Content area
Full Text
Albert Bandura. Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W H. Freeman, 1997, 606 pages.
Reviewed by Edwin A. Locke, Professor of Management and Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
Much pretentious nonsense has been written in the social sciences about theory building, but not many social scientists have actually built valid theories. I consider Albert Bandura's Social-Cognitive Theory to be one of the greatest achievements in the history of psychology. The present book represents a further development of a core concept in that theory: self-efficacy. This concept was first explored in detail in Bandura's 1986 book. Since then there has been a explosion of interest in self-efficacy and the present book presents a thorough summary and integration of research on the topic.
Bandura does everything that an inductive theory builder should do:
1. He ties his work to wider psychological principles (e.g., the causal role of human thought).
2. He provides the theory with a firm philosophical base, for example, by showing why thought cannot be reduced to physiology and why the Skinnerian approach (behaviorism) does not work. (In particular, rewards and incentives do not affect action unless individuals think they can attain the performance needed to get the rewards).
3. He defines his concept clearly (self-efficacy is one's perceived capability to produce a given level of attainment).
4. He clearly distinguishes his construct from related constructs, such as self-esteem, self-concept, outcome expectancy, locus of control. Selfefficacy and locus of control (which pertains to control over outcomes), for example, are...