Self-efficacy beliefs produce their effects through cognitive, motivational, affective, and selective processes. These proccesses "usually operate in concert rather than on their own" (116).

COGNITIVE PROCESSES (116)

Efficacy beliefs affect thought processes that can enhance or undermine performance, and take various forms:

• Cognitive Constructions (116)
  • Courses of action are initially shaped in thought, then serve as guides for action (116)
  • Efficacy beliefs influence hoe they construe situations
  • Anticipate scenarios
  • Visualize futures they construct
  • high efficacy = viewing situations presenting realizable opportunities
  • cognitive negativity = dwells on personal deficiencies & undermining self-motivation

  "It is difficult to achieve much while fighting self-doubt" (117).

• Inferential Thinking (117)
  • A major function of thought is to enable people to predict likely outcomes (117)
  • The same predictor may lead to different events
  • Research ought not be done in nontaxing, static environments
  • Acquisition of ability
  • Some consider ability an acquirable skill
  • Adopt functional learning goals
  • Seek challenges that provide opportunities
  • When skill is seen as something changeable, rate of self- improvement is greater
  • Some consider ability an inherent aptitude
  • Failures carry high evaluative threats
  • These people measure their ability much more by social comparison
  • Viewing ability as an inherent capability
  • Lowers perceived self--efficacy
  • Retards skill development
  • Diminishes interest in the activity
  • Another important belief system is people's belief about the extent to which their environment is influencable or controllable
  • Self--doubters are harried by futility of their efforts
  • They are less likely to undertake actions to improve their circumstances

MOTIVATIONAL PROCESSES (122)

• The capability for self--motivation and purposive action is rooted in cognitive theory
• Future states cannot be the cause of current motivation or action
• By being cognitively represented in the present, conceived future states are converted into current motivation and regulators of behavior (forethought).
• Three forms of cognitive motivators
• Causal attributions
• Outcome expectancies
• Cognized goals
• Attribution Theory (123)
  • Retrospective judgements of the causes of one's performances have motivational effects
  • What we attribute success and failures to
  • Reasons for past performances can affect beliefs of personal efficacy
  • Attributions of success to ability are accompanied by heightened beliefs of personal capability
  • Attribution theorists usually treat ability as a stable or enduring internal characteristic
  • "The overall evidence reveals that causal attributions, whether in the form of ability, effort, or task difficulty, generally have weak or no independent effect on performance motivation. Perceived self-efficacy mediates the effect of causal attributions on performance" (125).

• Expectancy-Value Theory (125)
  • People motivate themselves and guide their actions anticipatorily by the outcomes they expect to get from certain behaviors
  • The higher the expectancy the greater the motivation
  • People act on their beliefs of what they can do as well as their beliefs of the likely effects of various actions
  • Efficacy beliefs, however, determine the types of outcomes that are foreseen
  • When efficacy is controlled, the outcomes-expected for given performances contribute little to prediction of behavior

• Goal Theory (128)
  • Behavior is motivated and directed by cognized goals rather than being pulled by an unrealized future state
  • Research shows that explicit, challenging goals enhance motivation.
  • Goals operate through self-reactive influences rather than regulating motivation and action directly

• Self-Reactive Influences as Mediators of Goal Motivation (128)
  • Cognitive motivation based goals are mediated by three types of self-influences
  • Affective self-evaluations to one's performances
  • Perceived self-efficacy for goal attainment
  • Adjustment of personal standards
  • Efficacy beliefs contribute to motivation in several ways
  • Influences the challenges people pursue
  • Effort they expend
  • Perseverance
  • "When faced with obstacles or failures, people who distrust their capabilities slacken their efforts or abort their attempts prematurely. Those who have strong belief in their capabilities intensify their efforts when they fail to achieve what they seek and persist until they succeed. Strong perseverance usually pays off in performance accomplishments" (129).
  • Knowledge of having surpassed a demanding standard through laborious effort does not automatically straighten efficacy and raise aspirations
  • Some set even more challenging goals
  • Some are left with self-doubts
  • Some judge themselves unable to muster the same demanding effort
  • Self-reactive influences predict the impact of success and failure on motivation
  • The experience of struggling hard but falling just short produces several interesting self-reactions
  • Some become demoralized
  • Their efficacy plummets
  • They abandon pursuit of the goal
  • Others remain efficacious and aspiring but are discontent to motivate themselves to do better.
  • A good number become over complacent - "too content"

• Self-Regulation and the Negative Feedback Model (130)
  • Negative feedback is the basic regulator in control theory - perceived discrepancy between performance feedback and inner reference standard automatically triggers adjustments to reduce the incongruity
  • Bandura does not have nice things to say about these control theories
  • Portray humans as nonconscious beings
  • Grafted ideas from several other theories
  • Stilted machine language
  • Discrepancy reduction plays a central role in any system of self-regulation (the negative feedback control model provides us with nothing useful however).
  • Different self-regulatory systems govern the mobilization of motivation
  • Human motivation relies on discrepance reduction and discrepancy production
  • Proactive as well as reactive control
  • People initially motivate themselves through proactive control by setting standards that create disequilibrium, they then mobilize their effort based on anticipatory estimation to reach those standards.
  • To capture the complexity of human self-regulation, a system must evaluate properties shown to play important roles in self-directedness
  • Proactive adoption of standards rooted in a value system
  • Self-appraisal of personal efficacy to achieve goals
  • Anticipatory regulation of effort
  • Material and social outcome expectations
  • Affective self-evaluative reactions
  • Self-reflective metacognitive activities focused n accuracy of one's appraisals
  • In human activities, goal adjustments do not follow a neat pattern of ever rising standards. Rather, feedback of discrepancy has diverse effects on self-reactive influences that mediate motivation and aspiration

• Negative Discrepancy as Automotivator (132)
  • "If disparities between perceived events and mental structures were automatically motivating, learning would be unremitting and much more unselective that it really is" (132)
  • People are active agents in their motivation and learning

• Goal Properties and Self-Motivation (133)

  Relevant Goal Properties

  • Goal Specificity - clear, attainable goals produce higher levels of performance than general intentions do
  • Goal Challenge
  • Strong interest and involvement in activities is sparked by challenges
  • A large body of evidence shows that the higher the goals, the harder people work to attain them
  • When goals are set unrealistically high, strong effort and repeated failure are likely to take their toll on perceived self-efficacy
  • Self-motivation is best sustained through a series of proximal subgoals that are hierarchically organized.
  • Goal Proximity - the effectiveness of goal intentions depends greatly how far into the future they are set
  • Distant goals makes it easy to put things off
  • In the absence of proximal goals to concentrate their efforts, people postpone taking needed steps; find convenient detours; and dawdle when they do get on track./
  • Subgoals enlist self-reactive motivators and figure into the development of self-efficacy "without standards against which to measure their performances, people have little basis for guacin their capabilities" (135).

• Hierarchical Structure of Goal Systems (136)

  "Subgoal challenges often outweigh the lure of superordinate goals as ongoing motivators" (136).

• Causal Ordering of Efficacy and Goal Influences (136)
  • Efficacy Beliefs influence
  • Level at which goals are set
  • Strength of commitment to them
  • Strategies used
  • Amount of effort expended
  • Intensification of effort when accomplishments fall short

AFFECTIVE PROCESSES (137))

• Three three ways in which self-efficacy beliefs affect the nature and intensity of emotional experiences. Exercise of personal control over
• Thought - create attentional bias (what we pay attention to) and determine whether events are construed benignly or emotionally perturbing
• Action - regulate affective states by supporting effective courses of action
• Affect - perceived self-efficacy to ameliorate aversive emotional states once they are aroused
• Anxiety is defined as a state of anticipatory apprehension over possible deleterious happenings
• Efficacy Regulation of Anxiety through Attentional and Construal Processes (140)
  • Threat is a relational matter concerning the match between perceived coping abilities and potentially hurtful aspects of the environment
  • Efficacy-beliefs determine in large part the interpreted danger of events
  • People who believe that they can exercise control over events do not conjure up calamities and frighten themselves
  • People who are led to believe that they can exercise control over painful stimuli display lower autonomic arousal and less performance impairment
  • Efficacy enhancement exceeded relaxation and sedative drugs in ameliorating self-rated anxiety as well as behavioral agitation during surgery

• Efficacy Regulation of Anxiety through Transformational Actions (141)
  • Efficacious exercise of control diminishes anxiety by reducing or preventing painful experiences
  • Infants are frightened by a noisy mobile when it is out of their reach, but it becomes fun when they can activate it

• Micro Relationships Between Efficacy Beliefs and Anxiety Arousal (143)
  • People display little anxiety arousal while coping with threats they regard with high efficacy. But as they confront threats for which they distrust their coping efficacy, their anticipatory and performance subjective anxiety mounts, their heart rate accelerates, and their blood pressure rises
  • After a strong sense of coping efficacy is instilled [through guided mastery], the previously intimidating threats no longer elicit differential autonomic reactivity.
  • Efficacy beliefs determine the subjective perilousness of situations

• Environmental Controllability and Anxiety Arousal (144)

• Regulation of Affective States by Thought Control Efficacy (145)
  • People possess the capacity to manage their own thought processes.
  • To the extent that they can regulate what they think, they can influence how they feel and behave
  • Some can control what they think
  • Others feel powerless to rid themselves of disturbing thoughts
  • The self-regulation of thought control therefore plays a significant role in the maintenance of emotional well-being
  • "You cannot prevent the birds of worry and care from flying over your head. But you can stop them from building nests in your hair" - Chinese proverb
  • Intrusive cognitions
  • Frequency
  • Intensity
  • Acceptability
  • Controllability
  • It is not the frequency that engenders their effects, but perceived controllability
  • Churchill measure of thought management
  • Perceived self-efficacy to divert attention from unwanted thoughts
  • To tolerate them and reconstrue them in benign ways
  • It is not the sheer frequency of intrusive thoughts but the perceived inefficacy to turn them off that is the major source of distress
  • Different strategies of thought control
  • Suppression - does not work because the negation of a thought contains the thought "quit thinking giraffe" - Efforts of thought control are more likely to backfire under stressful conditions
  • Self-distractions by concentrating on other trains of thought can be more effective than suppression -This method instates the thoughts one needs
  • Postponement of worrying (give a set time to worry each day). This works
  • Proactive attention to wanted thoughts
  • People enlist environmental aids
  • Situational changes and environmental changes
  • Absorption in novels, movies, or television
  • Immersion in engrossing activities

• Affective Control Efficacy (151)
  • Beneficial perspectives also provide further means for dealing with stressors
  • Physical exercise
  • Recreational activities
  • Enjoyable avocational pursuits
  • Humor tempers the sting of adversity
  • Much human distress is self-inflicted by personal demands for accomplishment that are exceedingly difficult to fulfill.
  • Relaxing stringent self-imposed demands relieves stress

• Perceived Self-Inefficacy and Depression (153)
  • The inability to influence events and social conditions that significantly affect ones life can give rise to feelings of futility as well as despondency and anxiety
  • Anxiety - when people perceive themselves ill equipped to handle potentially injurious events
  • Sadness and depression - when people have low perceived self-efficacy to gain valued outcomes
  • Hopelessness about the future
  • Failures or hardships
  • Lack or loss of emotional relationships
  • Cyclical - depressed people create depressing environments by their behavior

• Inefficacy and Biased Cognitive Processing of Experiences (154)
  • A weak sense of perceived self-efficacy operates on the cognitive source of depression in several ways
  • The processing of positive and negative experiences
  • Dwell on failures rather than savoring their successes
  • Influence causal explanations of performance attainments
  • Depressed persons are not especially charitable with themselves
  • Use unfavorable social comparisons

• Depression through Inefficacy for Unfulfilled Aspirations (156)
  • A sure way of nurturing self-inefficacy is by adopting lofty or vague goals for gaining self-worth

• Depression through Inefficacious Thought Control (157).
  • Depressed people are not only poor at ridding themselves of distracting, negative thoughts, they are also notably good at eliminating positive thoughts

• Depression through Social Inefficacy (157)
  • Another route to depression comes with the inability to foster interpersonal relationships that provide modes of coping and satisfaction
  • Socially supportive relationships reduce vulnerability to stress, depression and physical illness
  • Social support is likely to heavily affect post abortion patients and the efficacy of new mothers
  • Socially efficacious people create more supportive environments for themselves.

SELECTION PROCESSES (160)

• People are partly the products of their environments
• By selecting their environments, people can have a hand in what they become
• Any factor that influences choice of behavior can affect the direction of personal development
• Choices made during formative periods of life carry special weight because they initiate concatenating experiences that rete the prerequisites for desired futures.
• In hindsight, turning points stand out
• The stronger their efficacy the more career options they consider