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.

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.

Self-percepts foster actions that generate information, as well as serve as a filtering mechanism for self-referent information in the self-maintaining process

From the social cognitive perspective, it is mainly perceived inefficacy to cope with potentially aversive events that makes them fearsome. To the extent that people believe they can prevent, terminate, or lessen the severity of aversive events, they have little reason to be perturbed by them. But if they believe they are unable to manage threats safely, they have much cause for apprehension.

Forceful actions arising from erroneous beliefs often create social effects that confirm the misbeliefs

People with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided.

There are countless studies on the negative spillover of job pressures on family life, but few on how job satisfaction enhances the quality of family life.