Monitoring Environment
Enactive mastery
Bandura (1997) cites four determinants or sources of feelings of self-efficacy. The first, enactive mastery, refers to knowledge and skill gained through experience and perseverance. In order for self-efficacy to be gained, some failures must be experienced. If success comes too easily, the individual is likely to feel less of a sense of accomplishment and feelings of mastery are likely to be diminished. Elder and Liker (1982) found that women who faced economic hardship and exhibited adaptive behavior during the Great Depression felt more self-assured later in life than those who did not have to struggle with poverty. Progressive mastery has been shown to enhance feelings of self-efficacy and improve analytic thinking, goal setting, and performance (Bandura and Jourden, 1991).
When small failures are encountered, the individual has the opportunity to make adjustments to actions taken and exercise better control over what is taking place (Bandura, 1997). In this way, a sustained effort leads to a greater sense of self-efficacy. Whether success or failure occurs is less important than how the individual perceives the significance of the event and the individual’s overall competence (Bandura, 1982).
Enactive mastery has been found to be the most influential source of self-efficacy, leading to stronger and more generalized feelings of self-efficacy than that which relies exclusively on the other three sources of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) which are described below.
Ref:
Ref:Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman and Company.
Bandura, A. & Jourden, F. J. (1991). Self-regulatory mechanisms governing the impact
of social comparison on complex decision making. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 60(6), 941-951.
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/effbook3.html
