Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is about your belief in your own ability to handle a specific situation. It is not about whether you are generally good or bad, but about whether you think you can do what a particular task demands. For example, two students might both want to pass an exam, but one believes she can study effectively and succeed, while the other feels the outcome depends on luck or the difficulty of the paper. That difference in belief is self-efficacy.

This idea comes from Bandura’s social learning theory. His early work showed that people learn behaviour by watching and imitating others. But Bandura went further: he argued that what people expect to achieve, and how strongly they believe in their own effectiveness, shapes what they actually do and how much risk they are willing to take.

A strong sense of self-efficacy has powerful effects. It allows people to select, influence, and even construct the circumstances of their own lives. People with high self-efficacy feel less fearful. They are more likely to persist when things get hard. For instance, research has found that people with high self-efficacy can stop smoking the moment they decide to do so — they trust their own resolve. …