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

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

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

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

The satisfactions people derive from what they do are determined to a large degree by their self-evaluative standards

It is no more informative to speak of self-efficacy in global terms than to speak of nonspecific social behavior

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