fei75766_ch17_534-568.indd 561  02/24/20 10:49 AM
Chapter 17    Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory561
wasdirectly responsible forboththerelationship between BMIanddepression and
therelationship between adherence anddepression. Specifically, having ahighBMI
ledpeople tofeellessself-efficacy, which inturnledtoincreased depression. Con-
versely, being abletoadhere tothedisease management planserved toincrease 
self-efficacy, anditwasthisincrease inasense ofcontrol overthedisease thatwas
responsible fordecreased depression. 
Inanother study, Sacco andcolleagues (2009) tested whether acost-effective 
regular telephone “check in”withindividuals withType IIdiabetes could improve 
their self-efficacy andhence promote more effective diabetes self-management. 
Undergraduate psychology students were trained astelephone “coaches.” They 
firsttookabrief diabetes education course, andthentheycalled patients once 
aweek forthree months andthenevery other week foranother three months. 
Among thethings coaches didwashelppatients explicitly articulate diabetes man-
agement weekly goals, collaborate withthem toproblem solve anyobstacles they
encountered, andpraise them foreffort andpositive change. Thiswasdesigned 
toincrease their self-efficacy byconveying confidence intheir ability tomeet 
standards andbyencouraging mastery experiences (Bandura, 1998). Much asin
theprevious study, compared toacontrol group thatsimply received treatment 
asusual from anendocrinologist, those receiving thetelephone coaching inter -
vention showed areduction indepressive symptoms, mediated byincreased self-
efficacy. These important changes, inturn, resulted inmore successful diabetes 
self-management.
Moral Disengagement and Bullying
Oneareaofpressing social concern relevant tomoral disengagement (Bandura, 
2016) isthatofbullying among youth. Wecommonly think of“bad” oraggressive 
kidsaslacking inmoral reasoning thatenables them tounderstand rightfrom wrong. 
Butrecall thatBandura argued thatself-regulation ofourbehavior involves more than
reasoning; moral behavior isenacted through aseries ofself-regulatory mechanisms 
thatenable children todevelop asense ofmoral agency. Thisdeveloped sense of
moral agency isnotstatic within us,however, andthere aremany psychological and
social processes through which self-restraint orself-sanctions of“bad” behavior can
bedisengaged. Thisishowbullies cantreatothers aggressively without everexperi -
encing asense ofitsmoral “wrongness.”
Bandura andcolleagues have developed self-report scales tomeasure prone -
nesstomoral disengagement thatcapture themechanisms described inFigure 17.2
andthese scales have been modified foruseinavariety ofpopulations (e.g., The
Moral Disengagement Scale, MDS; Bandura etal.,1996).
Gini, Pozzoli, andHymel (2014) conducted animportant meta-analysis of
27developmental research studies ontherelationship between Bandura’s predic -
torsofmoral disengagement andbullying inschool-aged children andadoles -
cents. They concluded thatoverall levels ofmoral disengagement andaggressive 
behavior areoften higher inboys thaningirls, butthattherelationship between 
moral disengagement andbullying style behaviors wasthesame forboth genders. 
Generally speaking, themeta-analysis revealed thatthehigher children andteens 
score ontheMDS, themore abusively theybehave. Final PDF to printer