The Science of Confidence — Self-Efficacy and Cognitive-Behavioural Research

From Vol. 4 through Vol. 7 we have treated the bodily constituents — voice, expression, atmosphere, gaze. This volume moves the perspective to the psychological foundation that supports them. Can confidence actually be assembled, and if so, how? — psychology has pursued this through empirical research for half a century. Albert Bandura's self-efficacy theory (1977), Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset and the contemporary reassessment, Martin Seligman's learned helplessness (1967) and its 2016 theoretical inversion, Aaron Beck's cognitive therapy, Albert Ellis's REBT (1962) — five traditions have decomposed confidence into observable cognitive processes. This volume conveys that accumulation candidly, falling neither into excessive optimism nor into nihilism. Confidence is psychologically constructible — but it is not a panacea, and it has its limits. This is the central proposition of the volume.

01The Structure of Confidence as Drawn by Psychology

In Vol. 1 we observed confidence from three perspectives — "compensation for inferiority (Adler), regulation of ego and libido (Freud), connection with the Self (Jung)." That is the lineage of depth psychology. What this volume draws out is a different lineage — the science of cognition and behaviour. From the late twentieth into the twenty-first century, psychology has honed the technique of decomposing the interior into observable cognitive processes. Confidence too comes onto this table.

The five theories this volume treats can be organised as follows.

02Bandura's Self-Efficacy — The Four Sources of "I Can Do This"

The central figure of this volume is the Canadian-American psychologist Albert Bandura (1925–2021). Pursuing research at Stanford for decades, he established the concept of self-efficacy in his 1977 paper in Psychological Review, "Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change."

"Self-efficacy is the individual's belief that they can successfully execute a specific behaviour under a specific situation. This is different from generalised self-esteem of the form 'I am a good person.' 'I can speak my view in this meeting'; 'I can understand this material' — it is domain-specific and concrete cognition." — paraphrase of Albert Bandura, "Self-efficacy," Psychological Review (1977)

What Bandura showed is that self-efficacy chooses action, decides the quantity of effort, and decides the persistence in the face of difficulty. Of two people with the same ability, the one who feels "I can" and the one who feels "I cannot" arrive at different results. This circulates — the one who feels they can challenges, accumulates success experience, and self-efficacy is further cultivated.

The four sources of self-efficacy that Bandura identified are the core of this volume. (1) mastery experience, (2) vicarious experience, (3) verbal persuasion, (4) physiological and emotional states. These combine to make self-efficacy.

03Dweck's Growth Mindset — and Contemporary Reassessment

Becoming widely known in the twenty-first century is the Mindset theory of the Stanford psychologist Carol S. Dweck (1946–). It was popularised worldwide by the bestseller Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006).

"People hold two Mindsets — Fixed Mindset (ability is determined at birth) and Growth Mindset (ability grows through effort). Experiencing the same failure, the person of Fixed Mindset takes it as proof of ability; the person of Growth Mindset takes it as material for learning. This creates a large long-term difference." — paraphrase of Carol S. Dweck, Mindset (2006)

Dweck's theory was received with enthusiasm in the educational field and was adopted by many American schools. But to be honest as a scientist, we must also convey the contemporary reassessment.

In 2018, a comprehensive meta-analysis by Sisk and colleagues was published in Psychological Science. Examining 273 studies of Mindset intervention, it showed that "the effect of Growth Mindset is not as large as initially claimed." The effect size is small, and meaningful effects are recognised only under specific conditions (e.g., socioeconomically disadvantaged learners) — this is the standard evaluation today.

This does not mean Growth Mindset is without value. The simple optimism "effort always pays" is excessive, but the attitude of receiving failure as material for learning still has value — this is the present consensus. The implication for the reviewer is to use Mindset not as a simplified panacea, but in combination with Bandura's self-efficacy theory.

04Seligman's Learned Helplessness — The Dog Experiment of 1967

The one who brought to psychology the opposite side of confidence — the sense that "nothing I do matters" — is the psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Martin Seligman (1942–). In 1967, in a joint experiment with Steven Maier, he discovered the phenomenon of learned helplessness.

"Dogs were divided into two groups; one received inescapable electric shock repeatedly, the other received escapable shock. Subsequently both groups were placed in a new escapable situation. The dogs that had experienced inescapable shock did not try to escape even when escape was possible, but simply continued to receive it. Uncontrollable experience seals action even in later controllable situations." — paraphrase of Seligman & Maier, "Failure to escape traumatic shock," JEP (1967)

This finding shook psychology. Might depression, apathy, and resignation in human beings be formed by a similar process? Seligman developed this hypothesis in his 1975 Helplessness, with decisive influence on cognitive therapy and depression research.

The implication reaches the reviewer's field. The experience of having one's corrections continually unaccepted, the experience of effort not being acknowledged — repeated, these produce the sense "nothing I do matters," and judgements and innovations that the person should otherwise be able to make are sealed. Learned helplessness is a phenomenon involving not only depression but also workplace morale.

05The 2016 Inversion of Seligman & Maier — Helplessness Is Not Learned

From here, the science of the twenty-first century brings in another important inversion. In 2016, Seligman himself together with Maier published in Psychological Review "Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience." On the basis of neuroscientific evidence, they fundamentally reformulated their own theory of fifty years earlier.

"What neuroscience has shown is that helplessness is not learned. The brains of animals (and humans) have built in an innate, passive reaction that fires when one faces an uncontrollable aversive event. What is learned is the sense of control that suppresses that passive reaction. We do not learn helplessness; we learn the power to face it actively." — paraphrase of Seligman & Maier, Psychological Review (2016)

The implication of this inversion is deep. Not "release the helplessness," but "acquire the sense of control" — the object changes. This points to the same place to which Bandura's self-efficacy theory converges after half a century. To make confidence is not to extinguish helplessness, but to actively cultivate the sense of control. The turn from passive to active is the destination of half a century of psychology.

06Beck's Cognitive Therapy — Automatic Thoughts and Cognitive Distortions

At the same time, from a different direction, the role of cognition was discovered by the American psychiatrist Aaron Beck (1921–2021). In the 1960s, from his treatment experience with depressed patients, he put forward the concepts of automatic thoughts and cognitive distortions. This is the origin of contemporary cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).

"Depression and anxiety do not arise from the events themselves. Between event and feeling are inserted automatic thoughts that are hard to bring into awareness — cognitive patterns such as 'I always fail,' 'no one understands me.' The path to composing feeling is to observe and correct these." — paraphrase of Aaron Beck, Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders (1976)

The cognitive distortions Beck classified — all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralisation, mental filter, jumping to conclusions, emotional reasoning, "should" statements, labelling, personalisation — overlap almost exactly with the thought patterns that collapse confidence. "One failure — I am altogether no good" (all-or-nothing); "that person furrowed the brow — they dislike me" (jumping to conclusions) — these are thoughts that can arise in a reviewer's daily life.

The practical implication of CBT. Bring automatic thoughts into awareness — this alone loosens cognition. Journaling to write thoughts out; the habit of asking "what is my automatic thought right now?" Beck's method is the technique that sits at the core of the lasting practice treated in Vol. 10 of this series.

07Ellis's REBT — The A-B-C Model

Contemporary with Beck, but from his own direction, the American psychologist Albert Ellis (1913–2007) systematised the role of cognition. In 1962, in Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy, he put forward Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). At the core is the A-B-C model.

"A (event) does not produce C (feeling, behaviour) directly. Between them is inserted B (belief). For the same event A, holding a rational belief B produces a moderate C; holding an irrational belief B produces an excessive C. What makes the feeling is not the event but the belief." — paraphrase of Albert Ellis, Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy (1962)

The irrational beliefs Ellis indicted typically take three forms. "(1) I must be perfect. (2) Others must be kind to me. (3) The world must be fair." Ellis observed that these "musts" sit at the centre of the thoughts that collapse confidence. In the reviewer's field too — "I must not fail," "the requester should understand" — these strong "musts" are the breeding ground of tension and anxiety.

Ellis's method is to replace these "musts" with the flexible belief "it would be better not to, but it is not absolute." Beck and Ellis — the two lineages — are transmitted to the present as the two main sources of cognitive-behavioural therapy.

08Cognitive-Behavioural Construction of Confidence — Four Levers from Empirical Research

Integrating the five theories, let us draw out four levers for making confidence. This is a practice fusing Bandura's four sources, Beck/Ellis's cognitive techniques, and Seligman's theory of the sense of control.

09In the Pharmaceutical Workplace — Composing the Reviewer's Cognition

Let us bring the abstract down to the field. Concrete scenes in the reviewer's daily work in which the cognitive-behavioural techniques of this volume are tested.

10Five Practices for Making Confidence

To bring the same place to which the five traditions pointed down into daily practice, five practices are set here.

Confidence is psychologically constructible — but it is not a panacea, and it has its limits. Bandura's four sources of self-efficacy, Dweck's Growth Mindset and its measured reassessment, Seligman's learned helplessness and the 2016 inversion, Beck's cognitive therapy, Ellis's REBT. The five traditions have pointed, in different words, to the same place — "confidence is born from the assembly of cognitive processes." At the same time, this volume has conveyed the limits of each theory candidly. The findings of psychology are to be used neither with excessive trust nor with dismissal, but in combination — this is the contemporary consensus.

So far this series has treated the structure of confidence from depth psychology in Vols. 1–3, the bodily constituents that carry confidence (voice, expression, atmosphere, gaze) in Vols. 4–7, and the science of cognition and behaviour in this volume. What remains are the two applied volumes — Vol. 9 on "Confidence as Negotiating Advantage" and Vol. 10 on "The Practice of Lasting Confidence." The cognitive levers raised in this volume run through these applied volumes as well.