Showing papers by "Albert Bandura published in 2007"

Much ado over a faulty conception of perceived self-efficacy grounded in faulty experimentation

Abstract: Cahill, Gallo, Lisman, and Weinstein (2006) adopt a conception of “ability” as possessing rudimentary components in a behavioral repertoire. This view is at odds with what constitutes an ability and misrepresents the construct of perceived self–efficacy. To verify their hypothesis concerning the relation between ratings of ability and willingness in “fear–based” and “skill–based” tasks, they deliberately instruct participants in the hypothesis before testing it. This is an egregious violation of the scientific method. The present commentary clarifies the construct of self–efficacy, documents flaws in the Cahill et al. experimentation, reviews diverse lines of research that disputes their causal claims, and comments on their expansive generalizations and recommendations to extend their intentionially biasing rating procedure to other activity domains.

Impeding ecological sustainability through selective moral disengagement

Abstract: The present paper documents the influential role played by selective moral disengagement for social practices that cause widespread human harm and degrade the environment. Disengagement of moral self-sanctions enables people to pursue detrimental practices freed from the restraint of self-censure. This is achieved by investing ecologically harmful practices with worthy purposes through social, national, and economic justifications; enlisting exonerative comparisons that render the practices righteous; use of sanitising and convoluting language that disguises what is being done; reducing accountability by displacement and diffusion of responsibility; ignoring, minimising, and disputing harmful effects; and dehumanising and blaming the victims and derogating the messengers of ecologically bad news. These psychosocial mechanisms operate at both the individual and social systems levels.