About this Research Topic

Background

The goal of this Research Topic is to bring together articles that challenge, develop, and move forward some of theory and practice around the prevention of educatives, social and clinicals problems. We take this opportunity to reconsider previous ‘knowns’ in the light of new evidence, innovative practices, and new conceptualizations of old problems. We aim to encourage innovative research that tests these assumptions and provokes discussions and debate about how to assess and treat most effectively the socio-educatives problems.

The Theory of Cognitive Social Learning (Bandura, 1986) tries to understand how the acquisition of knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and ways of thinking of the person with respect to the social environment occurs. The premise underlying this theory is that learning is a cognitive process that cannot be separated from the context in which it occurs, be it family, school or of any other nature. Albert Bandura was a giant in the field, with work that influenced social, cognitive, developmental, educational, and clinical psychology. He will definitely be greatly missed. For this reason, this Research Topic has been proposed to pay tribute to him, from the aforementioned disciplines. We welcome short recognition papers, original and long theoretical and empirical work, systematic reviews or psychological innovations derived from their Cognitive Social Theory of Learning.

This Research Topic is also dedicated to the incredible person and psychologist Albert E. Bandura (1925-2021). Dr. Albert Bandura, wass one of the most influential psychologists of all time. Bandura pioneered the field of social learning theory (now called social cognitive theory) with his landmark Bobo doll experiment. He defined the construct of self-efficacy and proposed an agentic theory of human behavior that challenged the central tenants of behaviorism. Born in Alberta, Canada, in 1925, Bandura earned his undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and his graduate degree from the University of Iowa. He joined the faculty at Stanford University in 1953, where he served as the David Staff Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology. Bandura was elected APA president in 1973 and encouraged our organization to pursue matters of public interest. Bandura’s significant contributions to the field of psychology were recognized in 1980 with APA's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award and in 2004 with our Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology. He also received the Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to Psychological Science from APF and the Lifetime Career Award from the International Union of Psychological Science. In 2016, he was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama.

Funding: R&D Project PGC2018-094672-B-I00, University of Navarra, Ministry of Education and Science (Spain), and the European Social Fund (EU); R & D Project UAL18- SEJ-DO31-A-FEDER. University of Almería (Spain), and the European Social Fund (EU).

Keywords: Cognitive Social Theory, Self-Efficacy, Self-Regulation process, Vicarius Learning, Morality Behavior

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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