Beliefs about what is possible are claimed to constrain action and thereby become self-fulfilling.
Bandura's self-efficacy work is the researched relative and is more careful in two ways: the beliefs are domain-specific rather than global, and they are built by mastery experience rather than by decision. The doctrine reverses the causal order, treating belief as available to be chosen and then producing capability.
In practice
- A person who succeeds at a small version of the task believes they can do the larger one, in that order.
- A candidate told to believe in themselves has been given nothing that builds the belief.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is that a belief about what is possible determines which actions are attempted, so the belief is confirmed by the absence of the evidence that would have refuted it.
- In its favour
- Self-efficacy research supports a real and moderate version, in which domain-specific beliefs built by past mastery predict effort and persistence.
- Against it
- The strong version treats beliefs as global and directly changeable by assertion, where the researched version is specific and built by experience, and the evidence offered is testimonial and selected on success.
- Standing
- Testimonial evidence selected on success, with no comparison group. Self-efficacy research supports a real and moderate version, in which beliefs about one's capability predict persistence and performance. The doctrine's version treats belief as the binding constraint, which the same research does not.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- Moralists, aphorists and the self-help tradition