Self-Efficacy, Adaptation, and Adjustment: Theory, Research, and Application

398 Pages·1995·9.51 MB·English

by  James E. Maddux (auth.)

SELF-EFFICACY,
ADAPTATION, AND
ADJUSTMENT
THEORY, RESEARCH, AND
APPLICA TION
THE PLENUM SERIES IN
SOCIAL/CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Series Editor: C. R. Snyder
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
Current Volumes in this Series:
AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR
Current Perspectives
Edited by L. Rowell Huesmann
DESIRE FOR CONTROL
Personality, Social, and Clinical Perspectives
Jerry M. Burger
THE ECOLOGY OF AGGRESSION
Arnold P. Goldstein
EFFICACY, AGENCY, AND SELF-ESTEEM
Edited by Michael H. Kernis
HUMAN LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
A Coping Perspective
Mario Mikulincer
PATHOLOGICAL SELF-CRITICISM
Assessment and Treatment
Raymond M. Bergner
PROCRASTINATION AND TASK AVOIDANCE
Theory, Research, and Treatment
Joseph R. Ferrari, Judith L. Johnson, and William G. McCown
SELF-EFFICACY, ADAPTATION, AND ADJUSTMENT
Theory, Research, and Application
Edited by James E. Maddux
SELF-ESTEEM
The Puzzle of Low Self-Regard
Edited by Roy F. Baumeister
THE SELF-KNOWER
A Hero under Control
Robert A. Wicklund and Martina Eckert
A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each
new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further
information please contact the publisher.
SELF-EFFICACY,
ADAPTATION, AND
ADJUSTMENT
THEORY, RESEARCH, AND
APPLICATION
EDITED BY
JAMES E. MADDUX
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC
LIbrary of Congress CatalogIng-In-PublIcatIon Data
Self-effIcacy. adaptatIon; and adjustment : theory. research. and
applIcatIon / edIted by James E. Maddux.
p. cm. -- (The Plenum serIes In social/clinical psychology)
Includes bibliographical references and Index.
ISBN 978-1-4757-6498-7 ISBN 978-1-4419-6868-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-6868-5
1. Adjustment dIsorders. 2. Self-efficacy. 3. Adaptability
(Psychology) 4. Adjustment (Psychology) I. Series.
[ONLM: 1. Adaptation. Psychological. 2. Volition. 3. Self
Concept. 4. Internal-External Control. 5. Mental 0lsorders
-therapy. 6. Health Behavior. BF 637.S38 S465 19951
RC455.4. S87S45 1995
155.2·4--dc20
ONLM/DLC
for L1brary of Congress 95-3668
CIP
ISBN 978-1-4757-6498-7
©1995 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1995
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher
CONTRIBUTORS
ALBERT BANDURA, Department of Psychology, Stanford University,
Stanford, California 94305
NANCY BETZ, Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, Co
lumbus, Ohio 43210
VIRGINIA BLAIR, Department of Psychology, George Mason University,
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
ANGELA BOYKIN, Department of Psychology, George Mason University,
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
LAWRENCE BRAWLEY, Department of Kinesiology, University of Water
loo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
SHIRLEY BROWN, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, New Jersey 08903
CARLO C. DICLEMENTE, Department of Psychology, University of
Houston, Houston, Texas 77204
CRAIG K. EWART, School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, Maryland 21205
SCOTT FAIRHURST, Department of Psychology, University of Houston,
Houston, Texas 77204
GAIL HACKETT, Division of Psychology in Education, Arizona State
University, Tempe, Arizona 85287
IRVING KIRSCH, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut,
Storrs, Connecticut 06269
v
vi CONTRIBUTORS
JOHN LEWIS, Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fair
fax, Virginia 22030
JAMES E. MADDUX, Department of Psychology, George Mason Univer
sity, Fairfax, Virginia 22030
LISA J. MEIER, Department of Psychology, George Mason University,
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
ANN O'LEARY, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, New Jersey 08903
CHRISTOPHER PETERSON, Department of Psychology, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
NANCY PIOTROWSKI, Department of Psychology, University of Hous
ton, Houston, Texas 77204
DALE M. SCHUNK, Department of Educational Studies, Purdue Univer
sity, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907
S. LLOYD WILLIAMS, Department of Psychology, Lehigh University,
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18105
STEVEN ZACCARO, Department of Psychology, George Mason Univer
sity, Fairfax, Virginia 22030
MICHELLE ZAZANIS, Department of Psychology, George Mason Uni
versity, Fairfax, Virginia 22030
PREFACE
Since the publication of Albert Bandura's landmark 1977 Psychological
Review article "Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavior
Change," the term "self-efficacy" has become ubiquitous in psychology
and related fields. Hundreds of articles on self-efficacy have been pub
lished in journals devoted to the subfields of psychology-including social,
personality, clinical, health, and industrial! organizational-and in the
related fields of public health, medicine, nursing, and business administra
tion. Some of these articles have tested various aspects of self-efficacy
theory, while others have examined the application of self-efficacy theory
to various practical problems, and others have simply mentioned self
efficacy somewhere in the introduction or discussion, as if trying to hitch a
ride on a passing bandwagon. Keeping up with this growing body of
literature-not to mention the literature on other topics relevant to per
ceived competence and control-can be a full-time job. This volume offers
some relief to overwhelmed researchers and scientifically oriented practi
tioners (clinical and otherwise) by providing reviews of the research on
most of the most important topics concerned with the relationship be
tween self-efficacy and adaptation and adjustment.
Although more than a sampler of self-efficacy research, this volume is
not a handbook on self-efficacy. The list of topics is selective, not exhaus
tive. The initial chapter list included about two dozen topics. My famil
iarity with the research on self-efficacy suggested at that time that there
were a number of topics that would be of interest to researchers and
practitioners, but that simply had not been the subject of a sufficient
number of empirical studies to warrant chapter-length treatment. In the
intervening years, several of the topics on the initial list have been given
vii
viii PREFACE
sufficient attention to warrant their inclusion were I drawing up the list
today. Perhaps a second edition some time in the future will fill the gaps
left by this volume. Also, as is always the case with edited volumes, several
topics included in the final plan for the book were, for various reasons,
later withdrawn. I especially regret the omission of chapters on pain
control and organizational and management issues. Unforeseeable cir
cumstances in their lives made it necessary for the authors of these chap
ters to withdraw reluctantly from the project. Their contributions are
missed, and I hope all is well with them now.
The title of this volume reflects the two major assumptions that
guided its development and the writing of the individual chapters. The
first is that beliefs about personal control and mastery are essential for
psychological adaptation and adjustment. In this volume, psychological
adaptation and adjustment are defined broadly and go beyond the tradi
tional clinical notion of the absence of mental disorder or dysfunction.
Effective adaptation and sound psychological adjustment also require
good physical health and effective functioning in the major life domains of
work (for adults) and school (for children). Chapter 2 discusses this first
assumption in detail, and the other chapters deal with specific aspects of
adaptation and adjustment.
The second and more general assumption is that theory, research, and
application (clinical and otherwise) are inextricably linked, an assumption
that also guides the series in which this volume appears. Thus, this book is
intended for both the researcher concerned with basic issues in social
cognition (especially the self and self-regulation) and for the practitioner
interested in remaining informed about the empirical foundations of psy
chological interventions. Although surveys suggest that the scientific prac
titioner is a breed rarer than most of us wish (Cohen, Sargent, & Sechrest,
1986; Morrow-Bradley & Elliot, 1986), I hope this volume will convince a
few skeptical practitioners that a theory well-grounded in research can
provide useful guidelines for designing effective interventions for the
clinic, the classroom, and daily life.
This volume is organized into five sections. Part I offers an introduc
tion to self-efficacy theory and research and discusses some important
conceptual issues. Part II describes applications in clinical psychology;
Part III, applications in health psychology; and Part Iv, various other
applications. Part V consists of commentary chapters by Irving Kirsch,
Albert Bandura, and me.
The introductory chapter in Part I provides an overview of self
efficacy theory and a review of research on several important general
theoretical issues. The chapter also attempts to make some connections
between self-efficacy theory and related constructs concerned with per-
PREFACE ix
sonal control and mastery. To avoid unnecessary redundancy, I asked the
other contributors to not include in their chapters lengthy introductions to
self-efficacy theory. These chapters, therefore, do not provide overviews of
self-efficacy theory that would be found at the beginning of journal articles
or chapters on self-efficacy that have appeared in other volumes not
devoted specifically to self-efficacy theory. For this reason, readers not
familiar with self-efficacy theory should read the introductory chapter
before the chapters on specific applications. I also hope that readers famil
iar with self-efficacy will find the introductory chapter to be a useful
review of general conceptual issues.
Parts II and III reflect the fact that most of the research conducted by
psychologists on the application of self-efficacy theory to problems of
adjustment has been concerned with either traditional "clinical" disorders
or "mental health" (e.g., anxiety, depression) or topics from health psy
chology (e.g., prevention, stress). However, the field called "clinical psy
chology" has become increasingly difficult to define over the past two
decades. As we have learned more about the generality of psychological
change processes, the relationship between normal development and mal
adaptation, and the biological basis of behavioral and emotional problems,
the boundaries between clinical psychology and other subfields have
become more and more blurred. In particular, because psychological and
medical theorists, researchers, and practitioners have come to acknowl
edge the close relationship between physical health and psychological
well-being, the line between clinical and health psychology has become
fuzzy at best. Thus, this division is made in this volume merely to provide
an organizational scheme and is not an endorsement of the traditional
dichotomy between mental health/illness and physical health/illness.
In fact, the partitioning of this book into sections called "clinical" and
otherwise is done largely for convenience and is not an endorsement of the
traditional and rigid boundaries between subfields of psychology or the
traditional distinction between so-called "clinical" and "nonclinical" prob
lems and populations. As discussed in Chapter 2, the social cognitive
approach that provides the conceptual foundation for this volume rejects
the partitioning of human behavior into "healthy" and "dysfunctional"
categories. Nonetheless, the problems of adaptation and adjustment dis
cussed in Part II-anxiety, depression, and various addictive behavior
problems (smoking, alcoholism, drug abuse, and eating disorders)-fall
within the realm of traditional"c linical" problems and are among the most
commonly encountered in traditional clinical settings. In fact, Bandura's
initial studies of self-efficacy were conducted with individuals complain
ing of fear and avoidance behavior that would probably meet the criteria
for clinical phobic disorders.
x PREFACE
In Part II, Chapter 2 presents a general social cognitive approach to
understanding adjustment and problems of adjustment and a more spe
cific approach based on self-efficacy theory and research. Thus, the reader
is encouraged to begin with Chapter 2. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 then present
theory and research on the use of self-efficacy in understanding anxiety
and phobic disorders, depression, and addictive behaviors, respectively.
Several topics that do not fit into either of these two major categories
career and vocational choice, education and instruction, and collective
efficacy-have been placed together in a section of "other applications."
This appellation is not intended to imply that these topics are more periph
eral or less important than those included in the clinical and health sec
tions. Few decisions have as great an impact on psychological adjustment
and well-being as one's choice of vocation or career. Few experiences have
as great an impact on the development of a child's personal competence
and control beliefs as his or her academic successes and failures. And few
issues are more important to the development of a healthy and effective
society than our shared beliefs about our ability to get things done collec
tively, whether in businesses, charitable organizations, or governments.
Part V contains three commentary chapters. In the first, Irving Kirsch,
rather than commenting on each individual chapter, addresses an impor
tant conceptual issue-the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and
outcome expectancies. Albert Bandura responds with a commentary ad
dressing the conceptual issues raised by Kirsch. My closing brief commen
tary is an attempt to find common ground on the major issues on which
Kirsch and Bandura seem to be in strong disagreement.
I asked the contributing authors to use the writing of their chapters as
an opportunity for not only presenting reviews of their work and the
relevant work of other people, but also for helping to set an agenda for
future research on their specific topics. I think they have succeeded well in
this regard. I think they also have succeeded in presenting their material in
a clear, succinct, and lively manner. I am especially pleased with the
attention they devoted to practical applications. They made my job as
editor easier than I expected. I am grateful for their efforts, their coopera
tion, and their willingness to conform to some of my editorial idiosyn
cracies. I am also grateful to Irving Kirsch and Albert Bandura for taking
time from their other many projects to prepare their commentary chapters.
I am also grateful to my friend and colleague Lawrence Brawley at the
University of Waterloo, Angela Boykin and John Lewis of George Mason
University's clinical program, and one former student, Dr. Lisa Meier
one of the finest scientist-practitioners with whom I have worked in almost
15 years in clinical training programs. Without their help, I would never
have been able to complete my own chapters in addition to serving as