Self-Efficacy in a Relational World: Social Cognitive Mechanisms of Adaptation and Development

Albert Bandura's social cognitive theory offers a remarkably flexible framework for understanding many issues of practical concern to counseling and vocational psychology. In this article, the author provides an overview of several efforts to extend social cognitive theory to the contexts of career and personal development. These have included the development of a set of social cognitive career theory (SCCT) models aimed at understanding various aspects of career and academic development. In another offshoot and extension of social cognitive theory, the author and his colleagues have explored how self-efficacy, in particular, develops and is revised in an interpersonal context. Though the latter work has thus far received less empirical attention in counseling psychology than SCCT, the relational efficacy model may have the potential to aid understanding of the growth-promoting functions of relationships that are of particular interest to the field, such as those involving client-therapist and supervisee-supervisor dyads.