Self-efficacy is the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the sources of action required to manage prospective situations.
Albert BanduraRead
Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends. This is why most appeals against violent means usually fall on deaf ears.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Moral justification allows individuals to rationalize harmful behaviors as aligned with a greater good.
Albert Bandura highlights how people can distort their actions through moral justification, allowing them to engage in destructive behavior while believing it serves a noble purpose. This psychological mechanism creates a societal acceptance of violence and harmful actions when cloaked in the guise of morality, which is why arguments against such means often fail to resonate.
Themes
Moral JustificationDestructive BehaviorViolencePsychologyMorality
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about war, one might quote Bandura to illustrate how nations justify violence.
More from Albert Bandura
All quotes →A theory that denies that thoughts can regulate actions does not lend itself readily to the explanation of complex human behavior.
Albert BanduraRead
We are more heavily invested in the theories of failure than we are in the theories of success.
Albert BanduraRead
Humans are producers of their life circumstance not just products of them.
Albert BanduraRead
Once established, reputations do not easily change.
Albert BanduraRead
The content of most textbooks is perishable, but the tools of self-directedness serve one well over time.
Albert BanduraRead
Similar quotes
The final goal ... is to grasp the native's point of view, _x000D_ his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world.
Bronislaw MalinowskiRead
There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.
Victor HugoRead
As a historian, I'm sceptical about conspiracy theories because the world is far too complicated to be managed by a few billionaires drinking scotch behind some closed doors. But I do think that the voters are correct in sensing that they're really losing power. And in reaction, they give the system an angry kick.
Yuval Noah HarariRead
I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo this ‘loss of face’—no matter how severe the punishment, even if it includes death.
James GilliganRead
Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.
Michel De MontaigneRead
My words in her mind: cold polished stones sinking through a quagmire.
James JoyceRead