Star Wars and Social Cognitive theory

Albert Bandura in his articles “Social Cognitive theory: An agentic perspective” and “Social Cognitive” discusses the concept of Social Cognitive theory and agency.

Bandura goes on to narrow the topic of agency into several different tenants, one of which, is Personal Agency and Social Structure. Bandura describes Personal Agency and Social Structure as operating “within a broad network of sociostructural influences.” Bandura goes on to elaborate that people are both equally producers and products of a social system; in other words, we add to and are the result of social systems.

A good example of how Bandura’s theory can apply to real life would be J.J. Abrams and more specifically his work directing the new film in the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars Episode Seven The Force Awakens.

J.J. Abrams director of Star Wars 7.

J.J. Abrams is the product of a social system, he grew up in the 1970s and has expressed many times that Star Wars hugely impacted his life. Without really know it Abrams became part of a social system that accepted the Star Wars franchise as more or less a masterpiece of not only the science fiction genre but of film in general. Within this social system there are rules and norms, albeit fantasy ones very different from ones we are used to, that when broken can cause unrest among those used to the status-quo in said system.

The unique nature of Abrams situation is that he has gone beyond the normal level most do to produce in a social system and now has the power to literally alter a social system entirely. While he started off as just another product of the social system of Star Wars, he has now gone above and beyond and become a key producer on the system itself, able to change the landscape drastically if he so chooses. Abrams has the power to alter the social system of Star Wars fans with his new ilm and has already met challenges by breaking the norm of the system.

Abrams broke the norm of the Star Wars social system by creating a change to the norm of what people perceive what a lightsaber should be. The now infamous cross guard lightsaber has been praised, ridiculed and even turned into a meme pointing out the almost ridiculous nature of his team’s concept. This clearly demonstrates a struggle between personal agency and social structure.

New lightsaber design “cross guard lightsaber”

Bandura states that the self-system and social system often work together despite being at odds with one another. Bandura uses that example that that “poverty is not a matter of multilayered or distal causation,” yet social structures such as socioeconomic status and family structure effects self structures such as self-efficacy.

In Abrams case, his self-system and the social system are not agreeing. While Abrams and his team were confident that this new concept would enhance the system instead parts of the social system are rejecting the idea. This surely has impacted Abrams’ self-system and his self-regulatory factors.

Abrams started off as just being a product of the very specific social system. As Bandura states “The sociostructural practices, in turn, impose constraints and provide resources and opportunity structures for personal development and functioning.” In this way Abrams is limited in his personal development by the social system of Star Wars because fans would rebel against an idea that is too drastically different from what has been accepted by the system since 1977.

But in saying this Abrams is bring about a new era of Star Wars is it fair to be limiting this fresh look to the franchise based on a system developed 38 years ago? Star Wars fans might differ from the rest of the world in that response but it’s worth thinking about.