Sources of Self Efficacy

People’s beliefs about their personal efficacy constitute a major aspect of

their knowledge. Self efficacy beliefs are constructed from four principal
sources of information: enactive mastery experiences that serve as indicators
of capability; vicarious experiences that alter efficacybeliefs through
transmission of competencies and comparison with the attainments of
othes; verbal persuassion and allied types of social influences that one
posseses certain capabilities, and physiological and affective states from
which people partly judge their their capableness, strength, and vulnerability
to dysfunction. Any given influences, depending on its form, may operate
through one or more of these sources of efficacy information.

Information that is relevant for judging personal capalabilites-wheter

conveyed enactively, vicariously,persuasively,or phisiologically-is not
inherently enlightening.It become instrctive only through cognive processing
of effcacy information and though reflecive thought.Therefore,a distinction
must be drawn between information conveyed by exeperince events and
information as selected,weighted,and integhted into self-efficacy jugment.A
host of personal,sosial and situational factor effect how direct and socially
mediated experience are cognitively interpreted.

The cognitive processing of efficacy information involves

two separable functions. The first pertains to the types of information

people attend to and use as indicators of personal efficacy. Each of the four
modes of conveying information about personal capabilities has its
distinctive set of efficacy indicators. They array of factors selected provides
the information base upon which the self appraisal process operates. The
second function relates to the combination rules or heuristic that people use
to weight and integrate efficacy information from different source in
constructing beliefs about their personal efficacy.

Enactive Mastery Experience

Enactive mastery experiences are the most influence source of efficacy
information because they provide the most authentic evidence of whether
one can muster whatever it takes to succeed. Successes build a robust
beliefs in one’s personal efficacy. Failures undermine it, especially if failures
occur before a sense of efficacy is firmly established. If people experience
only easy successes, they come to expect quick results and are easily
discouranged by failure. A resilient sense of efficacy requires experiences in
overcoming obstacles through perseverant effort. Some difficulties and
setbacks in human pursuits serve a beneficial purpose in teaching that
success usually requires sustained effort. Difficulties provide opportunities to
learn how to turn failure into success by honing one’s capabilities to exercise
better control over events. After people become convinced that they have
what it takes to succeed, they persevere in the face of adversity and quickly
rebound from setbacks.

Vicarious Experiences

People do not rely on enactive experience as the sole source of information

about their capablities. Efficacy appraisals are partly influenced by vicarious
experiences meiated through modeled attainments. So modelling serves as
another effective tool for promoting a sense of personal efficacy. Personal
capabilities are easier to judge for activities that produce independent
objective of adequacy. There is little ambiguity about whether one can swim,
fly an aircraft, or balance a checkbook. High jumpers can asses their
proficiency and rate of improvement from the heigts they clear. For most
activities, however, there are no absolute measures of adequacy. Therefore,
people must appraise their capablities in relation to the attainments of
others.

The referential comparisons with others may take different form for diferent
activities. For some regular activities, standard norms of how well
representattive groups perform given activities are used to determine one’s
relative standing. The impact of normative comparison on self appraisal of
efficacy is well documented in studies in which individuals are given activities
bogus feedback that their attainments place them in either a high or low
rank according to the norms of reference group of similar status. Efficacy
beliefs are heightened by alleged performance superiority in relation to
group norm but dimished by alleged low normative standing. More often in
everyday life, people compare themselves to particular associates in similar
situations, such as classmate, work associates, competitiors, or people in
other settings engaged in similar endeavors. Surprasing associates or
cmpetitors raises efficacy bliefs, whereas being outperformed lowers them.
Sel efficacy appraisal wll vary substantially depending upon the talents of
those chosen for social comparison.

Verbal persuasion

Social persuasion serves as a further means of strengthening people’s belief

that they possess the capabilities to achieve what they seek. It is easier to
sustain a sense of efficacy, especially when strugling with difficulties, if
significant others express faith in one’s capabilities than if they convey
doubts. Verbal persuasions alone may be limited in its power to create
enduring increases in perceived efficacy, but it can bolster self change if the
positive appraisal is within realistic bounds. People who are persuaded
verbally that they possess the capabilities to master given task are likely to
mobilize greater effort and sustain it than if self they harbor self doubts and
dwell on personal deficiencies when difficulties arise. To the extend that
persuasive boosts in perceived self efficacylead people to try hard enough
to succeed, self affirming, beliefs promote development of skills and a sense
of personal efficacy. Persuasory efficacy attribution, therefore, have their
greatest impact on people who have some reason to believe that they can
produce effects through their actions. To raise unrealistic beliefs of personal
capabilities however, only invites failures that will discredit the persuaders
and further undermine the recipient’s beliefs in their capabilities.

Physiological and Affective States

In judging their capabilities, people rely partly on somatic information
conveyed by physiological and emotional states. Somatic indicators of
personal efficacy are especially relevant in domains that involve physical
accomplishments, health functioning, and coping with stressors. People
often read their physiological activation in stressful or taxing situations as
signs of vulnerability to dysfunction. Because hig arousal can debilitate
performance, people are more inclined o expect success when they are not
beset by aversive arousal than if they are tense and viscerally agitated. Stress
reactions to inefficacious control generate furtherin stress through
anticipatory self arousal. By conjuring up aversive thoughts about their
ineptitude and stress reaction, people can rouse themselves to elevated
levels of distres that produce the very dysfunctions they fear. Treatments
that eliminate emotional reactions to subjective threats through mastery
experiences heighten beliefs in copig efficacy with corresponding
improvements in performance. Physiological indicators of efficacy are not
limited to autonomic arousal. In activities involving strength and stamina,
people read their fatigue, windedness, aches, and pains as indicants of
physical inefficacy. Mood states also affect peole’s judgement of their
personal efficacy. Physiological indicators of efficacy play an especially
influential role in health functioning and in activties requiring physical
strength and stamina. Affective states can have widely generalized effects on
beliefs of personal efficacy in diverse spheres of functioning. Thus, the fourth
major way of altering efficacy beliefs is to enhance physical status, reduce
stress levels and negative emotional proclivities, and correct
misinterpretations of bodily states.

People differ n their pronene to dwell on their somatic states and reactions.
Some are quick to focus inwardly on their sensory experiences, others are
more externally oriented. Apart from attention biases, a number of
conditions increase the salience of somatic indicators of efficacy. The level of
attentional involvement in activities is one such condition. Attention has a
very limited capacity, so there are only a few things to which one can attend
at any given time. When situational matters attention, one cannot be
focused both inwardly and outwardly simultaneously. Hence, the less
absorbed people are in activities and events around them, the more they
focus attention on themselves and notice their aversive bodily states and
reactions in taxing situations.