High self-efficacy amplifies harm when wielded by wrongdoers

Evidence

Resilient belief in one’s causative capabilities is a highly adaptive resource in self-development, adaptation, and change. Agentic capability, however, does not come with a built-in value system. It can be used for humane or inhumane purposes. Wrongdoers with an unshakable sense of efficacy can do a lot of harm. For example, an exaggerated collective belief in the power of military might got the United States entangled in what the upper echelon considered to be morally justified wars that became disastrous (Halberstam, 1972; Purdam, 2003). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 79

Categorization

• SEED: An angle on why confidence is morally neutral — resilient efficacy is an amplifier, not a virtue — and how it makes effective villains rather than merely deluded ones.
• XREF: Connects to the book’s overall theme (moral disengagement as enabling harm) and to overconfidence-as-moral-failure literature.