"Accomplishment is socially judged by ill defined criteria so that one has to rely on others to find out how one is doing"
About this Quote
Bandura is smuggling a quiet unease into an almost bureaucratic sentence: the scoreboard of “accomplishment” is real enough to govern our lives, but vague enough to keep us dependent. The phrase “socially judged” frames achievement as an external verdict, not an inner fact. Then he tightens the screws with “ill defined criteria,” suggesting the standards aren’t just hard to meet; they’re slippery by design, shifting with status, fashion, and whoever gets to set the rubric. You can’t optimize for a target that keeps moving.
The sting is in the last clause: “one has to rely on others to find out how one is doing.” Bandura isn’t describing mere feedback; he’s describing a psychological tether. If the meaning of your work is legible only through other people’s reactions, then motivation becomes fragile, identity becomes contingent, and self-evaluation turns into a crowd-sourced service. That fits Bandura’s broader project: how people learn, regulate themselves, and build self-efficacy in environments that constantly model what counts as “success.”
Context matters here. Bandura’s era helped professionalize metrics (grades, IQ, performance reviews) while also exposing how incomplete and biased those metrics can be. His point lands even harder in modern life, where likes, follower counts, rankings, and prestige signals masquerade as objective measures. The subtext is not anti-ambition; it’s anti-illusion. He’s warning that when societies refuse to define accomplishment clearly, they don’t remove pressure - they outsource it to perpetual comparison, leaving people chasing approval while calling it achievement.
The sting is in the last clause: “one has to rely on others to find out how one is doing.” Bandura isn’t describing mere feedback; he’s describing a psychological tether. If the meaning of your work is legible only through other people’s reactions, then motivation becomes fragile, identity becomes contingent, and self-evaluation turns into a crowd-sourced service. That fits Bandura’s broader project: how people learn, regulate themselves, and build self-efficacy in environments that constantly model what counts as “success.”
Context matters here. Bandura’s era helped professionalize metrics (grades, IQ, performance reviews) while also exposing how incomplete and biased those metrics can be. His point lands even harder in modern life, where likes, follower counts, rankings, and prestige signals masquerade as objective measures. The subtext is not anti-ambition; it’s anti-illusion. He’s warning that when societies refuse to define accomplishment clearly, they don’t remove pressure - they outsource it to perpetual comparison, leaving people chasing approval while calling it achievement.
Quote Details
| Topic | Success |
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