[Attributional] factors serve as conveyors of efficacy information that influence performance largely through their intervening effects on self-percepts of efficacy
Albert BanduraMany people who gain recognition and fame shape their lives by overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, only to be catapulted into new social realities over which they have less control and manage badly. Indeed, the annals of the famous and infamous are strewn with individuals who were both architects and victims of their life courses.
Albert BanduraPeople with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided.
Albert BanduraStudents judge how well they might do in a chemistry course from knowing how peers, who performed comparably to them in physics, fared in chemistry
Albert BanduraPeople who are insecure about themselves will avoid social comparisons that are potentially threatening to their self-esteem
Albert BanduraThe 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
Albert Bandura