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Journal ArticleDOI

Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.

01 Mar 1977-Psychological Review (American Psychological Association)-Vol. 84, Iss: 2, pp 191-215
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.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors test the theory that psychological procedures achieve changes in behavior by altering the level and strength of self-efficacy, i.e., perceived selfefficacy influences level of performance by enhancing intensity and persistence of effort.
Abstract: The present experiment was designed to test the theory that psychological procedures achieve changes in behavior by altering the level and strength of self-efficacy. In this formulation, perceived self-efficacy. In this formulation, perceived self-efficacy influences level of performance by enhancing intensity and persistence of effort. Adult phobics were administered treatments based upon either performance mastery experiences, vicarious experiences., or they received no treatment. Their efficacy expectations and approach behavior toward threats differing on a similarity dimension were measured before and after treatment. In accord with our prediction, the mastery-based treatment produced higher, stronger, and more generalized expectations of personal efficacy than did the treatment relying solely upon vicarious experiences. Results of a microanalysis further confirm the hypothesized relationship between self-efficacy and behavioral change. Self-efficacy was a uniformly accurate predictor of performance on tasks of varying difficulty with different threats regardless of whether the changes in self-efficacy were produced through enactive mastery or by vicarious experience alone.

1,067 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This study is one of the few attempts to investigate students' acceptance of an Internet-based learning medium (ILM) and showed that both perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment significantly and directly impacted their intention to use ILM.

1,064 citations


Cites background from "Self-efficacy: toward a unifying th..."

  • ...According to self-efficacy theory [6,7], perceived ease of use influences intrinsic motivation....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is suggested that beliefs about technology use can be influenced by top management commitment to new technology and the individual factors of personal innovativeness and self-efficacy and the context of a contemporary technology targeted at autonomous knowledge workers.
Abstract: Individual beliefs about technology use have been shown to have a profound impact on subsequent behaviors toward information technology (IT). This research note builds upon and extends prior research examining factors that influence key individual beliefs about technology use. It is argued that individuals form beliefs about their use of information technologies within a broad milieu of influences emanating from the individual, institutional, and social contexts in which they interact with IT. We examine the simultaneous effects of these three sets of influences on beliefs about usefulness and ease of use in the context of a contemporary technology targeted at autonomous knowledge workers. Our findings suggest that beliefs about technology use can be influenced by top management commitment to new technology and the individual factors of personal innovativeness and self-efficacy. Surprisingly, social influences from multiple sources exhibited no significant effects. Theoretical and practical implications are offered.

1,062 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Drawing on cognitive adaptation theory, optimism, psychological control, and self-esteem were explored as longitudinal predictors of adjustment to college in a sample of 672 freshmen and indicated that self- esteem and control predicted greater motivation and higher grades, controlling for college entrance exam scores.
Abstract: Drawing on cognitive adaptation theory, optimism, psychological control, and self-esteem were explored as longitudinal predictors of adjustment to college in a sample of 672 freshmen. Although a direct effect of optimism on adjustment was found, most of the predicted effects were mediated by coping methods. Controlling for initial positive and negative mood, the beneficial effects of optimism, control, and self-esteem on adjustment were mediated by the nonuse of avoidance coping, greater use of active coping, and greater seeking of social support. Alternative models of the causal relations among these variables did not fit the data as well as the a priori mediational model. The results of a 2-year follow-up indicated that self-esteem and control predicted greater motivation and higher grades, controlling for college entrance exam scores. Implications for cognitive adaptation theory and for interventions with populations under stress are discussed.

1,056 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper found that spontaneous attributional search is most likely when the outcome of an event is negative and unexpected and that causal search is biased toward internality after failure but toward externality following success.
Abstract: Five experiments making use of a self-probe methodology in both simulated and real conditions demonstrated that individuals do engage in spontaneous attributional search. This search is most likely when the outcome of an event is negative and unexpected. Content analysis of attributional questions also suggested that causal search is biased toward internality after failure but toward externality following success. This reverse of the oft-reported hedonic bias implicates the adaptive function of causal search. The data also revealed that the most commonly used heuristic in attributional search is to center on the locus and control dimensions of causality. The importance of heuristics in causal search and the advantages of the self-probe methodology employed in these investigations are discussed.

1,054 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
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

Journal ArticleDOI
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

Journal ArticleDOI
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 ....

    [...]

Book
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

Journal ArticleDOI
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

Trending Questions (1)
What are the key components of a theory of change in mental health?

The key components of a theory of change in mental health include self-efficacy, cognitive processes, mastery experiences, and performance-based procedures.