Factors affecting self-efficacy

What is self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is basically the belief in the ability to control behavior and emotions, for example a person believes they can solve a problem, reach a goal, complete a task, and achieve what they set out to do.

For example, a student with a high level of self-efficacy in mathematics feels confident that he can do well in a difficult statistics class. Even if he is not particularly good at that particular type of mathematics, his strong belief in himself can help give him the drive and will to keep going. When it's hard.

Psychologists are interested in many different aspects of self-efficacy, and they often look at it from a number of different psychological perspectives. For example, psychologists are interested in topics such as:

• How does self-efficacy develop?
• How does it affect motivation?
• How does it affect a child's development
• How do environmental variables affect self-efficacy?
• How are self-efficacy and self-concept related?

Factors affecting self-efficacy

Bandura points to four factors that influence self-efficacy in  Bandura's self-efficacy theory:

• Experience 

Experience is the most important factor in determining a person's self-efficacy. Simply put, success raises self-efficacy and failure lowers it.

• exchange experience

When people see someone succeed at something, their self-efficacy will increase, and vice versa when they see people fail, their self-efficacy will decrease. Similarly, this will usually increase the observer's self-efficacy, although it is not as influential as experience modeling has a strong effect when the person is not particularly sure of themselves.

• social beliefs

Social beliefs related to encouragement or discouragement can have a powerful effect, because people always remember what they were told about a certain thing, which leads to a significant change in their confidence, and while positive persuasion increases self-efficacy, negative persuasion reduces it, and it is easier Generally reducing someone's self-efficacy rather than increasing it.

• Physiological factors

In unusually stressful situations, people typically show signs of distress such as tremors, aches and pains, fatigue, fear, and nausea. A person's perceptions of these responses can significantly alter a person's self-efficacy. If a person becomes disoriented and shakes before public speaking, people with low self-efficacy may They take this as a sign of their inability, thus lowering their self-efficacy further whereas those with high self-efficacy are more likely to interpret such physiological signs as natural and unrelated to their actual abilities, and thus it is a person's belief in the effects of their physiological response that alters their self-efficacy. .

Examples of self-efficacy

A better idea of ​​how self-efficacy affects life can be obtained by considering some examples. Some examples of how high self-efficacy can help motivate behavior include:

• If a person trying to lose weight has high self-efficacy and will feel more motivated to stick to an eating and fitness plan because they believe they can succeed, they may feel more empowered to take actions that support those goals.
• A person who has just been diagnosed with diabetes will feel more confident in their ability to manage the condition on their own and follow their doctors' treatment plan if they feel a strong sense of self-efficacy.
• A person who has lost their job feels better about looking for new job opportunities or even considering new career directions if their levels of self-efficacy are high.

In each of these examples, people are faced with a challenge but feel ready and able to meet the demands of that challenge. Because they feel they have the potential to succeed, the challenges they face seem manageable.

General characteristics of people with high self-efficacy

People with higher levels of self-efficacy have some characteristics such as:

• They tend to view the challenges they face as things to master.
• Instead of getting frustrated by obstacles, they see it as an opportunity to learn new things, acquire new skills, and grow as a person.
• People who have a strong sense of self-efficacy are more likely to recover quickly after experiencing life's problems and traumas.
• They also tend to be more involved in the pursuit of their goals and take a more active part in the activities in which they participate.
• A person with high self-efficacy feels more intrinsically motivated to pursue goals.

How to build self-efficacy

Self-efficacy can be built in a number of ways, including: 

• Gaining experience

Bandura, the founder of self-efficacy theory, believed that the best way to enhance self-efficacy is to build confidence through mastery experiences, and this can be done by practicing tasks that are moderately challenging but still doable.

While successfully performing these tasks, the person will become more confident and secure in their ability, and mastery of this task also provides a solid foundation for acquiring more advanced abilities.

• Divide difficult tasks

In the event that you encounter issues that are difficult to implement, you can work on dividing them into smaller and more manageable steps, and for each step a plan is developed that helps to complete the task successfully.

And while reaching the big goal, the person looks at the small steps that he has achieved and seeing the action plan to complete the rest of the tasks can help him feel more powerful and not exhausted.

• Ask for encouragement

Knowing that there are people who support us and believe in our ability to succeed can help to feel better about the chances of success. Friends and colleagues can be a good source of support. When trying to achieve a goal, a therapist or therapist can also provide affirmations and positive feedback.

If there are no close people to support you, join a support group to meet people with similar experiences who can provide encouragement and comfort.

• Find a peer mentor

Observing and learning from successful people can be a great way to build self-efficacy. Bandura believes that watching other people do a task and then succeed leads to vicarious learning. This approach is likely to be more effective if similar mentors are selected.

• Change negative thoughts

Negative thinking patterns can be detrimental to self-efficacy, for example a person who thinks they are bad at something is unlikely to feel they have the potential to succeed.

When a person engages in negative thoughts or suffers from cognitive disorders such as catastrophic thinking or all-or-nothing thinking, they should make their goal to actively challenge these thoughts and replace them with more realistic thoughts.