SELF-EFFICACY
(Self confidence)
Largely due to the work of well-known psychologist Albert Bandura over the past three decades, self-efficacy has a widely acclaimed theoretical foundation, an extensive body of knowledge gathered through basic research, and proven effectiveness in a number of application areas, including the workplace.
To date nine large-scale meta-analyses consistently demonstrate that efficacy beliefs contribute significantly to the level of motivation and performance. In POB, we tend to use the term self-efficacy interchangeably with confidence. We do this to recognize the rich theoretical and research foundation associated with self-efficacy, but also the more common and simplistic term of confidence more often used with application in business and sports. In the more academic discussion, the term efficacy is be used.
The Theoretical Background and Meaning of Efficacy
Embedded within Bandura’s social cognitive theory SCT, along with the human’s capabilities of symbolizing, forethought, and observational learning, is a self-theory including both self-regulation and self-reflection. It is the capability for self-reflection—people reflect back on their actions/experience with a specific event/task to then cognitively process how strongly they believe they can successfully accomplish this event/task in the future—that serves as the theoretical basis for self-efficacy. Bandura strongly emphasizes that this self-efficacy is the most pervading and important of the psychological mechanisms of self-influence regarding tasks. “Unless people believe that they can produce desired effects and forestall undesired ones by their actions, they have little incentive to act. Whatever other factors may operate as motivators, they are rooted in the core belief that one has the power to produce desired results.”
The formal definition of self-efficacy that is usually used is Bandura’s early statement of personal judgment or belief of “how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations.”
A broader, more workable definition for positive organizational behavior is provided by Stajkovic and Luthans: “Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s conviction (or confidence) about his or her abilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action needed to successfully execute a specific task within a given context.”
Directly, the self-efficacy process starts before individuals select their choices and initiate their effort. First, people tend to weigh, evaluate, and integrate information about their perceived capabilities.This evaluation/perception then leads to the expectations of personal efficacy which, in turn, determines:
1. The decision to perform the specific task in this context
2. The amount of effort that will be expended to accomplish the task
3. The level of persistence that will be forthcoming despite problems, disconfirming evidence, and adversity
Self-efficacy can directly affect:
1. Choice behaviors (e.g., decisions will be made based on how efficacious the person feels toward the options in, say, work assignments or even a career field)
2. Motivational effort (e.g., people will try harder and give more effort on tasks where they have high self-efficacy than those where the efficacy judgment is low)
3. Perseverance (e.g., those with high self-efficacy will bounce back, be resilient when meeting problems or even failure, whereas those with low self-efficacy tend to give up when obstacles appear)
There is research evidence that self-efficacy can also directly affect:
4. Facilitative thought patterns (e.g., efficacy judgments influence self-talks such as those with high self-efficacy might say to themselves, “I know I can figure out how to solve this problem,” whereas those with low self-efficacy might say to themselves, “ I don’t have this kind of ability”)
5. Vulnerability to stress (e.g., those with low self-efficacy tend to experience stress and burnout because they expect failure, whereas those with high self-efficacy enter into potential stressful situations with confidence and assurance and thus are able to resist stressful reactions)
Sources of Efficacy
These four sources of efficacy only provide the raw data. The individual must select out, cognitively process, and self-reflect in order to integrate and use this information to make self-efficacy perceptual judgments and form beliefs. For example, the major input into self-efficacy of performance attainments, Bandura notes, “may vary depending on their interpretive biases, the difficulty of the task, how hard they worked at it, how much help they received, the conditions under which they performed, their emotional and physical state at the time, their rate of improvement over time, and selective biases in how they monitor and recall their attainments.” In other words, successful performance does not automatically raise the level of efficacy. Rather, the efficacy depends on how the individual interprets and cognitively processes the success.
In order of importance, the following briefly summarizes the major sources of information for self-efficacy:
1. Mastery experiences or performance attainments. This is potentially the most powerful for forming efficacy beliefs because it is direct information about success. However, once again, it should be emphasized that performance accomplishments do not directly equate with self-efficacy. Both situational (e.g., the complexity of the task) and cognitive processing (e.g., the perception of one’s ability) concerning the performance will affect the efficacy judgment and belief. Bandura also points out that mastery experiences gained through perseverant effort and ability to learn form a strong and resilient sense of efficacy, but efficacy built from successes that came easily will not be characterized by much perseverance when difficulties arise and will change more quickly.
2. Vicarious experiences or modeling. Just as individuals do not need to directly experience reinforced personal behaviors in order to learn (they can vicariously learn by observing and modeling relevant others who are reinforced), the same is true of acquiring efficacy. As stated by Bandura, “If people see others like themselves succeed by sustained effort, they come to believe that they, too, have the capacity to succeed.
Conversely, observing the failure of others instills doubts about one’s own ability to master similar activities.”49 It is important to emphasize that the more similar the model (e.g., demographics such as age, sex, physical characteristics, and education, as well as status and experience) and the more relevant the task being performed, the more effect there will be on the observer’s efficacy processing. This vicarious source of information is particularly important for those with little direct experience (e.g., a new assignment) and as a practical strategy to enhance people’s efficacy through training and development.
3. Social persuasion. Not as powerful a source of information as the previous two, and sometimes oversimplified as a “can-do” approach, people’s belief in their efficacy can be strengthened by respected, competent others persuading them that they “have what it takes” and providing positive feedback on progress being made on this particular task.
On the other side of the coin, there is no question of the powerful impact that unkind
words and negative feedback (e.g., “you can’t do that”) have in disabling and deflating
one’s confidence. Too often, a small negative comment or even nonverbal gesture can
have a big impact on one’s emotions and efficacy. Unfortunately, giving people positive
feedback and pointing out their strengths for successfully accomplishing a task does not
seem to be processed by most people with as much impact as the negative. However, by
being genuine, providing objective information, and then taking follow-up actions to
actually set up the individual for success and not failure, social persuasion can be
selected and processed for building efficacy. Such social persuasion becomes more
useful to fill in gaps when people begin to struggle or doubt themselves while pursuing
a task than it is in trying to build one’s efficacy for a new task.
4. Physiological and psychological arousal. People often rely on how they feel, physically and emotionally, in order to assess their capabilities. More than the other sources of information, if these are negative (e.g., the person is very tired and/or not physically well or is particularly anxious/depressed and/or feels under a lot of pressure) this will generally greatly detract from efficacy. On the other hand, if these physical and mental states are well off, they don’t necessarily process as contributing much to the individual’s efficacy. On balance, however, if the individual is in excellent physical and mental condition, this can serve as a good point of departure to build efficacy in other ways and may even in and of itself arouse a person’s efficacy on a physically and/or psychologically demanding task.
Importantly for organizational behavior and human resource management, each of these sources of efficacy are highly malleable and changeable. As discussed earlier, specific self-efficacy is a state, not a trait. In other words, self-efficacy can definitely be enhanced through training and development targeted at these four sources.
Teaching Tip Sheet: Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy refers to an individual's belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997). Self-efficacy reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one's own motivation, behavior, and social environment (to complete the task satisfactorily)
https://www.apa.org/pi/aids/resources/education/self-efficacy
BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol., 12 July 2019 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01645
Teachers’ Self-Efficacy: The Role of Personal Values and Motivations for Teaching
Daniela Barni1*, Francesca Danioni2 and Paula Benevene1
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01645/full
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol., 13 January 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.498824
Self-Efficacy Beliefs of University Students: Examining Factor Validity and Measurement Invariance of the New Academic Self-Efficacy Scale
Andrea Greco1*, Chiara Annovazzi2*†, Nicola Palena1, Elisabetta Camussi2, Germano Rossi2 and Patrizia Steca2
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