Albert BanduraReviews

Albert Bandura is classic psychological researcher in area of aggression and this is his classic text. Must have for the social science library.

The basic concept is of course undeniable and banal, and most people in Bandura’s wake leave it at that (especially, to get my digs in early, in the field of education): “Does ‘I think I can’ work?”

But there’s more to it than that, chico man. Efficacy is not only a component of effectiveness; it’s scaffolding for behavioural change, a tool and procedure: take safe risks, gain “experiences of mastery,” which yield further reductions in defensive behaviour, and so again and more and stronger. To Bandura this is the royal road to magnificent humans, and the bulk of this article is a slightly plodding but manifestly right (and well-supported) comparison of this “performance accomplishment” or “enactive” method as against other inferior-but-good-in-their-place ways of fostering efficacy: “vicarious experience,” “verbal persuasion” (exhortative) and “physiological state” (emotive). That is good theoretical frameworking.

It’s probably obvious to people who actually know this world, but to me it was also an insight to understand how the view of thinking as active processing rather than stimulus-response (even unto things like learning from consequences—logic, patternfinding) aligns with the move from behaviorism to connectionism and occupies the field of acquisition and retention of behaviours, leaving for stimresp an impoverished ground intriguingly similar to that represented by reactions to trauma. Like, each of us is fighting a battle for ourselves against the slings and arrows—and each of us is equipped with mighty cognitive tools. And we learn first and foremost from what happens to US, not the example of others; and what happens to us, to the degree that it depends on our own behaviour, is thoroughgoingly influenced by our efficacy expectations. Psychological Review.

Bandura sets out his highly influential theory of human motivation in this weighty tome. I'm working on this for my PhD thesis and I think this book is a must-have for anyone needing to understand Bandura's theory. I would suggest some edits for future editions-the subject index at the back leaves a lot to be desired ... or indexed :-) and Bandura does not use some of his terminology consistently (social persuasion and verbal persuasion)-but overall, it's a thorough exposition of his theory.