Perceived self-efficacy and beliefs about the locus of outcome causality must be distinguished

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

Discrepancies between self-efficacy judgment and performance will arise when either the tasks or the circumstances under which they are performed are ambiguous

People who are insecure about themselves will avoid social comparisons that are potentially threatening to their self-esteem

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

Self-doubt creates the impetus for learning but hinders adept use of previously established skills

People infer high self-efficacy from successes achieved through minimal effort on difficult tasks, but they infer low self-efficacy if they had to work hard under favorable conditions to master relatively easy tasks