Gian Vittorio Caprara through his colleagues' words
Gian Vittorio Caprara is Emeritus Professor at Sapienza University of Rome. He holds a Laurea degree in Political Science and a Specialization degree in Psychology, both from the Catholic University of Milan. He has been full professor of Personality Psychology at Sapienza University of Rome where he served as Chair of Department of Psychology, PhD Program Coordinator, Dean of Faculty of Psychology, President of Federate Faculties of Arts, Law and Economic and Director of the Inter-University Center for the Research on the Origins and Development of Prosocial and Antisocial Motivations. He has been visiting professor at University of Michigan, UCLA, UCI, Stanford University and Santiago University. He has been President of the European Association of Personality and is member of the Academia Europaea. He is Honorary research fellow of Sapienza’s Scuola di Studi Avanzati. Caprara is author and co-author of over 500 scientific publications, including several volumes. He was the founder of the Italian modern Personality Psychology, and it was the first scientist to combine the study of personality traits with the study of psychological mechanisms proposed by Albert Bandura.
Nancy Eisenberg says:
"Gian Vittorio has an exceptional history in terms of effective communication and scientific exchange between psychologists in Europe and North America. He initiated exchanges between departments at the University of Rome and a number of universities in North America, including at Duke University, York University, Stanford University, and Arizona State University. I co-sponsored the exchange at Arizona State University and I know it has led to cross-Atlantic visits for over a dozen faculty and more extended stays involving research and/or classwork for approximately two dozen students (and is ongoing).
Dozens of scholars, including students and faculty from multiple universities on both sides of the Atlantic, have benefited greatly from Gian Vittorio’s efforts. Moreover, over 100 scholarly papers/chapters have stemmed from collaborations with North American colleagues. In addition, Gian Vittorio has also spent considerable time in the United States collaborating and teaching (e.g., at UCLA, Duke University, University of Michigan, Stanford University).
Recognition of Gian Vittorio’s contributions includes membership in the Academia Europaea since 2000, having been MASUA Distinguished Foreign Scholar, two Fulbright fellowships, being a Fellow of the Advanced Centers of Wassenaar (Holland) and Uppsala ( Sweden), and being president of European Personality Association. There are few Europeans who have done as much to forge North American--European interactions and collaboration. In addition, there are few psychologists with such an impressive body of work.
Kenneth Dodge says:
"Gian Vittorio is the world’s leading personality psychologist studying prosocial behavior. He has developed intricate theories of personality development and has supported these theories through sound empirical research. His best empirical contributions have come through his painstaking longitudinal study of children from Genzano, Italy. He discovered the importance of children’s prosocial behavior as a strong predictor of important educational and life outcomes, even beyond the importance of academic performance and antisocial behavior. He collaborated with Al Bandura to discover how children’s self-efficacy guides their social behavior over time. Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy is legion, of course, but it was Professor Caprara’s empirical research through longitudinal inquiry that supported the major tenets of Bandura’s theory. I believe the best work ever done by Bandura is that which is co-authored with Gian Vittorio.
Gian Vittorio extended the concept of self-efficacy to domain-specific contexts such as schools, work places, and peer relationships. The idea that self-efficacy might vary widely within an individual across domains is one of Professor Caprara’s major achievements