Cruel Quote by Albert Bandura

“Given appropriate social conditions, decent, ordinary people can be led to do extraordinarily cruel things.”

Albert Bandura

About This Quote

Source Book: Social Psychology, 1977

Ordinary people can commit atrocities when social conditions enable obedience and conformity.

In simple terms: Social pressure can turn good people evil.

Key Takeaway

Beware harmful group dynamics.

Themes

ethics obedience power human nature

Mood

cautionary analytical

Type

psychological ethical

When to use this quote

workplace
military
political movements
online communities

Key Concepts

conformity authority moral psychology

Questions to Reflect On

What safeguards can limit harmful obedience?
How do social norms shape behavior?

A Different Perspective

Not all cruelty is intentional; situational factors matter.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 2.7 out of 5 (7 ratings)

Cruel Cruel Things Extraordinarily Cruel Ordinary Ordinary people People Social Social conditions Things

More by Albert Bandura

Persons who have a strong sense of efficacy deploy their attention and effort to the demands of the situation and are spurred by obstacles…

Albert Bandura

Image

I have often been struck by the fact that most parents who are experiencing positive and rewarding relationships with their pre-adolescent children are, nevertheless,…

Albert Bandura

Image

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

Albert Bandura

Image

Agemates provide the most informative points of reference for comparative efficacy appraisal and verification. Children are, therefore, especially sensitive to their relative standing among…

Albert Bandura

Image

People who have a sense of self-efficacy bounce back from failure; they approach things in terms of how to handle them rather than worrying…

Albert Bandura

Image

Reasonably accurate appraisal of one's own capabilities is, therefore, of considerable value in successful functioning. Large misjudgments of personal efficacy in either direction have…

Albert Bandura

Image

[Children] receive direct instruction from time to time about the appropriateness of various social comparisons

Albert Bandura

Image

People who regard themselves as highly efficacious act, think, and feel differently from those who perceive themselves as inefficacious. They produce their own future,…

Albert Bandura

Image

Behavior must also be adequately assessed under appropriate circumstances. Ill-defined global measures of perceived self-efficacy or defective assessments of performance will yield discordances. Disparities…

Albert Bandura

Image

Forceful actions arising from erroneous beliefs often create social effects that confirm the misbeliefs

Albert Bandura

Image

Perceived self-inefficacy predicts avoidance of academic activities whereas anxiety does not

Albert Bandura

Image

Stringent standards of self-evaluation [can] make otherwise objective successes seem to be personal failures

Albert Bandura

Image

Explore all 128 Albert Bandura quotes

More Cruel quotes

“History has a cruel way of disappointing optimists.”

Keith Thompson

Image

“I think the reason we're cruel sometimes is that we're afraid we're going to like something.”

Elizabeth Berg

Image

“Don't be so cruel to me. Don't promise me anything. I've got everything that i need. I need love in a good way.”

Tegan Quin

Image

Pity is cruel. Pity destroys.

Graham Greene

Image

“Even the cruel feel pain. And even the cruel can change. I hope this changes him. He could do so much, if only he…

Pierce Brown

Image

You must learn that to endure cruelty is to become cruel yourself

Bleach

Image

“my power is as cruel a joke as it can get? That’s”

Katie D. Anderson

Image

I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

William Shakespeare

Image

Huamns, uregulated, are cruel and capricious; violet and selfish; miserable and quarrelsome. It is only after their instincts and basic emotions have been controlled…

Lauren Oliver

Image

“You would think those who have endured unkindness would be kinder as a result, intent on sparing others the awful suffering they abhorred firsthand.”

Richelle E. Goodrich