Advantages of Self-efficacy
- High levels of self-efficacy enhance one's accomplishments and feelings of personal well being (Pajares, 1996).
- Self-efficacy helps one to remain calm when approaching challenging tasks (Pajares, 1996).
- Building self-efficacy in multiple areas increases one's confidence in mastering new domains (Ormrod, 2008).
- High self-efficacy increases one's willingness to experiment with new ideas (Ormrod, 2008).
- Self-efficacy encourages one to set higher expectations for future performances (Ormrod, 2008).
- High self-efficacy increases one's persistance and focus on a given task beyond previous levels (Ormrod, 2008).
Disadvantages of Self-efficacy
- High self-efficacy beliefs do not always guarantee positive outcome expectations (Pajares, 1996).
- Self-efficacy beliefs vary greatly between individuals, which makes them very difficult for researchers to assess (Pajares, 1996).
- People with high self-efficacy and high skills may lack the resources and equipment to perform. According to Bandura (1986, p. 396),"When performances are impeded by disincentives, inadequate resources, or external constraints, self-judged efficacy will exceed the actual performance."
- Basing one's self-efficacy for a new task on results of previous tasks may be misleading (Bandura, 1986).
- Personal factors and distorted memories of previous performance can distort one's self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986).
- Rather than high self-efficacy, one might have low self-efficacy following failure or setbacks that causes them to lose faith in their capabilities and to develop increased stress and depression (Bandura, 1984).
