Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.
TL;DR: An integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment is presented and findings are reported from microanalyses of enactive, vicarious, and emotive mode of treatment that support the hypothesized relationship between perceived self-efficacy and behavioral changes.
Abstract: The present article presents an integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment. This theory states that psychological procedures, whatever their form, alter the level and strength of self-efficacy. It is hypothesized that expectations of personal efficacy determine whether coping behavior will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences. Persistence in activities that are subjectively threatening but in fact relatively safe produces, through experiences of mastery, further enhancement of self-efficacy and corresponding reductions in defensive behavior. In the proposed model, expectations of personal efficacy are derived from four principal sources of information: performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states. The more dependable the experiential sources, the greater are the changes in perceived selfefficacy. A number of factors are identified as influencing the cognitive processing of efficacy information arising from enactive, vicarious, exhortative, and emotive sources. The differential power of diverse therapeutic procedures is analyzed in terms of the postulated cognitive mechanism of operation. Findings are reported from microanalyses of enactive, vicarious, and emotive modes of treatment that support the hypothesized relationship between perceived self-efficacy and behavioral changes. Possible directions for further research are discussed.
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TL;DR: The Multidimensional Measure of Children's Perceptions of Control (MPMOC) as discussed by the authors is a self-report instrument that measures the children's understanding of the locus of the sufficient cause for success and failure.
Abstract: Perceived control plays a central role in many motivational and cognitive accounts of behavior. In this study, a new 48-item self-report instrument, the Multidimensional Measure of Children's Perceptions of Control, is described. Perceptions of control are defined as children's understanding of the locus of the sufficient cause for success and failure outcomes. 3 dimensions of third- through ninth-grade children's perceptions of control are independently assessed: internal, powerful others, and unknown. Each of these sources of control is assessed within 3 behavioral domains: cognitive, social, and physical. General items are also included. Perceptions of control over success outcomes and failure outcomes are assessed separately. The psychometric properties of the new measure's subscales are presented. Correlations of the new measure with measures of perceived and actual competence and findings demonstrating the sensitivity of the new measure to developmental, gender, and environmental influences are reported. It is argued that the new measure is an advance over existing measures of internal versus external locus of control in children because it provides domain-specific assessments of 3 separate dimensions of locus of control, including the previously untapped dimension of unknown control.
346 citations
TL;DR: Self-efficacy mediates approximately 40% of the effect of dependent stressful life events on symptoms of depression for those with prior depression, and for those without prior depression.
Abstract: Background Self-efficacy, a characteristic that is protective against depressive symptoms, may be undermined by stressful life events. Aims To estimate the effects of stressful life events on self-efficacy, and to examine self-efficacy as a mediatorofthe effect of stressful life events on symptoms of depression. Method Using a sample of 2858 respondents from the longitudinal Americans'Changing Lives study, path analyses were used to evaluate interrelationships between self-efficacy, life events and symptoms of depression controlling for a variety of potentially confounding variables. Separate models were estimated for those with and without prior depression. Results For those with prior depression, dependent life events had a significant, negative impact on self-efficacy. For those without prior depression, life events had no effect on self-efficacy Conclusions For those with prior depression, self-efficacy mediates approximately 40% ofthe effect of dependent stressful life events on symptoms of depression. Declaration of interest Sponsored by the Donaghue Women's Health Investigator Program at Yale University.
346 citations
TL;DR: A formal theory demonstrating the applicability of attribution concepts and research findings to the psychology of religion is developed and discussed in this article, where specific factors can be identified which predict whether a religious or a non-religious explanation of an event will be made in a particular case.
Abstract: A formal theory demonstrating the applicability of attribution concepts and research findings to the psychology of religion is developed and discussed. First, an overview of attribution theory is presented, wherein it is argued that three basic needs or desires of people - viz., for a sense of meaning, for control over outcomes, and for self-esteem - are evident throughout the attribution process; this trichotomy of motives provides a basic framework upon which the structure of the theory is based. It is maintained that religious and naturalistic meaning-belief systems often -exist concurrently within a person's world view, and that specific factors can be identified which predict whether a religious or a non-religious explanation of an event will be made in a particular case. These factors are discussed in terms of four broad categories: characteristics of the attributor, the attributor's context, characteristics of the event, and the event's context. Specific examples developed within each of these categories provide links to the existing research literature of the psychology of religion, as well as a wide range of testable empirical hypotheses for future research. Causal explanation is a hallmark of religion. Around the world, in all periods of recorded history, scripture and theologies have told how the universe was created, why humans occupy a special place in the scheme of things, why seasonal changes and natural disasters occur, why some people triumph while others fail, and why everyone must occasionally suffer and eventually die. One obvious task for the psychology of religion is to characterize the ways in which ordinary people use such religious explanations. Informal observation suggests that not everyone relies on them to the same extent, and that not even the most religious people (at least in our culture) explain every occurrence in religious terms. There must be, then, a set of factors which determines when religious explanations are deemed appropriate. Moreover, there is a host of interpretive options within every religious framework - God's mercy, God's justice, saints, guardian angels, the devil, correctly or incorrectly executed rituals, effective or ineffective prayers, right or wrong conduct - to name a few from the Judeo-Christian tradition. What determines which, if any, of these causes will be called upon when a person attempts to account for a particular
346 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that four variables influence prosocial intentions or behaviours: personal norms (PN), reflecting feelings of moral obligation to engage in prosocial behaviour, awareness of adverse consequences of not acting prosocially, ascription of responsibility for the negative consequences, and perceived control over the problems.
Abstract: This paper examines factors influencing prosocial intentions. On the basis of the norm activation model (NAM), we propose that four variables influence prosocial intentions or behaviours: (1) personal norms (PN), reflecting feelings of moral obligation to engage in prosocial behaviour, (2) awareness of adverse consequences of not acting prosocially, (3) ascription of responsibility for the negative consequences of not acting prosocially, and (4) perceived control over the problems. We conducted a series of experimental studies to examine how the NAM variables are causally related. As hypothesized, problem awareness, responsibility, and outcome efficacy played an important role in the development of PN and various types of prosocial intentions in the social as well as environmental domain.
346 citations
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References
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TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of reward or reinforcement on preceding behavior depend in part on whether the person perceives the reward as contingent on his own behavior or independent of it, and individuals may also differ in generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement.
Abstract: The effects of reward or reinforcement on preceding behavior depend in part on whether the person perceives the reward as contingent on his own behavior or independent of it. Acquisition and performance differ in situations perceived as determined by skill versus chance. Persons may also differ in generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. This report summarizes several experiments which define group differences in behavior when Ss perceive reinforcement as contingent on their behavior versus chance or experimenter control. The report also describes the development of tests of individual differences in a generalized belief in internal-external control and provides reliability, discriminant validity and normative data for 1 test, along with a description of the results of several studies of construct validity.
21,451 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an exploración de the avances contemporaneos en la teoria del aprendizaje social, con especial enfasis en los importantes roles que cumplen los procesos cognitivos, indirectos, and autoregulatorios.
Abstract: Una exploracion de los avances contemporaneos en la teoria del aprendizaje social, con especial enfasis en los importantes roles que cumplen los procesos cognitivos, indirectos, y autoregulatorios.
20,904 citations
TL;DR: Reading motivation reconsidered the concept of competence is also a way as one of the collective books that gives many advantages as a way to develop your experiences about everything.
6,452 citations
"Self-efficacy: toward a unifying th..." refers background in this paper
...In seeking a motivational explanation of exploratory and manipulative behavior, White (1959) postulated an "effectance motive," which is conceptualized as an intrinsic drive for transactions with the environment ....
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22 Jun 2011
TL;DR: The concept of competence is also a way as one of the collective books that gives many advantages as discussed by the authors, and the advantages are not only for you, but for the other peoples with those meaningful benefits.
Abstract: No wonder you activities are, reading will be always needed. It is not only to fulfil the duties that you need to finish in deadline time. Reading will encourage your mind and thoughts. Of course, reading will greatly develop your experiences about everything. Reading motivation reconsidered the concept of competence is also a way as one of the collective books that gives many advantages. The advantages are not only for you, but for the other peoples with those meaningful benefits.
5,245 citations
TL;DR: The problem of which cues, internal or external, permit a person to label and identify his own emotional state has been with us since the days that James (1890) first tendered his doctrine that "the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion" (p. 449) as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The problem of which cues, internal or external, permit a person to label and identify his own emotional state has been with us since the days that James (1890) first tendered his doctrine that "the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion" (p. 449). Since we are aware of a variety of feeling and emotion states, it should follow from James' proposition that the various emotions will be accompanied by a variety of differentiable bodily states. Following James' pronouncement, a formidable number of studies were undertaken in search of the physiological differentiators of the emotions. The results, in these early days, were almost uniformly negative. All of the emotional states experi-
4,808 citations