When people are not aiming for anything in particular or when they cannot monitor their performance, there is little basis for translating perceived efficacy into appropriate magnitudes of effort

Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends. This is why most appeals against violent means usually fall on deaf ears.

[Children] receive direct instruction from time to time about the appropriateness of various social comparisons

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

Because of such conjointedness, behavior that exerts no effect whatsoever on outcomes is developed and consistently performed

If self-efficacy is lacking, people tend to behave ineffectually, even though they know what to do.

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