Albert Bandura Quotes - Page 3

Accurate processing of information about outcomes is no simple task under the variable conditions of everyday life . . . usually, many factors enter into determining what effects, if any, given actions will have, Actions, therefore, produce outcomes probabilistically rather than certainly. Depending on the particular conjunction of factors, the same course of action may produce given outcomes regularly, occasionally, or only infrequently

The adequacy of performance attainments depends upon the personal standards against which they are judged

Measures of self-precept must be tailored to the domain of psychological functioning being explored.

Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends. This is why most appeals against violent means usually fall on deaf ears.

Behavior must also be adequately assessed under appropriate circumstances. Ill-defined global measures of perceived self-efficacy or defective assessments of performance will yield discordances. Disparities will also arise when efficacy is judged for performances in actual situations but performance is measured in simulated situations that are easier to deal with than the actualities

Freedom [should not be] conceived negatively as exemption from social influences or situational constraints. Rather...positively as the exercise of self-influence to bring about desired results.

If you look at our theories of social pathology and then at the dismal conditions in which children grow up in our ghettos, you would predict that all of them would be on drugs or psychological basket cases. Yet if you use criteria like gainful employment, forming partnerships and life without crime, you will find that most of those kids make it.

Coping with the demands of everyday life would be exceedingly trying if one could arrive at solutions to problems only by actually performing possible options and suffering the consequences.

When actions are followed by events that are not causally related to the prior acts, people often erroneously perceive contingencies that do not, in fact, exist

In any given instance, behavior can be predicted best by considering both self-efficacy and outcome beliefs . . . different patterns of self-efficacy and outcome beliefs are likely to produce different psychological effects

Reasonably accurate appraisal of one's own capabilities is, therefore, of considerable value in successful functioning. Large misjudgments of personal efficacy in either direction have consequences. People who grossly overestimate their capabilities undertake activities that are clearly beyond their reach. As a result, they get themselves into considerable difficulties, undermine their credibility, and suffer needless failures. Some of the missteps, of course, can produce serious, irreparable harm

Dysfunctions can occur in each of the self-regulatory subfunctions-in how personal experiences are self-monitored and cognitively processed, in the evaluative self-standards that are adopted, and in the evaluative self-reactions to one's own behavior.. Problems at any one of these points can create self-dissatisfactions and dejection. dysfunctions in all aspects of the self system are most apt to produce the most chronic self-disparagement and despondency

Self-efficacy beliefs differ from outcome expectations, judgments of the likely consequence [that] behavior will produce.

Perceived self-efficacy influences the types of causal attributions people make for their performances

People regulate their level and distribution of effort in accordance with the effects they expect their actions to have. As a result, their behavior is better predicted from their beliefs than from the actual consequences of their actions

Among the types of thoughts that affect action, none is more central or pervasive than people's judgments of their capabilities to deal effectively with different realities

Self-appraisals of efficacy are reasonably accurate, but they diverge from action because people do not know fully what they will have to do, lack information for regulating their effort, or are hindered by external factors from doing what they can

Such self-referent misgivings creates stress and undermine effective use of the competencies people possess by diverting attention from how best to proceed to concern over personal failings and possible mishaps

It is widely assumed that beliefs in personal determination of outcomes create a sense of efficacy and power, whereas beliefs that outcomes occur regardless of what one does result in apathy

Many people who gain recognition and fame shape their lives by overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, only to be catapulted into new social realities over which they have less control and manage badly. Indeed, the annals of the famous and infamous are strewn with individuals who were both architects and victims of their life courses.

A problem of future research is to clarify how young children learn what type of social comparative information is most useful for efficacy evaluation

The evaluative habits developed in sibling interactions undoubtedly affect the salience and choice of comparative referents in self-ability evaluations in later life

For many activities, people cannot rely solely on themselves in evaluating their ability level because such judgments require inferences from probabilistic indicants of talent about which they may have limited knowledge. Self-appraisals are, therefore, partly based on the opinions of others who presumably possess evaluative competence

The difficulty in judging what type of behavior works well arises not only because a given course of action does not always produce the outcomes. Similar outcomes can occur for reasons other than the person's actions, which further complicates inferential judgment. Effects that arise independently of one's actions distort the influence of similar effects produced by the actions, but only on some occasions. Given a strong cognitive set to perceive regularities, even chance joint occurrences of events can be easily misjudged as genuine relationships of low contingent probability

Self efficacious children tend to attribute their successes to ability, but ability attributions affect performance indirectly through perceived self-efficacy