Secondo esonero di Individual differences Iin personality and temperament + 2 domande aperte

SECOND MID TERM PERSONALITY Part 1: Self-efficacy

Albert Bandura:

•Agency

•His work is also based on his life from a little village to Colombia university, PHD in

behavioral, Stanford University

•Bobo Dol (based on aggressive behavior and observation learning )= Bobo doll

experiment demonstrated that children are able to learn social behavior such as

aggression through the process of observation learning, through watching the

behavior of another person.

•Power of the environment on personality

•Clinical psychology and psychotherapy

•Modelling the behavior thanks to experiences

•Investigate wide positive change, he considerers areas such as infibulation, HIV,

literacy

•It is a matter of Self efficacy and collective efficacy (relative to groups and not the

singular individual)

Social cognitive theory: an agentic perspective

An agentic theory specifies the mechanisms by which people come to live in

accordance with moral standards. In social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986, 1991b),

moral reasoning is translated into actions through self-regulatory mechanisms rooted

in moral standards and self-sanctions by which moral agency is exercised.

origins of human agency

Central to social cognitive theory is the recognition and utilization of human agency,

the fundamental human quality that directs and regulates the very experiences of

human living. Humans, as agents, can intentionally influence their functioning and

immediate circumstances (Bandura, 2001a, 2006).

core features of human agency

Bandura discusses four core features of human agency: intentionality, forethought,

self-reactiveness, and self-reflectiveness. Intentionality refers to acts a person

performs intentionally. An intention includes planning, but it also involves actions.

1) Intentionality →Deliberate ability to make choices. Agency refers to acts done

intentionally. For example, a person who smashed vase in an antique shop

upon being tripped by another shopper would not be considered the agent of

the event. Human transactions, of course, involve situational inducements, but

they do not operate as determinate forces. Individuals can choose to behave

accommodatively or, through the exercise of self-influence, to behave

otherwise. An intention is a representation of a future course of action to be

performed. It is not simply an expectation or prediction of future actions but

proactive commitment to bringing them about. Intentions and actions are

different aspects of a functional relation separated in time. It is, therefore,

meaningful to speak of intentions grounded in self-motivators affecting the

likelihood of actions at a future point in time.

2) Forethought→ The temporal extension of agency goes beyond forward-

directed planning. The future time perspective manifests itself in many

different ways. People set goals for themselves, anticipate the likely

consequences of prospective actions, and select and create courses of action

likely to produce desired outcomes and avoid detrimental ones (Bandura 1991b,

Feather 1982, Locke & Latham 1990). Through the exercise of forethought,

people motivate themselves and guide their actions in anticipation of future

events. When projected over a long time course on matters of value, a

forethoughtful perspective provides direction, coherence, and meaning to one’s

life. As people progress in their life course they continue to plan ahead, reorder

their priorities, and structure their lives accordingly.

3) Self-Reactiveness→ An agent has to be not only a planner and fore thinker,

but a motivator and self-regulator as well. Having adopted an intention and an

action plan, one cannot simply sit back and wait for the appropriate

performances to appear. Agency thus involves not only the deliberative

ability to make choices and action plans, but the ability to give shape to

appropriate courses of action and to motivate and regulate their execution. This

multifaceted self-directedness operates through self-regulatory processes that

link thought to action. The self-regulation of motivation, affect, and action is

governed by a set of self-referent subfunctions. These include self-monitoring,

performance self-guidance via personal standards, and corrective self-reactions.

4) Self-Reflectiveness→ People are not only agents of action but self-examiners

of their own functioning. The metacognitive capability to reflect upon oneself

and the adequacy of one’s thoughts and actions is another distinctly core

human feature of agency. Through reflective self-consciousness, people

evaluate their motivation, values, and the meaning of their life pursuits. It is

at this higher level of self-reflectiveness that individuals address conflicts in

motivational inducements and choose to act in favoured one over another.

Verification of the soundness of one’s thinking also relies heavily on self-

reflective means (Bandura 1986). In this metacognitive activity, people judge

the correctness of their predictive and operative thinking against the

outcomes of their actions, the effects that other people’s actions produce,

what others believe, deductions from established knowledge and what

necessarily follows from it.

modes of human agency

Agency refers to the human capability to influence one's functioning and the

course of events by one's actions. There are four functions through which human

agency is exercised. One such function is intentionality. People form intentions

that include action plans and strategies for realizing them. The second function

involves temporal extension of agency through forethought. People set

themselves goals and foresee likely outcomes of prospective actions to guide and

motivate their efforts anticipatorily. The third agentic function is self-

reactiveness. Agents are not only planners and fore-thinkers. They are also self-

regulators. The fourth agentic function is self-reflectiveness. People are not only

agents, they are self-examiners of their own functioning. Through functional self-

awareness, they reflect on their personal efficacy, the soundness of their thoughts

and actions, the meaning of their pursuits, and make corrective adjustments if

necessary.

People exercise their influence through three forms of agency: individual, proxy and

collective. In agency exercised individually, people bring their influence to bear on

what they can control. In proxy agency, they influence others who have the

resources, knowledge, and means to act on their behalf to secure the outcomes

they desire. In the exercise of collective agency, people pool their knowledge,

skills, and resources and act in concert to shape their future.

Personal → what they can control

Proxy → influence others who have the resources

Collective → shape the future

Theorizing and research on human agency has been essentially confined to

personal agency exercised individually. However, this is not the only way in which

people bring their influence to bear on events that affect how they live their lives.

Social cognitive theory distinguishes among three different modes of human

agency: personal, proxy, and collective.

1) Proxy→ Under these circumstances, they seek their well-being, security, and

valued outcomes through the exercise of proxy agency. In this socially

mediated mode of agency, people try by one means or another to get those

who have access to resources or expertise or who wield influence and power to

act at their behest to secure the outcomes they desire. Proxy agency relies

heavily on perceived social efficacy for enlisting the mediative efforts of

others.

2) Collective→ People’s shared belief in their collective power to produce desired

results is a key ingredient of collective agency. Group attainments are the

product not only of the shared intentions, knowledge, and skills of its members,

but also of the interactive, coordinated, and synergistic dynamics of their

transactions. Because the collective performance of a social system involves

transactional dynamics, perceived collective efficacy is an emergent group-level

property, not simply the sum of the efficacy beliefs of individual members.

However, there is no emergent entity that operates independently of the beliefs

and actions of the individuals who make up a social system. It is people acting

conjointly on a shared belief, not a disembodied group mind that is doing the

cognizing, aspiring, motivating, and regulating. Beliefs of collective efficacy

serve functions similar to those of personal efficacy beliefs and operate through

similar processes (Bandura 1997).

Triadic reciprocal determinism

Reciprocal triradial determinism= individual,

Reciprocal association between the

person environment

(personality and behavior) and (context like school, parents,

culture).

Self efficacy beliefs:

believes in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of actions

 required to produce given attainment;

attest to the functioning of an integrated self-system capable of conferring

 unity,

continuity and directedness to individuals’ actions (bandura 1997);

 people undertake activities and persevere in the face of difficulties only if they

 believe they are able to produce desired results (bandura 1997);

expectations about his/her efficacy influence results directly



Perceived self-efficacy plays a pivotal role in the process of self-management

Cognitive determinants

 Motivational determinants

 Decisional determinants

 Affective determinant

 ACTIONS

ALL TOGHETER ARE LINKED TO

Beliefs of personal efficacy influence what self-regulative standards people adopt

(bandura 1997)

How do people persevere in the face of difficulties?

 How resilient are they to adversity?

 How vulnerable are they to stress and depression?

 What types of choices they make at important decisional points that set the

 course of life paths?

To posses self-regulatory skills is something different from being able to adhere to

them in taxing and perturbing situations

high efficacy,

For individuals of failures, setbacks and obstacles are viewed as

o surmountable and therefore, spark redoubled effort rather than discouragement

and despondency low self-efficacy

For individual of failure undermines motivation and breeds

o dependency

1) Affective regulatory self-efficacy

Importance of self-regulation – it is associated with bed behavior (delinquency

 problems, and problem in mental health in particular in adolescence)

Positive and negative adjustment in adulthood are consequences of self-

 regulation in childhood

Understanding antecedents of self-regulation could improve mental health

 interventions

Emotion regulation as an especially relevant aspect of self-regulation for

 adjustment= emotion regulation comprises internal and external process

involves in initiating, maintaining, and modulating the occurrence intensity and

expression of emotion. in adolescence:

2) Emotion regulation and psychological adjustment

patterns of emotion dysregulation have been related to both aggressive

 behaviours and depressive symptoms;

this association between emotion regulation and aforementioned outcomes

 may depends on the type of strategy used and the type of emotion being

managed

anger dysregulation is liked to aggressive behavior

 sadness dysregulation is linked to depressive symptoms

 First research question= adolescent personality

 Second research question = adolescent adjustment

 Third research question= parenting → adolescent personality → adolescent

 adjustment

Interest to study the relationship between adolescence- self-efficacy about

 emotion regulation and emotion regulation are linked together (the transition to

adolescence)

Being efficacy able is not feeling competent

 Self efficacy beliefs can be proxy indicators of effective performance



3) Longitudinal study in Rome

4) Child development article

5) Future directions

Self-efficacy (domain or task specific)

Key words

Personal/subjective

 deal with difficulties/challenges

 related with personality traits and temperament

 beliefs

 can be specific (specificity)



Self-efficacy is treated as a domain-specific or task-specific construct. This serves to

increase predictive power for academic outcomes, and it allows for insights that are

not available from more general assessments of self-beliefs. SE can be general or task

specific, allowing individuals to have a range of SE beliefs about themselves at any

one time.

The four sources of self-efficacy

Self efficacy: the exercise of control (reciprocal determinism)

1977=albert bandura introduced the construct of self-efficacy as one of the properties

of human agency in the framework of social cognitive theory. Based on reciprocal

determinism: reciprocal relationship between person, environment and behavior.

Self-efficacy= subjective, challenging, beliefs, specificity. – Beliefs in one’s capabilities

to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainment→

organize an action and make it happen →people undertake activities and persevere in

the face of difficulties only if they believe that they are able to procedure the desired

results → expectations about one’s own efficacy influence results directly

Self-efficacy beliefs influences actions thought 4 determinants (cognitive,

motivational, effective and decisional) (Bandura 1997)

Hight self efficacy= failures and\ obstacles are viewed as surmountable and therefore

spark redoubled effort rather than discouragement and despondency.

Low self efficacy= failure undermines motivation and breeds despondency

4 sources ( Self-efficacy sources )

People’s beliefs can strengthen or weakened though

VERY IMPORTANT FOR THE MIDTERM

1) Mastery experience:

most powerful source of self-efficacy

 based on direct and personal experiences

 attributed to one’s own effort and skills



Hypothesis:

-strong mastery experience →higher self efficacy

-adverse mastery experience (failures) → lower self-efficiency

2) Modelling (vicariant experience)

effects self-efficacy thought a social comparison process (people judge their

 capabilities in relation to the capability of others)

Empirical:

-observing similar people succeeded with sustained effort → hight self-efficacy

-observing similar people fail despite high effort→ lower self-efficacy

3) Verbal persuasion

Third effective sources

 Say like “you can do it” or “you can’t do it” have an impact on the efficiency

 to achieve a goal.

it is most effective when following a mystery experience (by itself it has not

 a huge impact)

with realistic encouragement people are more likely to exert greater effort

 and become successful

Empirical:

-strong verbal persuasion → higher self-efficacy

-adverse verbal persuasion → lower self-efficacy

4) Physiological arousal:

Fourth effective sources

 based on effective and emotional arousal

 people tend to attribute a physiological condition to an efficacy perception

 (fatigue)→ physical incapability)

depends on personal/personality characteristics

 linked to for example difficulties to breathing or pain which can impact on

 the self efficacy

Hypothesis:

-strong physiological arousal → higher self-efficacy

-adverse physiological arousal → lower self-efficacy

Guide for constructing self-efficacy scales

Self efficacy to positive emotions make the sum

Self efficacy dealing to negative emotions make the sum

Self efficacy dealing with Empathic emotions make the sum

- THE SELF-EFFICACY SCALE

IN THE DOMAIN OF EMOTION REGULATION . ITEMS BELONG TO THE FACTOR

 POSITIVE EMOTIONS"

CALLED "SELF-EFFCACY ABOUT THE EXPRESSION OF

(low=8 hight= 40), AND WHICH ITEMS BELONG TO THE FACTOR CALLED "SELF-

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS".

EFFCACY ABOUT THE REGULATION OF Items related to

control yourself during difficult situations and how react to them. (low= 7 –

hight= 35)

EPMATHIC SELF-EFFICACY. My score =59 (low= 12- hight= 60)

 THE ACADEMIC SELF-EFFICACY SCALE. The same one that it has been used for

 the correspondent construct in both Caprara et al (2008) and Di Giunta et al.

(2013). Items related to control in school and doing assignments, take notes

etc.

SOCIAL SELF-EFFICACY, OR SELF-EFFICACY IN THE DOMAIN OF INTERPERSONAL

 RELATIONSHIPS (ACTUALLY ALSO EMPATHIC SELF-EFFICACY BELONGS TO THIS

DOMAIN). Items linked to be able to understand others needs and emotions.

SELF-EFFICACY RELATED TO RISKY BEHAVIORS . Items related to control yourself

 in front of risky situations like stole, smoke cigarettes, use drugs.

Self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control, and outcome expectancies (bandura 2006)

Perceived self-efficacy should also be distinguished from other constructs such as

self-esteem, locus of control, and outcome expectancies.

Perceived efficacy is a judgment of capability; self-esteem is a judgment

 of self-worth. They are entirely different phenomena.

Locus of control is concerned, not with perceived capability, but with belief

 about outcome contingencies—whether outcomes are determined by one’s

actions or by forces outside one’s control. High locus of control does not

necessarily signify a sense of enablement and well-being. For example, students

may believe that high academic grades are entirely dependent on their

performance (high locus of control) but feel despondent because they

believe they lack the efficacy to produce those superior academic

performances.

Another important distinction concerns performance outcome

 expectations. Perceived self-efficacy is a judgment of capability to execute

given types of performances; outcome expectations are judgments about

the outcomes that are likely to flow from such performances. Outcome

expectations take three different forms (Bandura, 1986). They include the

positive and negative physical, social, and self-evaluative outcomes.

the positive expecta