Most of the images of reality on which we base our actions are really based on vicarious experience.

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.

Persons who have a strong sense of efficacy deploy their attention and effort to the demands of the situation and are spurred by obstacles to greater effort.

The content of most textbooks is perishable, but the tools of self-directedness serve one well over time.

Comparative appraisals of efficacy require not only evaluation of one;s own performances but also knowledge of how others do, cognizance of nonability determinants of their performances, and some understanding that it is others, like oneself, who provide the most informative social criterion for comparison

Misbeliefs in one's inefficacy may retard development of the very subskills upon which more complex performances depend

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.