Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective
TL;DR: Social cognitive theory distinguishes among three modes of agency: direct personal agency, proxy agency that relies on others to act on one's behest to secure desired outcomes, and collective agency exercised through socially coordinative and interdependent effort.
Abstract: The capacity to exercise control over the nature and quality of one's life is the essence of humanness. Human agency is characterized by a number of core features that operate through phenomenal and functional consciousness. These include the temporal extension of agency through intentionality and forethought, self-regulation by self-reactive influence, and self-reflectiveness about one's capabilities, quality of functioning, and the meaning and purpose of one's life pursuits. Personal agency operates within a broad network of sociostructural influences. In these agentic transactions, people are producers as well as products of social systems. Social cognitive theory distinguishes among three modes of agency: direct personal agency, proxy agency that relies on others to act on one's behest to secure desired outcomes, and collective agency exercised through socially coordinative and interdependent effort. Growing transnational embeddedness and interdependence are placing a premium on collective efficacy to exercise control over personal destinies and national life.
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TL;DR: This article examines health promotion and disease prevention from the perspective of social cognitive theory, a multifaceted causal structure in which self-efficacy beliefs operate together with goals, outcome expectations, and perceived environmental impediments and facilitators in the regulation of human motivation, behavior, and well-being.
Abstract: This article examines health promotion and disease prevention from the perspective of social cognitive theory. This theory posits a multifaceted causal structure in which self-efficacy beliefs operate together with goals, outcome expectations, and perceived environmental impediments and facilitators in the regulation of human motivation, behavior, and well-being. Belief in one’s efficacy to exercise control is a common pathway through which psychosocial influences affect health functioning. This core belief affects each of the basic processes of personal change—whether people even consider changing their health habits, whether they mobilize the motivation and perseverance needed to succeed should they do so, their ability to recover from setbacks and relapses, and how well they maintain the habit changes they have achieved. Human health is a social matter, not just an individual one. A comprehensive approach to health promotion also requires changing the practices of social systems that have widespread effects on human health.
6,004 citations
Cites background from "Social cognitive theory: An agentic..."
...Social cognitive theory extends the conception of human agency to collective agency.(34,35) People do not operate as isolates....
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01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: The notion of perceived self-efficacy is concerned with people's beliefs in their capabilities to produce given attainments (Bandura, 1997). One cannot be all things, which would require mastery of every realm of human life as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Perceived self-efficacy is concerned with people's beliefs in their capabilities to produce given attainments (Bandura, 1997). One cannot be all things, which would require mastery of every realm of human life. People differ in the areas in which they cultivate their efficacy and in the levels to which they develop it even within their given pursuits. For example, a business executive may have a high sense of organizational efficacy but low parenting efficacy. Thus, the efficacy belief system is not a global trait but a differentiated set of self-beliefs linked to distinct realms of functioning. Multidomain measures reveal the patterning and degree of generality of people's sense of personal efficacy. There is no all-purpose measure of perceived self-efficacy. The " one measure fits all " approach usually has limited explanatory and predictive value because most of the items in an all-purpose test may have little or no relevance to the domain of functioning. Moreover, in an effort to serve all purposes, items in such a measure are usually cast in general terms divorced from the situational demands and circumstances. This leaves much ambiguity about exactly what is being measured or the level of task and situational demands that must be managed. Scales of perceived self-CHAPTER 14 Note that this date is incorrect. The book was published in 2006. 308 A. BANDURA efficacy must be tailored to the particular domain of functioning that is the object of interest. Although efficacy beliefs are multifaceted, social cognitive theory identifies several conditions under which they may co-vary even across distinct domains of functioning (Bandura, 1997). When different spheres of activity are governed by similar sub-skills there is some inter-domain relation in perceived efficacy. Proficient performance is partly guided by higher-order self-regulatory skills. These include generic skills for diagnosing task demands, constructing and evaluating alternative courses of action, setting proximal goals to guide one's efforts, and creating self-incentives to sustain engagement in taxing activities and to manage stress and debilitating intrusive thoughts. Generic self-management strategies developed in one realm of activity are serviceable in other activity domains with resulting co-variation in perceived efficacy among them. Co-development is still another correlative process. Even if different activity domains are not sub-served by common sub-skills, the same perceived efficacy can occur if development of competencies is socially structured so that skills in dissimilar domains are developed together. For example, students are likely to develop similarly high perceived self-efficacy …
4,152 citations
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...Perceived self-efficacy is embedded in a broader theory of human agency that specifies the sources of self-efficacy beliefs and identifies the processes through which they produce their diverse effects (Bandura, 1997, 2001)....
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TL;DR: Authentic Leadership Development (ALD) as mentioned in this paper is an emerging field of research in the field of leadership development, with a focus on transforming, charismatic, servant, and spiritual leadership perspectives.
Abstract: This Special Issue is the result of the inaugural summit hosted by the Gallup Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2004 on Authentic Leadership Development (ALD). We describe in this introduction to the special issue current thinking in this emerging field of research as well as questions and concerns. We begin by considering some of the environmental and organizational forces that may have triggered interest in describing and studying authentic leadership and its development. We then provide an overview of its contents, including the diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives presented, followed by a discussion of alternative conceptual foundations and definitions for the constructs of authenticity, authentic leaders, authentic leadership, and authentic leadership development. A detailed description of the components of authentic leadership theory is provided next. The similarities and defining features of authentic leadership theory in comparison to transformational, charismatic, servant and spiritual leadership perspectives are subsequently examined. We conclude by discussing the status of authentic leadership theory with respect to its purpose, construct definitions, historical foundations, consideration of context, relational/processual focus, attention to levels of analysis and temporality, along with a discussion of promising directions for future research.
3,866 citations
Cites background from "Social cognitive theory: An agentic..."
...…development perspective which draws from the clinical, positive and social psychology literatures for our discussion of self-awareness/ regulation (Bandura, 1986, 1997, 2000; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998), the discussion of these constructs within servant…...
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01 Jan 2002
TL;DR: Social cognitive theory analyzes social diffusion of new styles of behavior in terms of the psychosocial factors governing their acquisition and adoption and the social networks through which they spread and are supported.
Abstract: Social cognitive theory provides an agentic conceptual framework within which to analyze the determinants and psychosocial mechanisms through which symbolic communication influences human thought, affect and action. Communications systems operate through two pathways. In the direct pathway, they promote changes by informing, enabling, motivating, and guiding participants. In the socially mediated pathway, media influences link participants to social networks and community settings that provide natural incentives and continued personalized guidance, for desired change. Social cognitive theory analyzes social diffusion of new styles of behavior in terms of the psychosocial factors governing their acquisition and adoption and the social networks through which they spread and are supported. Structural interconnectedness provides potential diffusion paths; sociocognitive factors largely determine what diffuses through those paths.
2,904 citations
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Book•
01 Jan 1997TL;DR: SelfSelf-Efficacy (SE) as discussed by the authors is a well-known concept in human behavior, which is defined as "belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments".
Abstract: Albert Bandura and the Exercise of Self-Efficacy Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control Albert Bandura. New York: W. H. Freeman (www.whfreeman.com). 1997, 604 pp., $46.00 (hardcover). Enter the term "self-efficacy" in the on-line PSYCLIT database and you will find over 2500 articles, all of which stem from the seminal contributions of Albert Bandura. It is difficult to do justice to the immense importance of this research for our theories, our practice, and indeed for human welfare. Self-efficacy (SE) has proven to be a fruitful construct in spheres ranging from phobias (Bandura, Jeffery, & Gajdos, 1975) and depression (Holahan & Holahan, 1987) to career choice behavior (Betz & Hackett, 1986) and managerial functioning (Jenkins, 1994). Bandura's Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control is the best attempt so far at organizing, summarizing, and distilling meaning from this vast and diverse literature. Self-Efficacy may prove to be Bandura's magnum opus. Dr. Bandura has done an impressive job of summarizing over 1800 studies and papers, integrating these results into a coherent framework, and detailing implications for theory and practice. While incorporating prior works such as Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977) and "Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency" (Bandura, 1982), Self-Efficacy extends these works by describing results of diverse new research, clarifying and extending social cognitive theory, and fleshing out implications of the theory for groups, organizations, political bodies, and societies. Along the way, Dr. Bandura masterfully contrasts social cognitive theory with many other theories of human behavior and helps chart a course for future research. Throughout, B andura' s clear, firm, and self-confident writing serves as the perfect vehicle for the theory he espouses. Self-Efficacy begins with the most detailed and clear explication of social cognitive theory that I have yet seen, and proceeds to delineate the nature and sources of SE, the well-known processes via which SE mediates human behavior, and the development of SE over the life span. After laying this theoretical groundwork, subsequent chapters delineate the relevance of SE to human endeavor in a variety of specific content areas including cognitive and intellectual functioning; health; clinical problems including anxiety, phobias, depression, eating disorders, alcohol problems, and drug abuse; athletics and exercise activity; organizations; politics; and societal change. In Bandura's words, "Perceived self-efficacy refers to beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments" (p. 3). People's SE beliefs have a greater effect on their motivation, emotions, and actions than what is objectively true (e.g., actual skill level). Therefore, SE beliefs are immensely important in choice of behaviors (including occupations, social relationships, and a host of day-to-day behaviors), effort expenditure, perseverance in pursuit of goals, resilience to setbacks and problems, stress level and affect, and indeed in our ways of thinking about ourselves and others. Bandura affirms many times that humans are proactive and free as well as determined: They are "at least partial architects of their own destinies" (p. 8). Because SE beliefs powerfully affect human behaviors, they are a key factor in human purposive activity or agency; that is, in human freedom. Because humans shape their environment even as they are shaped by it, SE beliefs are also pivotal in the construction of our social and physical environments. Bandura details over two decades of research confirming that SE is modifiable via mastery experiences, vicarious learning, verbal persuasion, and interpretation of physiological states, and that modified SE strongly and consistently predicts outcomes. SE beliefs, then, are central to human self-determination. STRENGTHS One major strength of Self-Efficacy is Bandura's ability to deftly dance from forest to trees and back again to forest, using specific, human examples and concrete situations to highlight his major theoretical premises, to which he then returns. …
46,839 citations
Book•
17 Mar 1980
TL;DR: In this paper, the author explains "theory and reasoned action" model and then applies the model to various cases in attitude courses, such as self-defense and self-care.
Abstract: Core text in attitude courses. Explains "theory and reasoned action" model and then applies the model to various cases.
26,683 citations
TL;DR: Giddens as mentioned in this paper has been in the forefront of developments in social theory for the past decade and outlines the distinctive position he has evolved during that period and offers a full statement of a major new perspective in social thought, a synthesis and elaboration of ideas touched on in previous works but described here for the first time in an integrated and comprehensive form.
Abstract: Anthony Giddens has been in the forefront of developments in social theory for the past decade. In "The Constitution of Society" he outlines the distinctive position he has evolved during that period and offers a full statement of a major new perspective in social thought, a synthesis and elaboration of ideas touched on in previous works but described here for the first time in an integrated and comprehensive form. A particular feature is Giddens' concern to connect abstract problems of theory to an interpretation of the nature of empirical method in the social sciences. In presenting his own ideas, Giddens mounts a critical attack on some of the more orthodox sociological views. "The Constitution of Society" is an invaluable reference book for all those concerned with the basic issues in contemporary social theory.
16,208 citations
"Social cognitive theory: An agentic..." refers background in this paper
...Social structures are created by human activity to organize, guide and regulate human affairs in given domains by authorized rules and sanctions (Burns & Dietz, in press; Giddens, 1984)....
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...These sociostructural functions are carried out by human beings occupying authorized roles (Giddens 1984)....
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Book•
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15 Jan 1964
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors integrate the work of hundreds of researchers in individual workplace behavior to explain choice of work, job satisfaction, and job performance, including motivation, goal incentive, and attitude.
Abstract: Why do people choose the careers they do? What factors cause people to be satisfied with their work? No single work did more to make concepts like motive, goal incentive, and attitude part of the workplace vocabulary. This landmark work, originally published in 1964, integrates the work of hundreds of researchers in individual workplace behavior to explain choice of work, job satisfaction, and job performance. Includes an extensive new introduction that highlights and updates his model for current organization behavior educators and students, as well as professionals who must extract the highest levels of productivity from today's downsized workforces.
11,986 citations
TL;DR: Multilevel analyses showed that a measure of collective efficacy yields a high between-neighborhood reliability and is negatively associated with variations in violence, when individual-level characteristics, measurement error, and prior violence are controlled.
Abstract: It is hypothesized that collective efficacy, defined as social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good, is linked to reduced violence. This hypothesis was tested on a 1995 survey of 8782 residents of 343 neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois. Multilevel analyses showed that a measure of collective efficacy yields a high between-neighborhood reliability and is negatively associated with variations in violence, when individual-level characteristics, measurement error, and prior violence are controlled. Associations of concentrated disadvantage and residential instability with violence are largely mediated by collective efficacy.
10,498 citations