10 Albert Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory 2 – Self-efficacy Flashcards
What three cognitive structures constitute the self system?
The self-system is the set of cognitive structures that involve:
perception,
evaluation, and
regulation of behavior.
What does the self system do?
The self system regulates behavior through self-observation, judgmental processes, and self-response.
According to Bandura, people are?
People are self-organising, proactive and self- regulating not just reactive organisms shaped by the external environment (Bandura, 2001).
What is self-efficacy?
Self-efficacy is a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation. Or in Bandura’s terms: “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations” (1995).
What are the four factors affecting self-efficacy?
- Experience, or “Enactive Attainment”
- Modeling, or “Vicarious Experience”
- Social Persuasion
- Physiological Factors
Bandura (1997) proposes that each of the four sources may have a different value/weight for different people.
Sources of self-efficacy: what is Experience, or “Enactive Attainment”?
The experience of mastery of some task – the most important factor determining a person’s self-efficacy. Success raises self-efficacy, while failure lowers it.
Sources of self-efficacy: what is Modeling, or “Vicarious Experience”?
Modeling is experienced as, “If they can do it, I can do it as well.” When we see someone succeeding, our own self-efficacy increases; where we see people failing, our self-efficacy decreases.
Sources of self-efficacy: what is Social Persuasion?
Social persuasion generally manifests as direct encouragement or discouragement from another person. Discouragement is generally more effective at decreasing a person’s self-efficacy than encouragement is at increasing it.
Sources of self-efficacy: what are Physiological Factors?
Signs of distress: shakes, aches and pains, fatigue, fear, nausea, etc. Perceptions of these responses in oneself can markedly alter self-efficacy. Getting ‘butterflies in the stomach’ before public speaking can be interpreted as a sign of inability, thus decreasing self-efficacy. It is one’s belief in the implications of physiological response that alters self-efficacy, rather than the physiological response itself.
How might different people weight different sources of self-efficacy differently?
Some of us heavily weight the experience of ‘emotional arousal’ from past success - how good the experience felt; others may heavily weight the ‘opinion of peers and what they had to say’ about our success.
What behaviours are typical of those with high self-efficacy?
High-self-efficacy individuals show greater cognitive resourcefulness, strategic flexibility, and effectiveness in managing their environment (Wood & Bandura, 1989).
What behaviours are typical of those with low self-efficacy?
Low-self-efficacy individuals avoid difficult tasks and give up quickly in the face of obstacles. They are slow to recover their sense of efficacy after failures or setbacks and easily fall victim to stress and depression (Bandura, 2001).
How has self-efficacy been shown to relate to academic success?
Students high in academic self-efficacy, with either superior or average cognitive ability, manage their work better, are more persistent, and are less likely to reject correct solutions prematurely (Bouffard-Bouchard, Parent & Larivee, 1991)
What did Van Dinther, Dochy, and Segers (2011) find to be the most powerful source of creating a strong sense of academic self-efficacy?
Enactive mastery or practical experiences (however these tasks must be authentic, well structured and supervised)
How can boosting self-efficacy reduce violent conduct?
Caprara, Regalia and Bandura (2002) found that perceived efficacy to resist peer pressures for transgressive activities would reduce engagement in violent conduct. This is self-regulatory efficacy.
