Chapter 17 Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory 507resignation, and helplessness. For exam-
ple, a junior executive with low self-
efficacy who realizes the difficulties of
becoming company president will develop
feelings of discouragement, give up, and
fail to transfer productive efforts toward a
similar but lesser goal.
What Contributes to Self-Efficacy?
Personal efficacy is acquired, enhanced, or
decreased through any one or combination
of four sources: (1) mastery experiences,
(2) social modeling, (3) social persuasion, and
(4) physical and emotional states (Bandura,
1997). With each method, information about
oneself and the environment is cognitively
processed and, together with recollections of
previous experiences, alters perceived self-
efficacy.
Mastery Experiences The most influential sources of self-efficacy are mastery
experiences, that is, past performances (Bandura, 1997). In general, successful per-
formance raises efficacy expectancies; failure tends to lower them. This general
statement has six corollaries.
First, successful performance raises self-efficacy in proportion to the difficulty
of the task. Highly skilled tennis players gain little self-efficacy by defeating clearly
inferior opponents, but they gain much by performing well against superior oppo-
nents. Second, tasks successfully accomplished by oneself are more efficacious than
those completed with the help of others. In sports, team accomplishments do not
increase personal efficacy as much as do individual achievements. Third, failure is
most likely to decrease efficacy when we know that we put forth our best effort.
To fail when only half-trying is not as inefficacious as to fall short in spite of our
best efforts. Fourth, failure under conditions of high emotional arousal or distress
is not as self-debilitating as failure under maximal conditions. Fifth, failure prior to
establishing a sense of mastery is more detrimental to feelings of personal efficacy
than later failure. A sixth and related corollary is that occasional failure has little
effect on efficacy, especially for people with a generally high expectancy of success.
Social Modeling A second source of efficacy is social modeling: that is, vicarious
experiences provided by other people. Our self-efficacy is raised when we observe
the accomplishments of another person of equal competence, but is lowered when
we see a peer fail. When the other person is dissimilar to us, social modeling will
have little effect on our self-efficacy. An old, sedentary coward watching a young,
active, brave circus performer successfully walk a high wire will undoubtedly have
little enhancement of efficacy expectations for duplicating the feat.
The most influential source of self-efficacy
is performance. © Purestock/SuperStock