Alfred Bandura Essay

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Alfred Bandura In the article “Self Efficacy”, Alfred Bandura explains his theory of self -efficacy and the four major processes that is encompassed within it. Bandura describes the definition of self-efficacy to be “people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives.” It is clear to see that self-efficacy is a very important aspect to obtain in life in order to have a good mental health. Self-efficacy is broken down into four processes, these include motivational, affective, cognitive, and selection processes. According to Bandura the motivational processes stem from within a person’s own mental perception of his or her own ability. Within this framework of motivational process, Bandura focuses on three separate theories, which cause motivation including “attribution theory, expectancy-value theory, and goal theory”. In attribution theory, ones sees successes and failures as a result of his or her personal behavior. Expectancy –value theory originates from the concept that people’s actions are motivated by their belief of what they think that they are capable of achieving, and the belief that their actions will produce the outcome that they expected. In the concept of goal theory, Bandura shows that people “seek self-satisfaction from valued goal”. This theory stresses that people will work more diligently when a goal is set for them to obtain. In the affective process, Bandura points out that people handle stress differently. The way in which one handles stress could act as a motivator. The motivation could in fact cause one to have high level of worry and even withdraw from society in an effort to avoid such stressful situations. Additionally, these self-perceptions could render one helpless due to their self-consuming worry and inability to deal
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