Self-Efficacy: Theory, Examples, and Tips

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Have you ever wondered why some people welcome a specific challenge with enthusiasm, whereas others shy away from precisely the same? That’s because some individuals have high self-efficacy toward that challenge and others don’t. Self-efficacy is a psychological concept that refers to your thoughts and perceptions about your ability to perform the actions needed to reach a specific goal. In simpler terms, self-efficacy is your belief that you can succeed in a particular situation. 

One thing to keep in mind is self-efficacy is not about having the skill to complete a task, but whether you believe you can achieve that task. Because self-efficacy is tightly linked to your belief in your ability to accomplish something specific, it can affect how you manage it. Suppose you feel confident that you can handle a new challenge. In that case, you might be highly motivated to take action, put more effort toward accomplishing it, and display higher resilience when you face adversity. 

In fact, one of the basic notions of this concept is that you are more likely to participate in activities and delve into tasks for which you possess high self-efficacy and less likely to take action for those you possess low self-efficacy (Lunenburg, 2011). For instance, you and your friend may have similar body types and athletic skills, but if you have a higher self-efficacy for running a marathon than your friend, you might have more motivation to train for it and less likely to give up before crossing the finish line.

Moreover, self-efficacy is a situation-specific construct. In other words, you may have a high self-efficacy toward certain situations but a low self-efficacy toward others. Let’s illustrate this notion by imagining two scenarios. In the first one, someone gives you car keys and asks you to drop her off at the hospital. In the second scenario, the same person gives you helicopter keys and asks you to fly her to the hospital. Unless you are a pilot, you might be more familiar with operating a car engine than a helicopter engine; therefore, you might have a higher self-efficacy for driving to the hospital than flying there. But how does self-efficacy develop? Below, you will discover the origins of the self-efficacy theory and the factors that contribute to it.

Upon noticing that a person’s belief in their ability to accomplish a task affects how they handle it, Albert Bandura proposed a new construct to explain this observation in an article titled “Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change” (Bandura, 1977). In addition to defining this construct, Bandura also outlined the four major sources of influence on self-efficacy: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and emotional and physiological states. Let’s take a closer look at each of these sources of influence. 

Mastery Experiences
When it comes to developing self-efficacy, Bandura has determined that mastery experiences, which are an individual’s past performance outcomes, are the most effective sources of influence (Bandura, 1994). For instance, if you have performed well at a given task in the past, you might feel competent about performing a similar task again. Yet, mastery experiences can be double-edged swords; your positive experiences can boost your self-efficacy, whereas your negative experiences can erode it. 

Vicarious Experiences
According to Bandura, vicarious experiences or observations of other people’s performances take the second spot for influencing self-efficacy (Bandura, 1994). Observing another person deal with a similar situation and watching them succeed can increase your self-efficacy. However, like with the mastery experiences, watching someone else fail or experience losses might lower your self-efficacy.

Verbal Persuasion
The third source of influence that shapes self-efficacy is verbal persuasion. In this case, what other people say about your performance or ability to perform shapes how you feel about your capabilities to handle the challenge. Moreover, the more credible the source of verbal persuasion, the greater their influence over self-efficacy (Won, Lee & Bong, 2017). 

Imagine a swim team coach encouraging her athletes by telling them that their skills have improved significantly this season, and she believes they will do very well in the upcoming championship competition. Because this coach uses verbal persuasion in a positive light, her swimmers might feel motivated to train harder, put forth more effort, and have greater confidence in their abilities to perform well. Additionally, this coach’s encouraging words likely affect a swimmer’s self-efficacy more than similar words they might hear from one of their non-swimmer friends. 

Again, the reverse case is also true; discouraging words might chip away bits of self-efficacy. For instance, if the same swim coach were to tell her swimmers that she expected them to swim much better or that their performance was subpar for their league in the last swim meet, her swimmers might doubt their abilities and feel less confident that they will do well in future competitions.

Emotional and Physiological States
The last source of influence in Bandura’s self-efficacy model involves internal sensations of the individual in two aspects: emotional and physiological. When it comes to emotional influences, your mood and outlook may affect how you approach a challenge. Simply put, having a positive attitude might enhance your self-efficacy, but a negative attitude might diminish it (Bandura, 1994). 

Physiological influences include your bodily reactions, such as fatigue, aches, pain, pleasure, and levels of stress hormones. According to Bandura, people who perceive their physical reactions as energizing factors have higher self-efficacy, whereas people who regard them as setbacks have lower self-efficacy (Bandura, 1994). 
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For instance, I used to dread giving speeches in front of others. Before walking to the stage, my heart rate would go up, and my palms would become sweaty. However, once I started viewing these physical reactions as indicators of excitement to share my knowledge with people who want to learn from me, giving public speeches became effortless and even enjoyable. In other words, changing how I view my stress reactions increased my self-efficacy for public speaking.

Bandura’s initial characterization of self-efficacy had focused on it as a stand-alone construct. However, after realizing that a clear understanding of self-efficacy required an encompassing social framework, Bandura later incorporated his self-efficacy construct into the social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986).

The social cognitive theory emphasizes how individuals learn and maintain specific behaviors within a social environment that influences self-regulation of their behavior (Pajares, 1997). Self-regulation is a complex process and depends on the interactions of multiple components to influence behavior (Maddux and Volkman, 2010), which are self-observation, self-evaluation, and self-reaction, in addition to self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986; Bandura, 1991).

The first of these self-regulatory processes, self-observation, entails assessing your progress towards a goal. For example, if your goal is to write a novel, every page you write might give you a sense of progress and self-motivate you to continue writing. On the other hand, self-assessment allows you to view your performance in the light of your goal and compare your execution with the desired outcomes. A good performance is more likely to give you satisfaction than a subpar performance. Therefore, self-evaluation might push you towards increasing your effort, ultimately providing better results and higher satisfaction. 

Finally, self-reaction is when you modify your behavior based on your performance. Let’s assume your initial goal towards writing your novel was writing one page every morning. If day after day you finish your page quickly and long to write more, you would be likely to re-evaluate your daily goal and increase it to two pages or more. In contrast, if you struggle with writing an entire page in the morning, you might change your goal to writing later in the day or aim to write only one paragraph.

Since Bandura’s pivotal article, self-efficacy has become one of the most closely-studied constructs in psychology. Almost every type of human behavior has been explored through the lens of self-efficacy. Here are some research highlights: 

Self-Efficacy and Education 
The influence of self-efficacy has been studied extensively for teaching and learning behaviors. For example, when researchers compared students in good academic standing to those on academic probation, they found that successful students had higher self-efficacy (Hsieh, Sullivan, and Guerra, 2007). Researchers also found that teachers suffer less from job-related stress and burnout when they have high self-efficacy (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007; Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008). Moreover, higher teacher self-efficacy had a positive impact on student motivation as well (Mojavezi and Tamiz, 2012).

Self-Efficacy and Parenting
Maternal self-efficacy strongly influenced parental behavior when all other factors were controlled for (Teti and Gelfand, 1991). Moreover, the implementation of supportive breastfeeding policies at workplaces increased working mothers’ self-efficacy (Wallenborn et al., 2019).

Self-Efficacy in the Workplace
A meta-analysis revealed a strong correlation between self-efficacy and employee’s job satisfaction and performance predictors (Judge and Bono, 2001). Yet, self-efficacy is also a significant influence on entrepreneurship and helps would-be entrepreneurs to consider new opportunities and cross the barriers needed to establish their businesses (Boyd and Vozikis, 1994).

Self-Efficacy and Weight Management
In a study, participants who completed self-efficacy-promoting activities not only had higher motivations to lose weight and implement healthier habits than control subjects, but they also shed more pounds (Roach, 2003). Similarly, successful weight management of participants in another study was correlated to their self-efficacy (Kitsantas, 1999).

Our lives are full of self-efficacy examples, and you might already be thinking of some from your own life. In addition to our careers, education, and family lives, self-efficacy may also influence our friendships, sports performances, hobbies, health, and general life choices. Here are a few that you might have witnessed or even experienced yourself. 
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• Career: A prospective employee reads the description of a new position for a role she hasn’t performed before. She decides that she has the skills and the aptitude to thrive in that position and sends her application. 
• Education: A student is taking a course in an unfamiliar subject. She believes in her learning abilities to master the new topic and do well on tests.
• Parenting: A man finds out that his partner is pregnant. He believes he will be a good parent and looks forward to raising a child with his partner.
• Sports and Fitness: A man starts going to the gym every day because he believes he can get in shape with regular exercise. 
• Health: After getting injured in an accident, a woman struggles to walk without help. Yet, she feels she will be able to walk on her own by completing physical therapy and following her doctor’s recommendations.
• Friendship: After moving to a different neighborhood with his family, a child feels confident that he can make friends in his new school.
• Hobbies: A woman receives a crochet hook for her birthday. Even though she has never crocheted before, she knows how to knit and feels confident that she can apply her knitting skills to learn how to crochet.

As you might have noticed, all of these examples illustrate high self-efficacy. But how does low self-efficacy affect our decision making and behaviors?

As discussed earlier, when someone has high self-efficacy about a situation, they believe that they can succeed. This belief influences their decisions and behaviors. They tend to remain motivated to obtain successful outcomes and are less likely to give up than individuals with low self-efficacy. 

Imagine two friends who want to quit smoking. The first individual has high self-efficacy and believes she can stop smoking. She disposes of her remaining cigarette packs, fights her cravings, and gradually replaces smoking with healthier habits. In contrast, the other individual has low self-efficacy and has doubt about her ability to stop smoking. She fights the first few urges to light up a cigarette but eventually gives in when an acquaintance offers her one. 

Let’s see how the outcomes differ when we use the point of view of a person with low self-efficacy for the examples from above.

• Career: A prospective employee reads the description of a new position for a role he hasn’t performed before. He decides that he would fail in that position and doesn’t submit an application. 
• Education: A student is taking a course in an unfamiliar subject. He is unsure whether he will get a passing grade.
• Parenting: A woman is pregnant. She doubts that she has the necessary skills to become a good parent and thinks that her child will not be as healthy and intelligent as other children.  
• Sports and Fitness: A woman goes to the gym for a few days. She doesn’t feel confident that regular exercise will help her get in shape, and stops working out. 
• Health: After getting injured in an accident, a man struggles to walk without help. He thinks he will never walk independently and stops going to his physical therapy sessions.
• Friendship: After moving to a different neighborhood with her family, a child feels reluctant to go to her new school and doubts that her new classmates will want to be friends with her. 
• Hobbies: A man receives a crochet hook for his birthday. He knows how to knit, but he puts away the crochet hook because he has never crocheted before and doesn’t think he can learn how to use this new tool.

​These low efficacy examples might have reminded you of individuals with low self-esteem or self-confidence. Although self-efficacy is somewhat related to these other self-concepts, it differs from them in crucial ways.

Not everyone has a high self-efficacy in every situation. However, this doesn’t have to mean you can’t boost your self-efficacy or help others increase theirs. Here are a few tips that you might find helpful.

Practice, Practice, Practice 
This tip is related to the mastery experiences in Bandura’s self-efficacy model. Simply, the more you have practice doing something, the more likely you will become better at it, and the more confident you will feel doing the same task in a different situation. 

Try New Things
Again, this suggestion is related to the mastery experiences. People tend to feel more comfortable with familiar situations. Therefore, the more novelty you accept into your life, the less likely you will be intimidated by new tasks. Trying new things might increase the range of skills at your disposal, but you may also be more likely to face situations that share similarities with your past experiences.

Find Role Models
Here, we use Bandura’s second source, vicarious experiences, which states that observing other people’s successes can boost our self-efficacy. Witnessing someone else achieve a similar goal might motivate you to follow their steps and imagine yourself as successful. And the more similar that person’s background is to yours, the more you can relate to their experiences.

Mentor Others
If you have accomplishments that you are proud of, why not share the joy with others by helping them do the same? If you choose to become a mentor, you may be able to boost your mentee’s self-efficacy by being their role model. Moreover, you can further increase their self-efficacy by giving them positive feedback and regularly reviewing their progress with them in an encouraging way. 

Build a Support System 
Hearing positive feedback about your performance can significantly boost your self-efficacy, especially if the praise comes from experts, teachers, coaches, and peers who have done well in similar endeavors. You may try surrounding yourself with supportive people whose opinions you value.

Be Positive 
​It is essential to recognize signs of stress and thoughts of self-doubt so that you can address them. You might want to focus on your past victories and positive experiences to keep your self-doubt at bay. Keeping a list of accomplishments that you are proud of might come in handy when you need a quick boost to your mood. If stress and anxiety prevent you from making progress, you may try breathing exercises, meditation, and other stress management tools.

Here are some more articles to read that can help you develop self-efficacy:​

Want to keep learning more? Check out these books:​​​​​

• Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.  Psychological Review, 84(2), 191.
• Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• Bandura, A. (1991). Social cognitive theory of self-regulation. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50(2), 248-287.
• Bandura, A. (1994). Self-efficacy. In V. S. Ramachaudran (Ed.), Encyclopedia of human behavior (Vol. 4, pp. 71-81). New York: Academic Press. (Reprinted in H. Friedman [Ed.], Encyclopedia of mental health. San Diego: Academic Press, 1998).
• Boyd, N. G., & Vozikis, G. S. (1994). The influence of self-efficacy on the development of entrepreneurial intentions and actions. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 18, 63-77.
• Judge, T. A., & Bono, J. E. (2001). Relationship of core self-evaluations traits—self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability—with job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(1), 80.
• Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Self-efficacy in the workplace: Implications for motivation and performance. International journal of management, business, and administration, 14(1), 1-6.
• Mojavezi, A., & Tamiz, M. P. (2012). The Impact of Teacher Self-efficacy on the Students’ Motivation and Achievement. Theory & Practice in Language Studies, 2(3).
• Pajares, F. (1997). Current directions in self-efficacy research. Advances in motivation and achievement, 10(149), 1-49.
• Roach, J. B., Yadrick, M.K., Johnson, J.T., Boudreaux, L.J., Forsythe III, W.A., & Billon, W. (2003). Using self-efficacy to predict weight loss among young adults.   Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 103 (10), 1357-1359.
• Schunk, D. H., & Zimmerman, B. J. (2007). Influencing children’s self-efficacy and self-regulation of reading and writing through modeling. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 23, 7-25.
• Schwarzer, R., & Hallum, S. (2008). Perceived teacher self-efficacy as a predictor of job stress and burnout: Mediation analyses. Applied Psychology, 57, 152-171.
• Skaalvik, E. M., & Skaalvik, S. (2007). Dimensions of teacher self-efficacy and relations with strain factors, perceived collective teacher efficacy, and teacher burnout. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 611-625.
• Teti, D. M., & Gelfand, D. M. (1991). Behavioral competence among mothers of infants in the first year: The mediational role of maternal self-efficacy. Child Development, 62 (5), 918-929.
• Wallenborn, J. T., Perera, R. A., Wheeler, D. C., Lu, J., & Masho, S. W. (2019). Workplace support and breastfeeding duration: The mediating effect of breastfeeding intention and self‐efficacy. Birth, 46(1), 121-128.
• Won, S., Lee, S. Y., & Bong, M. (2017). Social persuasions by teachers as a source of student self‐efficacy: The moderating role of perceived teacher credibility. Psychology in the Schools, 54(5), 532-547.