psychoeducation are major components in the early stage of therapy. Thought records can be used in depression and anxiety while other disorders may require more specific tasks, such as initiating conversation with strangers in the treatment of SAD. Therefore, the treatment modules delivered via mobile phones should meet the specific needs of therapy at each stage of therapy, while also providing psychoeducation resources and self-monitoring capabilities.

Psychoeducational Homework

While there are large amounts of health-related information on the Internet, the majority of information is not easily accessible to the users [ 49 ]. Mobile apps can enhance psychoeducation by delivering clear and concise psychoeducational information linked to the topics being covered in therapy. As psychoeducation is seen as a major component of mobile intervention [ 50 ], it has been incorporated into several mobile apps, some of which have been shown to be efficacious in treating various psychiatric conditions, including stress [ 51 ], anxiety and depression [ 52 ], eating disorders [ 53 ], PTSD [ 54 ], and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) [ 55 ]. For example, Mayo Clinic Anxiety Coach is a mobile phone app “designed to deliver CBT for anxiety disorders, including OCD” [ 55 ]. The app contains a psychoeducational module that teaches the user on “the use of the application, the cognitive-behavioral conceptualization of anxiety, descriptions of each anxiety disorder, explanations of CBT, and guidance for assessing other forms of treatment” [ 55 ]. The benefits of delivering psychoeducation via a mobile phone app are obvious: the psychoeducational information becomes portable and is easily accessed by the patient. Furthermore, the information is also curated and validated by proper healthcare authorities, which builds trust and reduces the potential for misinformation that can result from patient-directed Internet searches. However, psychoeducation on its own is not optimal. Mobile interventions that also incorporate symptom-tracking and self-help interventions have resulted in greater improvement when used for depression and anxiety symptoms than those that deliver only online psychoeducation [ 50 ].

Self-Assessment Homework

In contrast to conventional, paper-based homework, mobile apps can support in-the-moment self-assessments by prompting the user to record self-report data about the user’s current state [ 56 ]. While information collected retrospectively using paper records can be adversely affected by recall biases [ 57 ], mobile apps enable the patient to document his or her thoughts and feelings as they occur, resulting in increased accuracy of the data [ 58 ]. Such self-assessment features are found in many mobile apps that have been shown to significantly improve symptoms in chronic pain [ 59 , 60 ], eating disorders [ 61 ], GAD [ 62 ], and OCD [ 55 ]. Continuing with the previous example, the Mayo Clinic Anxiety Coach offers a self-assessment module that “measures the frequency of anxiety symptoms” with a self-report Likert-type scale [ 55 ]. The app tracks users’ progress over time based on the self-assessment data; users reported liking the record of daily symptom severity scores that the application provides.

Modality-Specific Homework

Evidence suggests that a variety of modality-specific homework assignments on mobile apps are effective, including relaxation practices, cognitive therapy, imaginal exposure in GAD and PTSD [ 54 , 57 ], multimedia solutions for skill learning and problem solving in children with disruptive behavior or anxiety disorders [ 63 ], relaxation and cognitive therapy in GAD [ 62 ], or self-monitoring via text messages (short message service, SMS) to therapists in bulimia nervosa [ 61 ]. Mayo Clinic Anxiety Coach, for example, has a treatment module for OCD that “guides patients through the use of exposure therapy” [ 55 ]; patients can use this to build their own fear hierarchies according to their unique diagnoses. Users reported liking the app because it contains modality-specific homework that can be tailored to their own needs. Novel formats, such as virtual reality apps to create immersive environments, have been experimented with as a tool for facilitating exposure in the treatment of anxiety disorders with mostly positive feedback [ 64 - 66 ]. Apps that provide elements of biofeedback (such as heart rate monitoring via colorimetry of users' faces using the mobile phone's camera), have recently begun to be deployed. So-called ”serious games,“ (ie, games developed for treatment purposes), are also showing promise in symptom improvement in certain cases [ 51 , 67 , 68 ].

Fostering Learning

Doing CBT homework properly requires time and effort. As noted above, any sense of inconvenience while doing the homework may hamper a patient’s motivation to complete the homework. While patients may appreciate the importance of doing homework, they often find the length of time spent and the lack of clear instructions discouraging, resulting in poor engagement rates [ 49 , 52 ]. Therefore, it makes sense that the tasks should be simple, short in duration to begin with, and include detailed instructions [ 47 ], since homework completion rates have been shown to be correlated with patients’ knowing exactly what to do [ 33 , 69 ]. Many apps incorporate text messaging-based services or personalized feedback to encourage dynamic interactions between the therapist and the client [ 59 ]. However, the types of homework delivered by these apps are fixed. An app that adapts the contents to the user’s progress in learning homework tasks would be more engaging and effective since therapy should be a flexible process by nature. Ideally, the app would monitor and analyze the user’s progress and adjust the homework's content and difficulty level accordingly. While the effectiveness of this type of app has not been studied, a similar app has been described in the literature for treating GAD [ 62 ]. This app, used in conjunction with group CBT, collected regular symptom rating self-reports from patients to track anxiety. Based on patients’ ratings, the app would respond with encouraging comments and invite patients to practice relaxation techniques or prompt the patient to complete specific built-in cognitive therapy modules if their anxiety exceeded a threshold rating. Despite the simple algorithm used to trigger interventions, use of the app with group CBT was found to be superior to group CBT alone.

Guiding Therapy

Therapists have a number of important roles to play in guiding and motivating clients to complete homework. First, the therapist needs to address the rationale of the prescribed homework and work with the client in the development of the treatment plan [ 47 ]. Failure to do this has been identified as a barrier to homework compliance. Second, the therapist should allow the patient to practice the homework tasks during the therapy sessions [ 47 ] in order to build confidence and minimize internal barriers, such as the failing to identify automatic thoughts. Lastly, the therapist has to be collaborative, regularly reviewing homework progress and troubleshooting with the patients [ 47 , 70 ]; this can be done during or in between homework assignments, either in-person or remotely (ie, via voice or text messaging) [ 60 , 71 ].

Reviewing and troubleshooting homework has been seen as a natural opportunity for apps to augment the role of therapists. Individualized guidance and feedback on homework is found in many Internet-based or mobile apps that have been shown to be effective in treating conditions such as PTSD [ 72 ], OCD [ 55 ], chronic pain [ 59 , 60 ], depression and suicide ideation [ 71 ], and situational stress [ 73 ]. Moreover, providing a rationale for homework, ensuring understanding of homework tasks, reviewing homework, and troubleshooting with a therapist have each individually been identified as predictors of homework compliance in CBT [ 74 , 75 ]. However, despite incorporating a variety of features including self-monitoring, psychoeducation, scheduled reminders, and graphical feedback [ 52 ], automated apps with minimal therapist guidance have demonstrated elevated homework non-completion rates of up to 40%, which is less than ideal.

Building Connections

The effects of technology should not interfere with but rather encourage a patient’s ability to build meaningful connections with others [ 76 ]. The therapeutic alliance between the therapist and the client is the strongest predictor of therapeutic outcome [ 77 ] and has been suggested to predict level of homework compliance as well [ 78 ]. While there is no evidence so far to suggest that technology-based interventions have an adverse effect on the therapeutic alliance [ 79 , 80 ], this conclusion should not be generalized to novel technologies as their impact on therapeutic alliance has not been well studied [ 81 ].

An arguably more significant innovation attributable to technology has been its potential to allow patients to form online communities, which have been identified as useful for stigma reduction and constructive peer support systems [ 82 ]. Online or virtual communities provide patients with a greater ability to connect with others in similar situations or with similar conditions than would be possible physically. Internet-delivered CBT that includes a moderated discussion forum has been shown to significantly improve depression symptoms [ 83 ]. Furthermore, professional moderation of online communities increases users’ trust of the service [ 84 ]. Therefore, including social platforms and online forums in a mobile app may provide additional advantages over conventional approaches by allowing easier access to social support, fostering collaboration when completing homework, and enabling communication with therapists.

Emphasizing Completion

A patient’s need to see immediate symptomatic improvement is an impediment to homework compliance since the perception of slow progress can be discouraging to the user [ 35 ]. To address this issue, it is important for both therapists and mobile apps to emphasize homework completion over outcome [ 47 ]. While a therapist can urge the client to finish uncompleted homework during the therapy session to reinforce its importance [ 47 , 85 ], there is little a therapist can do in between therapy sessions to remind clients to complete homework. In contrast, a mobile app can, for example, provide ongoing graphical feedback on progress between sessions to motivate users [ 52 , 86 ], or employ automatic text message reminders, which have been demonstrated to significantly improve treatment adherence in medical illnesses [ 87 ]. These features have previously been incorporated into some technology-based apps for homework adherence when treating stress, depression, anxiety, and PTSD [ 52 , 54 , 88 ] with significant symptom improvement reported in one paper [ 71 ].

Population Specificity

Homework apps should, where relevant or useful, explicitly be designed taking into account the specific characteristics of its target audience, including culture, gender, literacy, or educational levels (including learning or cognitive disabilities). One example of how culture-specific design features can be incorporated can be found in Journal to the West, a mobile app for stress management designed for the Chinese international students in the United States, which incorporates cultural features into its game design [ 89 ]. In this game, breathing activity is associated with the concept of “Qi” (natural energy) in accordance with Chinese traditions; the name of the game itself references to a famous Chinese novel and the gaming environment features inkwash and watercolor schemes of the East Asian style, making the experience feel more “natural” as reported by the users. A different approach to tailoring design is taken by the computer-based games described by Kiluk et al [ 68 ] that combine CBT techniques and multi-touch interface to teach the concepts of social collaboration and conversation to children with autism spectrum disorders. In these games, the touch screen surface offers simulated activities where children who have difficulties with peer engagement can collaborate to accomplish tasks. Children in this study demonstrated improvement in the ability to provide social solutions and better understanding of the concepts of collaboration. Although the population-specific design is intuitively appealing, the degree to which it can enhance homework compliance has yet to be investigated.

Other Considerations

There are several additional issues specific to mobile apps that should be carefully considered when developing mobile apps for homework compliance. Because of screen sizes, input modes, the nature of electronic media, etc, standard CBT homework may need to be translated or modified to convert it into a format optimal for delivery via a mobile phone [ 47 ]. The inclusion of text messaging features remains controversial, in part because of concerns about client-therapist boundary issues outside the therapy sessions [ 90 ]. One potential solution is to use automated text messaging services to replace direct communication between the therapist and the client so the therapist can't be bombarded by abusive messages [ 52 , 61 , 91 , 92 ]. Privacy and security issues are also real concerns for the users of technology [ 93 ], although no privacy breaches related to text messaging or data security have been reported in studies on mobile apps so far [ 88 , 94 - 98 ]. Designers of mobile apps should ensure that any sensitive health-related or personal data is stored securely, whether on the mobile device or on a server.

Finally, while this paper focused on “essential” features of apps, this should not be misunderstood as an attempt to itemize all elements necessary for designing a successful piece of software. Good software design depends on many important elements that are beyond the scope of this paper, such as a well-designed user interface [ 99 ] that is cognitively efficient relative to its intended purpose [ 100 ] and which makes effective use of underlying hardware.

The popularization and proliferation of the mobile phone presents a distinct opportunity to enhance the success rate of CBT by addressing the pervasive issue of poor homework compliance. A variety of barriers exist in traditional, paper-based CBT homework that can significantly hamper clients’ motivation to complete homework as directed. The 6 essential features identified in this paper can each potentially enhance homework compliance. Therapy congruency focuses the features of the app on the central goal of therapy and fostering learning eases engagement in therapy by reducing barriers. Apps should help the therapist guide the client through therapy and not hinder the therapeutic process or interfere with patient’s building connections with others. It is crucial that homework completion be emphasized by the app, not just homework attempting. Population-specific issues should also be considered depending on the characteristics of targeted users.

As an example of how this applies in practice, “Mental Health Telemetry-Anxiety Disorders” (MHT-ANX) is a new mobile app developed by the Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto that helps patients monitor their anxiety symptoms using longitudinal self-report. The symptom log is therapy congruent to the practice of CBT since it promotes patients' awareness of their anxiety symptoms and the symptoms’ intensity. The simplicity of the app makes it easy for patients to learn to use, consistent with the need for fostering learning and increasing compliance. The MHT-ANX app was designed to share patient data with their clinicians, helping clinicians guide patients through therapy and more readily engage in discussion about symptom records, thus potentially enhancing the therapeutic relationship. Homework completion is emphasized both by automated text message reminders that the system sends and by questions presented by MHT-ANX that focus on how homework was done. While there are few population-specific design issues obvious at first glance in MHT-ANX, the focus groups conducted as part of our design process highlighted that our target group preferred greater privacy in our app rather than ease of sharing results via social media, and prioritized ease-of-use. While not yet formally assessed, reports from staff and early users suggest that MHT-ANX has been helpful for some patients with promoting homework compliance.

Limitations and Future Challenges

The feature list we have compiled is grounded in current technology; as technology evolves, this list may need to be revised. For example, as artificial intelligence [ 101 ] or emotional sensing [ 102 ] develops further, we would expect that software should be able to dynamically modify its approach to the user in response to users' evolving emotional states.

This paper presents our opinion on this topic, supported by a survey of associated literature. Our original intention was to write a review of the literature on essential features of apps supporting CBT homework compliance, but there was no literature to review. The essential features that are the focus of this article are summaries of key characteristics of mobile apps that are thought to improve homework compliance in CBT, but randomized trials assessing the impact of these apps on homework compliance have not yet been done. We would anticipate synergistic effects when homework-compliance apps are used in CBT (eg, if measures of progress collected from an app were used as feedback during therapy sessions to enhance motivation for doing further CBT work), but the actual impact and efficacy of therapy-oriented mobile apps cannot be predicted without proper investigation.

Abbreviations

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

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Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory

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How We Learn From the Behavior of Others

Origins: The Bobo Doll Experiments

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Supporting Homework Compliance in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Essential Features of Mobile Apps

David Kreindler

Homework Non-Compliance in CBT

The Utility of Technology in Enhancing CBT Homework

A Proposed List of Essential Features for Mobile Apps That Optimally Support CBT Homework Compliance

Congruency to Therapy

Psychoeducational Homework