A BIGGER PICTURE - CAUSE AND COGNITION IN RELATION TO DIFFERING SCIENTIFIC FRAMEWORKS

The exchange between Lee (1999) and Hawkins (1992) on the one hand and Bandura (present volume) on the other represents a far more fundament al disagreement than whether behavior-analytic or cognitive accounts o f self-efficacy are more persuasive. The deeper disagreement is really a conflict between equally legitimate but incompatible world views an d, thus, it is both ontological and epistemological in nature. The pre sent paper argues that the disagreement can be traced to differences b etween mechanistic and contextual or relational scientific frameworks and involves such issues as basic scientific objectives, units of anal ysis, and differing perspectives on causation and explanation. These d ifferences are briefly described.