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

Psychology cannot tell people how they ought to live their lives. It can however, provide them with the means for effecting personal and social change.

Expected outcomes contribute to motivation independently of self-efficacy beliefs when outcomes are not completely controlled by quality of performance. This occurs when extraneous factors also affect outcomes, or outcomes are socially tied to a minimum level of performance so that some variations in quality of performance above and below the standard do not produce differential outcomes

Indeed there are many competent people who are plagued by a sense of inefficacy, and many less competent ones who remain unperturbed by impending threats because they are self-assured of their coping capabilities

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

People who underestimate their capabilities also bear costs, although, as already noted, these are more likely to take self-limiting rather than aversive forms. By failing to cultivate personal potentialities and constricting their activities, such persons cut themselves off from many rewarding experiences. Should they attempt tasks having evaluative significance, they create internal obstacles to effective performance by approaching them with unnerving self-doubts

People are much more likely to act on their self-percepts of efficacy inferred from many sources of information rather than rely primarily on visceral cues. This is not surprising because self knowledge based on information about one's coping skills, past accomplishments, and social comparison is considerably more indicative of capability than the indefinite stirrings of the viscera