What people think, believe, and feel affects how they behave. The natural and extrinsic effects of their actions, in turn, partly determine their thought patterns and affective reactions.

People’s beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities.

Perceived self-inefficacy predicts avoidance of academic activities whereas anxiety does not

People who are burdened by acute misgivings about their coping capabilities suffer much distress and expend much effort in defensive action... they cannot get themselves to do things they find subjectively threatening even though they are objectively safe. They may even shun easily manageable activities because they see them as leading to more threatening events over which they will be unable to exercise adequate control.

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

Given a sufficient level of perceived self-efficacy to take on threatening tasks, phobics perform them with varying amounts of fear arousal depending on the strength of their perceived self-efficacy

In social cognitive theory, perceived self-efficacy results from diverse sources of information conveyed vicariously and through social evaluation, as well as through direct experience