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Personal Development
Moving from Determination to Self-Efficacy with Albert Bandura “H
ire for attitude and train for skill!” This advice has served many recruiters well and has proved invaluable for companies who want to get the most out of human talent. It is candidates with a positive, can-do attitude and determination that usually go the distance in the demanding and capricious environment organisations operate in. This is particularly true in an unpredictable world dominated by digi-human competition and the likely effect of 4IR technologies on mainstream skills. Candidates with a positive attitude make situations work to their advantage, which often includes succeeding in just about anything they are engaged in. But, even with the best attitude and determination, employees can fail. If small failures keep piling up and one proves disastrous, there may be no coming back from such setback. For those employees who soldier on, the journey may be draining and costly, leaving them with burnout or depression. So, it is important that no matter how strong one’s determination is, it is supported by valid sources of self-efficacy. According to social scientist Albert Bandura, the founder of selfefficacy theory that was reinforced by the 1961 Bobo Doll experiments: ‘perceived self-efficacy relates to people’s beliefs in their capabilities to exercise control over their own functioning and over events that affect their lives.’ (Bandura 1998) This differs from just a positive attitude: a willingness to try, willingness to learn, or willingness to succeed. It is confidence with a solid basis. While many motivation theorists and behavioural scientists were Figure 1: Self-Efficacy Theory: Bandura’s 4 Sources of Efficacy Beliefs Courtesy: iedunote
focused on research to prove that behaviour (particularly relating to workplace performance) is driven by affective and cognitive stimuli such as reinforcement or punishment, Bandura conducted studies to prove that behaviour can be driven by much more than that. His theory suggests that behaviour may be motivated by four main forces: • Mastery Experience • Vicarious Experience. • Social Persuasion. • Physiological and Emotional States. (See Figure 1.) Simply put, self-efficacy may be driven by a track record of tasks that one has mastered; an observation of people who manage task-demands successfully; affirmation or social persuasion that one has the capabilities to succeed in given activities, and finally, inferences from somatic and emotional states indicative of one’s strengths and vulnerabilities. Founded on these identified sources, self-efficacy plays a major part in determining our chances for success. Self-efficacy increasingly gets credit as the recipe for success above mere skills or talent. Case Study:
Consider the case of a lecturer whose course was considered ‘a terror which no one can pass’, let alone get a distinction in. The statistics lecturer, introducing her course for the first time to a new class, she told the newbies how seriously she takes her work – availing herself beyond school hours to assist students experiencing problems. She assured them, however that were all of them to pay sufficient attention and engage fully in class, there should be no difficulties when they have to tackle assignments or exams. She encouraged them to keep their knowledge fresh by doing daily exercises – looking for practical examples they can try out as they pace themselves towards the exams. She assured them that if they take this advice, they won’t have any problems and no one would need to ever call her when she’s home enjoying time with her family. Not only that, but not one of them will fail! She ended the pep talk by showing the class a graph of her class-results over the last three exams, and the gradient was one way: up. She showed them class pictures (with all the students’ faces) from the last three years, and pointed out students who got distinctions. There were more with each progressive year. She told the students that she couldn’t or wouldn’t have it any other way. She expected no failures and hoped for even better results with more distinctions than the previous years. Challenging the now wide-eyed but excited students, she asked them who, among them would bring her straight A’s to make her track record better. A brief silence was broken by one hand shooting up confidently, shortly followed by a second, then, slowly, more followed. At the end of the term, that class delivered three times the number of A’s than the previous year’s. Everyone who had had their hand up in that introduction session was given reason to believe in their ability to deliver a distinction. This, is in spite of having no mathematical background and having heard everyone calling Stats a killer subject. Moral of the exercise
Analysing the sources of self-efficacy from this case, we borrow from author Mariam Akhtar’s treatment of the self-efficacy theories. While the students had no ‘mastery experiences’ in the course, the three other factors identified by Bandura as sources of self-efficacy came to play right there in class. At play in class were predominantly elements of “vicarious experience”, which gave the students confidence by observing others change from PEOPLE DYNAMICS | March - April 2020
