Efficacy/Self-Efficacy

Efficacy is defined as the capabilities people have to produce an effect. Self-efficacy refers to how much people believe in their own capabilities to perform or complete tasks. Self-efficacy is different from self-esteem. While self-esteem is a general feeling of self-worth, self-efficacy is concerned with the judgment of being capable of accomplishing a specific task or goal. Self-efficacy influences how people feel, think, act, and motivate themselves. When people have high self-efficacy with regard to a certain situation, they feel confident, facilitate cognitive processes, and motivate themselves to complete tasks by confronting challenges. When they have low self-efficacy, on the other hand, they reveal anxiety and helplessness and try to avoid difficult tasks. The concept of self-efficacy was introduced by Albert Bandura's social learning theory and social cognitive theory. The concept has been adopted in public relations practices especially with regard to health campaigns to explain and predict publics’ responses to campaign messages. For instance, when health messages promote self-efficacy, publics are more likely to reveal a higher level of self-efficacy and enhanced efforts to manage threatening health situations.

Bandura proposed that there are four antecedents of self-efficacy: performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological cues. In other words, there are four ways of developing self-efficacy. First, people tend to have strong self-efficacy when they achieve accomplishments and are successful at tasks. Mastery experiences and successes build a strong sense of self-efficacy. If people experience a consistent pattern of success in performing tasks, then they will have a high degree of self-efficacy in approaching future accomplishments of the tasks. Second, through social modeling or vicarious experience, people strengthen their self-efficacy. When people observe others like themselves succeeding at tasks, they feel confident that they can complete the same tasks with desirable outcomes. Observing the failures of others, on the other hand, casts doubts about their ability to complete the same tasks. Third, through social persuasion, people's self-efficacy can be strengthened. When people are convinced by someone's verbal encouragement that they are capable of succeeding at tasks, they tend to have increased self-efficacy and exert more effort to complete tasks. Fourth, physical and emotional cues can be used to judge self-efficacy. People tend to perceive anxiety, tension, and depression as an emotional deficiency to perform tasks and also consider the lack of physical strength and stamina as indicators of physical deficiency. These physiological cues may affect the outcomes of the tasks. [Page 284]People may perceive low self-efficacy when they are physically ill and feeling pain. Thus, mastery experiences (performance accomplishments), observing others to succeed at tasks (social modeling), having positive encouragement from persuaders, or relying on physical and emotional cues are required to develop a sense of self-efficacy.

The underlying attributes of self-efficacy include cognitive, affective, motivational, and selection processes. In other words, self-efficacy, or beliefs of personal efficacy, regulates human functioning through cognitive, affective, motivational, and selection processes. Much human behavior is regulated by forethought, which involves cognitive process. This cognitive process enables people to predict the occurrence of future events and develop the means of achieving their control over the events. People with high self-efficacy set challenges for themselves and visualize successful outcomes that provide guidelines for performance. The higher a person's self-efficacy, the higher the personal goals are set. Self-efficacy also influences the amount of stress, anxiety, and depression people experience in threatening situations. People with high self-efficacy tend to believe they can manage threats and lower emotional deficiency such as stress, anxiety, and depression by exercising control over the threats. This is another key impact that self-efficacy has on human functioning. In addition, self-efficacy plays an important role in the self-regulation of motivation. Human motivation is often generated by goal aspirations and the careful assessment of costs and benefits anticipated for courses of action. People with high self-efficacy are likely to motivate themselves as they seek to achieve goals and exert efforts to produce desirable outcomes. Finally, self-efficacy affects how people make choices about their activities and environments. Self-efficacy determines the kind of life people choose to live. People tend to avoid tasks they feel exceed their capabilities while pursuing those they feel competent to perform. Through selection processes, people can have control over possible outcomes. This means that people with high self-efficacy, thus, make choices to control their destinies through personal decisions and efforts. They approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than dwelling on the potential negative consequences. When they fail, they try to recover their self-assurance by exerting more efforts since they believe destiny is controlled by their personal decisions and efforts rather than external locus such as fate or luck. However, people with low self-efficacy are likely to lessen their efforts or quickly settle for solutions when faced with difficulties.

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