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

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

It is widely assumed that beliefs in personal determination of outcomes create a sense of efficacy and power, whereas beliefs that outcomes occur regardless of what one does result in apathy

To grant thought causal efficacy is not to invoke a disembodied mental state

The difficulty in judging what type of behavior works well arises not only because a given course of action does not always produce the outcomes. Similar outcomes can occur for reasons other than the person's actions, which further complicates inferential judgment. Effects that arise independently of one's actions distort the influence of similar effects produced by the actions, but only on some occasions. Given a strong cognitive set to perceive regularities, even chance joint occurrences of events can be easily misjudged as genuine relationships of low contingent probability

The human condition is better improved by altering detrimental circumstances and personal perspectives than by trying to alter personal outlooks, while ignoring the very circumstances that serve to nourish them

People regulate their level and distribution of effort in accordance with the effects they expect their actions to have. As a result, their behavior is better predicted from their beliefs than from the actual consequences of their actions