Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include:
Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "lead", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations.
Albert Bandura was a Canadian-American psychologist. He was a professor of social science in psychology at Stanford University.
Social learning is a theory of learning process social behavior which proposes that new behaviors can be acquired by observing and imitating others. It states that learning is a cognitive process that takes place in a social context and can occur purely through observation or direct instruction, even in the absence of motor reproduction or direct reinforcement. In addition to the observation of behavior, learning also occurs through the observation of rewards and punishments, a process known as vicarious reinforcement. When a particular behavior is rewarded regularly, it will most likely persist; conversely, if a particular behavior is constantly punished, it will most likely desist. The theory expands on traditional behavioral theories, in which behavior is governed solely by reinforcements, by placing emphasis on the important roles of various internal processes in the learning individual.
Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. The term is not interchangeable with experiential learning; however experiential learning is a sub-field and operates under the methodologies of experiential education. The Association for Experiential Education regards experiential education as "a philosophy that informs many methodologies in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills, clarify values, and develop people's capacity to contribute to their communities". Experiential education is the term for the philosophy and educational progressivism is the movement which it informed. The Journal of Experiential Education publishes peer-reviewed empirical and theoretical academic research within the field.
Experiential learning (ExL) is the process of learning through experience, and is more narrowly defined as "learning through reflection on doing". Hands-on learning can be a form of experiential learning, but does not necessarily involve students reflecting on their product. Experiential learning is distinct from rote or didactic learning, in which the learner plays a comparatively passive role. It is related to, but not synonymous with, other forms of active learning such as action learning, adventure learning, free-choice learning, cooperative learning, service-learning, and situated learning.
In psychology, self-efficacy is an individual's belief in their capacity to act in the ways necessary to reach specific goals. The concept was originally proposed by the psychologist Albert Bandura.
Adventure therapy is a form of psychotherapy created as early as the 1960s. It is influenced by a variety of learning and psychological theories. Experiential education is the underlying philosophy.
Social cognitive theory (SCT), used in psychology, education, and communication, holds that portions of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences. This theory was advanced by Albert Bandura as an extension of his social learning theory. The theory states that when people observe a model performing a behavior and the consequences of that behavior, they remember the sequence of events and use this information to guide subsequent behaviors. Observing a model can also prompt the viewer to engage in behavior they already learned. Depending on whether people are rewarded or punished for their behavior and the outcome of the behavior, the observer may choose to replicate behavior modeled. Media provides models for a vast array of people in many different environmental settings.
Behavioural change theories are attempts to explain why human behaviours change. These theories cite environmental, personal, and behavioural characteristics as the major factors in behavioural determination. In recent years, there has been increased interest in the application of these theories in the areas of health, education, criminology, energy and international development with the hope that understanding behavioural change will improve the services offered in these areas. Some scholars have recently introduced a distinction between models of behavior and theories of change. Whereas models of behavior are more diagnostic and geared towards understanding the psychological factors that explain or predict a specific behavior, theories of change are more process-oriented and generally aimed at changing a given behavior. Thus, from this perspective, understanding and changing behavior are two separate but complementary lines of scientific investigation.
Personal development or self-improvement consists of activities that develop a person's capabilities and potential, build human capital, facilitate employability, enhance quality of life, and facilitate the realization of dreams and aspirations. Personal development may take place over the course of an individual's entire lifespan and is not limited to one stage of a person's life. It can include official and informal actions for developing others in roles such as teacher, guide, counselor, manager, coach, or mentor, and it is not restricted to self-help. When personal development takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems offered to support positive adult development at the individual level in organizations.
Job shadowing is a type of on-the-job learning. It may be a part of an onboarding process, or part of a career or leadership development program. Job shadowing involves following and observing another employee who might have a different job in hand, have something to teach, or be able to help the person who is shadowing learn new aspects related to the job, organization, certain behaviors or competencies.
Expectancy–value theory has been developed in many different fields including education, health, communications, marketing and economics. Although the model differs in its meaning and implications for each field, the general idea is that there are expectations as well as values or beliefs that affect subsequent behavior.
Goal orientation, or achievement orientation, is an "individual disposition towards developing or validating one's ability in achievement settings". In general, an individual can be said to be mastery or performance oriented, based on whether one's goal is to develop one's ability or to demonstrate one's ability, respectively. A mastery orientation is also sometimes referred to as a learning orientation.
Cross-cultural psychology attempts to understand how individuals of different cultures interact with each other. Along these lines, cross-cultural leadership has developed as a way to understand leaders who work in the newly globalized market. Today's international organizations require leaders who can adjust to different environments quickly and work with partners and employees of other cultures. It cannot be assumed that a manager who is successful in one country will be successful in another.
Leader development is defined as the "expansion of a person's capacity to be effective in leadership roles and processes". These roles and processes are ones that aid in setting direction, creating alignment and maintaining commitment in groups of people sharing common work. Most organizational leadership research and educational programs have focused on developing individual-based knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with formal leadership roles of individuals. Leader development therefore results by investing in human capital.
Technological self-efficacy (TSE) is "the belief in one's ability to successfully perform a technologically sophisticated new task". TSE does not highlight specific technological tasks; instead it is purposely vague. This is a specific application of the broader and more general construct of self-efficacy, which is defined as the belief in one's ability to engage in specific actions that result in desired outcomes. Self efficacy does not focus on the skills one has, but rather the judgments of what one can do with his or her skills. Traditionally, a distinguishing feature of self efficacy is its domain-specificity. In other words, judgments are limited to certain types of performances as compared to an overall evaluation of his or her potential. Typically, these constructs refer to specific types of technology; for example, computer self-efficacy, or internet self-efficacy and information technology self-efficacy. In order to organize this literature, technology specific self-efficacies that technology specific self-efficacies can be considered sub-dimensions under the larger construct of technological self-efficacy.
Alex Stajkovic is an Organizational Behavior (OB) professor who has conducted research on confidence and goal priming. He holds the Dean's Professorship in Business at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. His research bears on self-efficacy, confidence, and primed goals. Stajkovic co-authored papers with Albert Bandura, Edwin Locke, and Fred Luthans. Stajkovic is a contributing editor to the Journal of Applied Psychology, as well as a member of the Midwestern Psychological Association and Society for Science of Motivation.
Coaching psychology is a field of applied psychology that applies psychological theories and concepts to the practice of coaching. Its aim is to increase performance, self-actualization, achievement and well-being in individuals, teams and organisations by utilising evidence-based methods grounded in scientific research. Coaching psychology is influenced by theories in various psychological fields, such as humanistic psychology, positive psychology, learning theory and social psychology.
