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.

Stringent standards of self-evaluation [can] make otherwise objective successes seem to be personal failures

People who are burdened by acute misgivings about their coping capabilities suffer much distress and expend much effort in defensive action... they cannot get themselves to do things they find subjectively threatening even though they are objectively safe. They may even shun easily manageable activities because they see them as leading to more threatening events over which they will be unable to exercise adequate control.

In the self-appraisal of efficacy, there are many sources of information that must be processed and weighed through self-referent thought

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

[Children] receive direct instruction from time to time about the appropriateness of various social comparisons

Even noteworthy performance attainments do not necessarily boost perceived self-efficacy