Auto-eficacia: cómo afrontamos los cambios de la sociedad actual

by Albert Bandura

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Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy

284 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Albert Bandura OC is a psychologist who is the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. For almost six decades, he has been responsible for contributions to the field of education and to many fields of psychology, including social cognitive theory, therapy, and personality psychology, and was also influential in the transition between behaviorism and cognitive psychology. He is known as the originator of social learning theory (renamed the social cognitive theory) and the theoretical construct of self-efficacy, and is also responsible for the influential 1961 Bobo doll experiment.

Social cognitive theory is how people learn through observing others. An example of social cognitive theory would be the students imitating the teacher. Self-efficacy is "the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." To paraphrase, self-efficacy is believing in yourself to take action. The Bobo Doll Experiment was how Albert Bandura studied aggression and non-aggression in children.

A 2002 survey ranked Bandura as the fourth most-frequently cited psychologist of all time, behind B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Piaget, and as the most cited living one. Bandura is widely described as the greatest living psychologist, and as one of the most influential psychologists of all time.

In 1974 Bandura was elected to be the Eighty-Second President of the American Psychological Association (APA). He was one of the youngest president-elects in the history of the APA at the age of 48. Bandura served as a member of the APA Board of Scientific Affairs from 1968 to 1970 and is well known as a member of the editorial board of nine psychology journals including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology from 1963 to 1972. At the age of 82, Bandura was awarded the Grawemeyer Award for psychology.

Reviews

[Lee Herman]

This book is a collection of articles reviewing the state of research into self-efficacy in a variety of contexts (see the table of contents below). It's an interesting book, somewhat challenging if you are not a professional or academic in this space.

The takeaway is that perceived self-efficacy, defined by psychologist Albert Bandura as one's belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task can play a major role in how one approaches goals, tasks, and challenges. (Luszczynska, A., & Schwarzer, R. (2005). Social cognitive theory. In M. Conner & P. Norman (Eds.), Predicting health behaviour (2nd ed. rev., pp. 127-169). Buckingham, England: Open University Press. cited in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ef...).

Each article expands on the specific application of self-efficacy theories (and frequently compares them with other theories used in the application area under discussion) and reviews research and how it supports the theories.

A basic knowledge of statistics is helpful to reading the book since the discussion of research frequently includes the statistical analysis and inferences about causality and magnitude of self-efficacy in the areas of behavior being studied.

It's not a light read but there is a lot of detail about self-efficacy in a wide variety of contexts. Recommended if you are interested in understanding self-efficacy theory in a fairly in-depth psychologically rigorous way. Stay away if you want a fast, summarized introduction with little effort needed to read.

Table of Contents

1 Exercise of personal and collective efficacy in changing societies
2 Life trajectories in changing societies
3 Developmental analysis of control beliefs
4 Impact of family processes on control beliefs
5 Cross-cultural perspectives on self-efficacy
6 Self-efficacy in stressful life transitions
7 Self-efficacy and educational development
8 Self-efficacy in career choice and development
9 Changing risk behaviors and adopting health behaviors: The role of self-efficacy beliefs
10 Self-efficacy and addictive behavior